Problem with EON - Unjust charges

Gorg

Long post, apologies.

I am a student living in Manchester, and I'm in a flat share with one other person under a student letting agency (so we can't easily change electricity providers, and we've been in the house since September 2010).

When we moved in and notified EON that we were the new tennants, they set up a direct debit in the name of my flatmate for £60 a month to cover the electricity bill, starting in October, with meter readings being made once a month and a monthly statement of what we were in credit/debit for.

A statement came through at the end of september saying we owed them around £1,700. Obviously not correct, as we'd been there all of a week. We called them, and they agreed to correct it. Another came through the following month, saying that our estimated usage was £300 for one month, and it had been added to the previous statement's amount.

We provided them with meter readings of our own, and eventually sorted the problem of the massive bill in January. They agreed that the full amount owed from September to January was some £230, and since we had made four payments of £60 (£240), we didn't owe them anything.

Then they sent through a statement saying that we owed them that amount. I called them, they said that was an automatic statement and we didn't actually owe them that.

Statements came through to my flatmate every month and readings were made, but I didn't see any of these and he didn't tell me anything was wrong. I looked at this month's statement, and they've upped the direct debit amount to £85 a month without informing us (and we didn't notice until now), and they also believe we still owe them £300, despite having paid them £530 between September and now.

I called them to try and sort this out, and they told us that any payments made previous to January had basically been taken off the £2,000 bill which we didn't owe, and weren't taken off of the figure we were given in January, and this will not be fixed. I spent half an hour on the phone with a representative, who told me the same thing over and over again - that we owe them this money, which according to our meter readings, we have already paid and then some.

Any advice would be appreciated.

dogshome

Hi Gorg - A tangled tale indeed. The problem is that once the computer controlled systems go off track the people you are talking to on the Customer Phone Desk have neither the power or the knowledge to put it right.

You have your opening meter reading, all the readings since and your tariff, so I'm afraid it's down to you to do the homework as to what you have used and it's cost
DO NOT WASTE your time on the phone. WRITE a snail mail letter headed Complaint listing your calcuations demanding an up to date Statement/Bill

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi Gorg,

I have to agree with dogshome, I think the best people to deal with this is the Directors' Office.

They will do a full review of the account and there will be one person liaising with you until a resolution is made.

If the account is in the name of the housemate, they will need to make the contact, they can however, ask that you also have the authorisation to discuss the account.

Just a couple of questions, did you give E.ON meter readings from the date that you moved in?

Do you have up to date meter readings now?

The Directors' Office will need this information.

You do appear to have taken regular reading so this should help with the billing.

You can contact them using the details on the back of the bill.

If you need my help, just shout up.

Helena

Gorg

We gave meter readings on the day that we moved in, and we have supplied some of our own readings and had at least two done by e.on staff. All of this is on file with e.on and on our statements. We also have up-to-date readings.

I will collect all this information along with details of our payments and get my flatmate to write a letter.

Thanks for the help!