Solar energy - Feed-in Tariff payment delays - your experiences?

legoman62

Just finished Eon's 45 day compulsory wait for my Fits payment. Rang up, complained and was told "it will be in your account by July 11th"
I said it wasn't good enough. Asked if they were working in conjunction with the Banking Sector! Told them that I wanted interest as I was investing the payments in a cash ISA. They say, that now I'm on the new system, future payments will be made within 2 weeks.





16 x 250kWp Sanyo Hit250 solar panels. SMA 3.8kWp inverter. SW facing roof. 30 degree pitch with no shading. Cleethorpes

tim1949

are others still waiting payment for march 2012 reading? eon do not reply to e-mails but submitted june reading today. delay of 3 months and counting is unacceptable unless it,s just my experience.

John_Pierpoint

AlbertHall wrote: »

The Director's office are of the opinion that no Terms and Conditions have been broken as there is (supposedly) no timescale for payments to us generators. I would dispute this, for otherwise what does it mean in the 'Statement of Terms' that "Payment if due to You every 3 months." ?

E-on will be fiddling the LIBOR rate next.
Did we not establish at the start of this thread that 90 days is the maximum delay allowed by the Regulator?

AlbertHall

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

E-on will be fiddling the LIBOR rate next.
Did we not establish at the start of this thread that 90 days is the maximum delay allowed by the Regulator?

Astoundingly, Eon's Director's office now are saying this:


>>The terms and conditions to which you refer do state 'Your Generation Tariff Payment is due to You every three months" and "your fixed Export Tariff Payment is due to You every three months" however the statement does not state that this is when you’d be paid.<<


Very cleverly worded, eh. Anyone apart from me not realise that was the arrangement when they signed and returned the contract with E'ON?

KevinG

[QUOTE=AlbertHall;54141961The terms and conditions to which you refer do state 'Your Generation Tariff Payment is due to You every three months" and "your fixed Export Tariff Payment is due to You every three months" however the statement does not state that this is when you’d be paid.
[/QUOTE]
First definition from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/due

1. Payable immediately or on demand.

Doc_N

Interesting points you all raise. FWIW, the exact wording of the relevant part of my Statement of Terms is this:


"Where We have received a valid meter reading within the required timescales, We will send You a Generation Tariff Payment using the payment method details shown on your FIT Plan. Your Generation Tariff Payment is due to You every three months, subject to Us receiving valid meter readings within the required timescales."


I'm guessing they all contain the same wording. To a layman, 'due' would mean payable now. To e.on, it means payable when we're good and ready. The line they're taking is that although it's 'due' they don't have to pay it, and unless anyone's prepared to sue them for late payment (unlikely) the worst that can happen to them is bad publicity or complaints to Ofgem.


Sharp practice, deceitful behaviour, untrustworthy - these are the words that spring readily to mind in connection with e.on. Presumably that doesn't bother them enough to mend their behaviour - much like the banks.

AlbertHall

Wishing that someone with legal knowledge would participate. From my simple understanding, the misuse of the word 'due' is disingenuous at least, particularly as it relates to a period of time. Otherwise why is the 3 months mentioned, and can so easily be ignored?

I had a similar dialogue with the same E.ON office about the use of the word 'calculate'. They said they needed a reading to calculate a payment, but then used it to make an estimate. Again, strictly speaking may be true, but substantially misleading.

Incidentally they have also told me that their offer of a goodwill payment of £30 covered two instances, at £15 each.

superpacman1972

Still waiting for a FIT payment. Not happy with EoN's response. Told we have to wait another 14 days after already waiting 50 days. They claim there are no performance standards for paying FITs. I would say this is rubbish. A reasonable person would view this delay as excessive, and an unsatisfactory service.

It is clear they simply don't care about putting this current problem right and are all too happy to promise future improvements (classic political jam tomorrow promise) whilst not promptly sorting out the current backlog. Not concerned about the future promises of payments being faster (with any luck my FIT will be moved to a more reliable payer along with my supply after this debacle). The current backlog should be addressed now with urgency and payments made to all customers waiting > 45 days within a week.

Out of curiosity, anyone sent a letter before action or county court summons yet?

Doc_N

Whatever e.on might try to have people believe about the meaning of the words which appear in these contracts, I suspect that they're affected by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999:

http://www.oft.gov.uk/about-the-oft/legal-powers/legal/unfair-terms/

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs) protect consumers against unfair standard terms in contracts they make with traders. The Office of Fair Trading, together with certain other bodies, can take legal action to prevent the use of such terms.

The UTCCRs can protect consumers from terms that reduce their statutory or common law rights and from terms that seek to impose unfair burdens on the consumer over and above the obligations of ordinary rules of law.

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations SI 1999 can be seen on the OPSI site:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/contents/made

In short, if I'm right, a court would contrue the somewhat ambiguous wording used in the contract against the company, and in favour of the consumer - with the result that e.on would be required to make each payment within a reasonable time. This would, I imagine, be no more than 30 days, and possibly rather less.

I've already achieved what I need from e.on by other means, but if I hadn't I'd be taking this line with them. My guess is that they'd give way long before any actual proceedings became necessary.

peter10

In my last post Eon promised to ring me but still no ring back and still now money,Panels fitted in Nov.2011 still no payment,I think Watchdog will be my next call.
Peter still waiting.