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

AlbertHall

Doc_N wrote: »

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

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:

[edit here as new users cannot post links]

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.

Thanks for your contribution about Unfair Terms, which would seem to apply. But I'm wondering if there may be yet another canny interpretation that E.ON can put on that legislation - that us lot awaiting FIT payments are the suppliers in this instance, not consumers.

Would you care to share how you have 'achieved what you need from E.ON by other means'?

The_Green_Hornet

Out of interest has anyone who has had problems with E.on gone down their formal complaint route?

http://www.eonenergy.com/At-Home/Contact/Complaint/

Doc_N

AlbertHall wrote: »

Would you care to share how you have 'achieved what you need from E.ON by other means'?

The_Green_Hornet wrote: »

Out of interest has anyone who has had problems with E.on gone down their formal complaint route?

http://www.eonenergy.com/At-Home/Contact/Complaint/

'Other means' - getting a formal complaint to one of the directors, after which it was very rapidly sorted out.

Formal complaint route - unnecessary to take it right through, in view of the above, but the procedure was started.

EricMears

Doc_N wrote: »

'Other means' - getting a formal complaint to one of the directors, after which it was very rapidly sorted out.

I've had great success in the past with an email to the company's chief executive - addresses have been gleaned from http://!!!!!!!!!!!!!/

EDIT For some obscure reason, MSE seem to be censoring that link ! It is NOT a website that I run or even contribute to and I can see no reason for the censorship. Try looking for :-
www (dot) ceoemail (dot) com

Never had to do that with any electricity supply company but it worked a treat with BT, Vodafone and Santander.

What usually seems to happen is that the email is intercepted by some P.A. then re-labelled as an 'executive complaint' and passed back to the people who had been ignoring it but suddenly seem to take an interest. If you happen to have a further complaint with the same organisation, sending an email to the 'ordinary' complaints desk & CCing it to the CEO generally gets results without the usual delays.

The_Green_Hornet

Doc_N wrote: »

'Other means' - getting a formal complaint to one of the directors, after which it was very rapidly sorted out.

Formal complaint route - unnecessary to take it right through, in view of the above, but the procedure was started.

So the obvious recommendation to other E.on customers who are having problems with their FIT Payments is to go down their formal complaints route as from your experience it seemed to work.

Why did you not share your success story with other forum posters earlier?

AlbertHall

EricMears wrote: »

I've had great success in the past with an email to the company's chief executive - addresses have been gleaned from [edit]

EDIT For some obscure reason, MSE seem to be censoring that link ! It is NOT a website that I run or even contribute to and I can see no reason for the censorship. Try looking for :-
www (dot) ceoemail (dot) com

Never had to do that with any electricity supply company but it worked a treat with BT, Vodafone and Santander.

What usually seems to happen is that the email is intercepted by some P.A. then re-labelled as an 'executive complaint' and passed back to the people who had been ignoring it but suddenly seem to take an interest. If you happen to have a further complaint with the same organisation, sending an email to the 'ordinary' complaints desk & CCing it to the CEO generally gets results without the usual delays.

That is the route I took, first to the CEO Tony Cocker, which was then passed on to Complaints Dept Director's Office, who have handled replies.. I've made a point of continuing to copy in the CEO. It does seem to produce speedy replies.

On the definition of 'Payment due', I will be asking them if that differs from a 'due date' at the end of pregnancy, or perhaps the 'payment due' on a certain date for settling a credit card debt. I have also written to the Office of Fair Trading to get them to see if the contract is unfair (aware that the OoFT does not deal in individual cases) for us all.

EricMears

AlbertHall wrote: »

On the definition of 'Payment due', I will be asking them if that differs from a 'due date' at the end of pregnancy, or perhaps the 'payment due' on a certain date for settling a credit card debt.

Perhaps also worth asking if the 'payment due' date on your electricity bills can also be ignored ?

Oscargrouch

Oscargrouch wrote: »

:mad: Here is a copy of what I sent them last night:-

" I submitted my feed in tariff account to you on the 22nd of May 2012.

I note that the account is still unpaid; please be aware that interest on the amount is due at £0.07p per day following the 30th day.

Currently as of today, the amount due is as invoiced plus 6 days @ £0.42p, please add this to your remittance, which currently equates to £343.30p.+ £0.42p. = £343.72p.

If there is further delay, please amend your payment accordingly, I look forward to your remittance.

Kindest regards", :rotfl:

superpacman1972 wrote: »

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?

I don't know if anyone has yet. As far as I see it, it is quite legal to expect a payment to be made within 30 days of request. https://payontime.co.uk/late-payment-legislation-interest-calculators I have used the Small Claims Court before and it is very easy to do. Currently I believe it is called Claim Money Online. The current cost is £35 for amounts from £300 - £500. This would probably not exceeed the amount of One FIT payment.

I have been writing now since the 22nd of May 2012 for my payment, I have already told them that interest is building on the overdue amount (letter copied above in a quote).

The only way I see that this situation is going to change is by taking legal action, I am up for it, but it needs 100's of people to do it for any action to be taken on E-ons part. The fee is £35 to register the case, they (E-On) then get a copy of that claim. They then either have to defend it or admit to it. If they admit, then the case is ruled against them, you get your £35 back as costs and they are ordered to pay you what they owe within 14 days.

I am up for the job of starting this off, if successful which I am sure as possible it will be. It then needs each and every person to go through the same routine once the 30 day period has passed from when you sent in your meter readings.....Anyone else up for this..?:mad: I am by no means an expert, but I will stand my corner for fair play!:grouphug:

superpacman1972

Oscargrouch wrote: »

I don't know if anyone has yet. As far as I see it, it is quite legal to expect a payment to be made within 30 days of request. https://payontime.co.uk/late-payment-legislation-interest-calculators I have used the Small Claims Court before and it is very easy to do. Currently I believe it is called Claim Money Online. The current cost is £35 for amounts from £300 - £500. This would probably not exceeed the amount of One FIT payment.

I have been writing now since the 22nd of May 2012 for my payment, I have already told them that interest is building on the overdue amount (letter copied above in a quote).

The only way I see that this situation is going to change is by taking legal action, I am up for it, but it needs 100's of people to do it for any action to be taken on E-ons part. The fee is £35 to register the case, they (E-On) then get a copy of that claim. They then either have to defend it or admit to it. If they admit, then the case is ruled against them, you get your £35 back as costs and they are ordered to pay you what they owe within 14 days.

I am up for the job of starting this off, if successful which I am sure as possible it will be. It then needs each and every person to go through the same routine once the 30 day period has passed from when you sent in your meter readings.....Anyone else up for this..?:mad: I am by no means an expert, but I will stand my corner for fair play!:grouphug:

Thanks for that. It's called Money Claim Online and I have also used it to great effect in the past with companies that shall we say perhaps do not value their customers as much as perhaps they should.

Generally seen as a last resort, or when a company keeps on dragging it's feet, and fails to put the situation right.

Legal costs and interest can legitimately be added to the claim too.

Suspect the case would be resolved before court action, but simple non payment of monies owed would be what I'd be putting on the claim along with my evidence of contact with EON requesting this payment.

I'm giving them till the end of the week to pay me, and then I'll consider sending them a Letter Before Action (essential to prove to the court you have warned the defendant that legal action is likely).

Of course the risk is that the payment may be made at the time you lodge your claim, in which case you'd be out of pocket, so this is where you may have to tread carefully.

Regardless a shocking state of affairs, and must reflect adversely on EON that customers must even consider this as a route for action to get redress.

KevinG

This isn't about delays as such, but just to let people know that Scottish Power now has a web address for submitting FIT readings at www.scottishpower.co.uk/fitread. It doesn't ask for an email address, which is a little odd as it would be nice to get a confirmation back. It says that payment will be within 28 days, historically they have always done a lot better than this, so I hope that's just to cover themselves in case it's a bit late.

This is in addition to the existing procedure for reporting by telephone or email. I had found the email system a little unreliable, so had taken to doing it by phone (0141 568 6379), let's hope the online system works smoothly.