EON's rubbish computer ....

backfoot

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi backfoot,

So it appears what you have been told, is the same as what I have said earlier on in the thread.

Helena

Thanks Helena,

That's great :j.

So just to clarify again with simple figures. I join you on 1st December 2011 (which I may well do).

My gas consumption equates to an annual bill of £1200. (that doesn't alter, whatever my start date is, btw)

Your Rep quoted me a monthly amount of £100 per month and she said it was fixed. That's all she said.

My consumption until 31/3/2012 will amount to £800.

So, you are confirming above, that there will be no review of the £100 quoted before 31/3/12, assuming no price increases and I strictly monitor my consumption?

I normally submit monthly readings to keep the account up to date.

When will any reviews be made?

To make it easy, I will have a debit balance at 1/4/2012 of £400. (£800 consumption less 4* £100 quoted).

How much will be my fixed monthly direct debit from 1/4/12 to 1/4/13?

Mr_K

dshart wrote: »

Maybe you have been quite lucky with the customer service people you have spoken to but in my experience it has taken multiple calls and having to speak to several managers to get them to change it and even when they had agreed to change it they still went ahead and took the increased payment by direct debit.

You don't always have to contact customer service to get the DD changed. It can be done online, another quirk of Eon's 'system'.

In my case I was paying £69 a month, they wanted to put it up to £93 although I am well in credit. If you go to your online account and choose direct debit and change bank details, it automatically recalculates the DD (you can just put the same bank details in). You can do this just to check what amount it sets and cancel before going through with it if you're not happy with the amount. It came up with £84 for me even though they had just sent a letter wanting to put it up to £93 ! Maybe they have 2 rubbish computers !! :rotfl:

Wasn't happy with £84 either so rang up and agreed £75. Could be in debit in the new year but I'm happier making a one off payment to clear it then. Much better than having a large credit. EON aren't a savings bank, they'd be pretty rubbish if they were as they pay 0% interest on your credit balance !

backfoot

dshart wrote: »

Then please explain how with my account in credit and with approximately the estimated usage on my September bill for the next 12 months equal to my DD (actual figure required an increase of £1 to DD) EON wanted an extra £49/month?

Also what were the % price increases, was it 27%?

edit: BTW leaping on one point to try and discredit my argument without answering the other issues shows how the real question is being avoided.

From the Eon website,, but it may depend on which tariff you are on.

'E.ON has today (FRI) announced that it will increase its prices by 11.4% for electricity and 18.1% for gas, with dual fuel customers seeing a rise of 15.2%³, effective from 13th September'.

Your drop in the 'estimated annual consumption' between March and September was 7.3%.

I am ever so confused as to whether this would be netted off the price rise to calculate your monthly DD.

dshart

backfoot wrote: »

From the Eon website,, but it may depend on which tariff you are on.

'E.ON has today (FRI) announced that it will increase its prices by 11.4% for electricity and 18.1% for gas, with dual fuel customers seeing a rise of 15.2%³, effective from 13th September'.

Your drop in the 'estimated annual consumption' between March and September was 7.3%.

I am ever so confused as to whether this would be netted off the price rise to claculate your monthly DD.

Thanks for the info. I am on dual fuel so should have seen a 15.2% rise and they estimated my consumption was dropping by 7.3% yet they felt justified to increase my DD by 27% even though I was already overpaying.

SandC

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi dshart,

You had your annual review in the June, your account was at a zero balance and your DD was set to cover your usage for the coming year.

This can't possibly have included the price increase as we didn't announce the price increase until August (two months after you had the review). The prices then went up in the September.

So this is why your monthly payments increased in the September, as the prices had increased. We won't have requested a meter reading as we increased your payments in line with the increase in the unit prices.

Helena

I was given the impression that DDs were increased after annual review (ie June) to reflect presumed price increases. If my usage for 12 months is considered to be exactlly the same as the previous 12 months this has to be the case. Why, then, another increase just 3 months later? So the prices went up by 15.2% how come my DD is up by 52%????

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi backfoot

It’s not quite as straightforward, for most customers, as just knowing your total annual spend. We need to look at the seasonal variation. (This is different for new customers, where we won’t know your seasonal usage pattern – I’ll come back to this)
Here’s a table showing an example (remember – it will be different for each customer depending on how their energy use changes throughout the seasons)
The left hand side shows which month you go on to Direct Debit and how many months until we do your spring review (which we won’t do with less than six months on the scheme, unless there’s a price change). For this example we’ve gone for a May spring review, but it could be April, May or June. The middle columns show how much you spend per month on electricity, gas and combined electricity and gas. Then the total you will need to pay until the review. The last column is the total divided by the number of months to go until your review happens.



For new customers we do not have any data for you to understand how the use changes between seasons, so it is alright to set it up (just to start with) on the annual amount divided by 12. When you do end up having a Direct Debit review, the above method will be used to make it more accurate.
It’s just worth me saying that most of the queries from users in this thread are those that have had reviews, not those who set it up from the start. What I’ve been trying to explain is the process for how we do reviews, not how we calculate the usage at the start of your time with E.ON.

I hope this makes things a little clearer.

Helena

backfoot

SandC wrote: »

I was given the impression that DDs were increased after annual review (ie June) to reflect presumed price increases. If my usage for 12 months is considered to be exactlly the same as the previous 12 months this has to be the case. Why, then, another increase just 3 months later? So the prices went up by 15.2% how come my DD is up by 52%????

Something else has to be going on here.You have a June review.(spring apparently!) .

Take an annual bill of £1200. Lets assume you were zero balance at June. £100 per month would be the DD to clear by next June.

Price increase of 15% in September. That's £180. 9/12th of that till next June is £135. Lets say £150, to take seasonality into account. New cost to June is £1350 less paid June to Sept £300= £1050.

There are 9 months remaining 1050/9= £116.67.

That is a 17% increase and takes account of a bit of seasonality.(over and above the 15% price increase).

You have got 52%?

Unless you created a huge debit balance between June and September, then it is hard to disagree with the title of this thread.

Could it be that the Spring review morphs back to April? Or the estimated annual units expanded dramatically between the June and September statements? You should have that on the bills.

Puzzled? I know I am. :doh:

p.s.posted before I saw Helena's table above which I will now read and digest.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

backfoot wrote: »

Something else has to be going on here.You have a June review.(spring apparently!) .

Take an annual bill of £1200. Lets assume you were zero balance at June. £100 per month would be the DD to clear by next June.

Price increase of 15% in September. That's £180. 9/12th of that till next June is £135. Lets say £150, to take seasonality into account. New cost to June is £1350 less paid June to Sept £300= £1050.

There are 9 months remaining 1050/9= £116.67.

That is a 17% increase and takes account of a bit of seasonality.(over and above the 15% price increase).

You have got 52%?

Unless you created a huge debit balance between June and September, then it is hard to disagree with the title of this thread.

Could it be that the Spring review morphs back to April? Or the estimated annual units expanded dramatically between the June and September statements? You should have that on the bills.

Puzzled? I know I am. :doh:

The spring quarter of the year (as we call it) is the second quarter of the year, so April, May, June.

Helena

SandC

backfoot wrote: »

Something else has to be going on here.You have a June review.(spring apparently!) .

Take an annual bill of £1200. Lets assume you were zero balance at June. £100 per month would be the DD to clear by next June.

Price increase of 15% in September. That's £180. 9/12th of that till next June is £135. Lets say £150, to take seasonality into account. New cost to June is £1350 less paid June to Sept £300= £1050.

There are 9 months remaining 1050/9= £116.67.

That is a 17% increase and takes account of a bit of seasonality.(over and above the 15% price increase).

You have got 52%?

Unless you created a huge debit balance between June and September, then it is hard to disagree with the title of this thread.

Could it be that the Spring review morphs back to April? Or the estimated annual units expanded dramatically between the June and September statements? You should have that on the bills.

Puzzled? I know I am. :doh:

p.s.posted before I saw Helena's table above which I will now read and digest.

Yeah, my details are in my post on the previous page. I have a credit on this bill of over £89 yet a rise from £67 per month to £75. £67 was Jul/Aug/Sept, previous to that it was £49.

backfoot

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

It’s not quite as straightforward, for most customers, as just knowing your total annual spend. We need to look at the seasonal variation. (This is different for new customers, where we won’t know your seasonal usage pattern – I’ll come back to this)
Here’s a table showing an example (remember – it will be different for each customer depending on how their energy use changes throughout the seasons)
The left hand side shows which month you go on to Direct Debit and how many months until we do your spring review (which we won’t do with less than six months on the scheme, unless there’s a price change). For this example we’ve gone for a May spring review, but it could be April, May or June. The middle columns show how much you spend per month on electricity, gas and combined electricity and gas. Then the total you will need to pay until the review. The last column is the total divided by the number of months to go until your review happens.



For new customers we do not have any data for you to understand how the use changes between seasons, so it is alright to set it up (just to start with) on the annual amount divided by 12. When you do end up having a Direct Debit review, the above method will be used to make it more accurate.
It’s just worth me saying that most of the queries from users in this thread are those that have had reviews, not those who set it up from the start. What I’ve been trying to explain is the process for how we do reviews, not how we calculate the usage at the start of your time with E.ON.

I hope this makes things a little clearer.

Helena

Helena,

Thank you for producing the table which does start to explain the Eon DD policy. It starts to unravel the fog.:)

Unfortunately, the table link has now disappeared !

I got a flavour of it but haven't studied it in any depth.

Looking at the impacts, the table demonstrated that the recovery rate differred for the customer, depending on when the customer moved to DD or joined Eon.Something like a percentage increase of 23% above the '1/12th split was shown for November. This percentage would differ with different consumption profiles as you rightly point out.

Looking at some of examples of queries on this thread,there is a disconnect between this already high 23% increase and quotes of overall increases in the region of 50% upwards.

Does that then link in with the impact of price increases? Looking at a 15% price increases, might take customer to an overall increase of 40% and if there were tariff variations, then we might get nearer to the 50%.

Of course,even if a customer (non geek ) could follow or anticipate this ball park reconcilaition,it is the reality to that customer which is important.

The price increase was hard enough to swallow but there is now an additional cash flow premium to absorb.(23% or more?).

I also picked up the hint that for a new customer, any price increase would trigger a spring review. Of course with September price increases,absorbing the 15% of high seasonal consumption into the remaining months to the spring review,rather than over 12 months will be onerous.

Putting aside SLC considerations,the policy demonstrates a dramatic cash flow impact on many customers at a time of severe financial problems in the UK . Much of that impact could be better managed sympathetically over a full twelve month period.

I think there may also be elements of consumption reviews which may be accelerating recovery rates via DD's, depending on time of year. That aspect isn't included in the table, but it may explain why some customers are seeing increases at even higher levels.What might happen if we get a severe winter?

I appreciate the help Helena and her colleagues have given.

My reaction to the policy ,however, hasn't changed. It is a very harmful policy.

Have Eon really thought this through from a customer perspective?