E-On Monthly Payment Hike

bramval

I have been on an E-On dual-fuel tariff for the past year and have just received the annual statement. The amount which I have paid in this period has been £86 per month. In view of the recent rise in charges I expected the payment to go up by around 20% to just over £100 per month but was amazed to be informed that they were increasing the monthly payment to £134. To make matters worse I checked my account and found a credit balance on it of £163 based on their meter reading on 13 October.

The last straw was when I rang to speak to someone about it. There was a recorded message basically telling customers querying recent payment changes not to bother waiting the very long time that it would take to speak to an operator but to go to their website.

On the face of it very poor customer liaison and I am in the process of switching to another supplier.

backfoot

You may be interested in the following thread which debates the dubious Eon Direct Debit policy.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3531893=

backfoot

bramval wrote: »

The last straw was when I rang to speak to someone about it. There was a recorded message basically telling customers querying recent payment changes not to bother waiting the very long time that it would take to speak to an operator but to go to their website.

On the face of it very poor customer liaison and I am in the process of switching to another supplier.

Must be all the positive feedback they are getting about their DD policy.

Which part of their website is relevant ?

DirectDebacle

bramval wrote: »

I have been on an E-On dual-fuel tariff for the past year and have just received the annual statement. The amount which I have paid in this period has been £86 per month. In view of the recent rise in charges I expected the payment to go up by around 20% to just over £100 per month but was amazed to be informed that they were increasing the monthly payment to £134. To make matters worse I checked my account and found a credit balance on it of £163 based on their meter reading on 13 October.

Could you pass the details of this to Consumer Focus as they are looking into this issue.

[EMAIL="contact@consumerfocus.org.uk"]contact@consumerfocus.org.uk[/EMAIL]

Thanks.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

bramval wrote: »

I have been on an E-On dual-fuel tariff for the past year and have just received the annual statement. The amount which I have paid in this period has been £86 per month. In view of the recent rise in charges I expected the payment to go up by around 20% to just over £100 per month but was amazed to be informed that they were increasing the monthly payment to £134. To make matters worse I checked my account and found a credit balance on it of £163 based on their meter reading on 13 October.

The last straw was when I rang to speak to someone about it. There was a recorded message basically telling customers querying recent payment changes not to bother waiting the very long time that it would take to speak to an operator but to go to their website.

On the face of it very poor customer liaison and I am in the process of switching to another supplier.

Hi bramval,

I'm really sorry you couldn't get through on the phone, I know we are having high call volumes at the mo.

backfoot has already put a link on to a thread where we explain the DD.

But in general, the account should be in credit at this time of year as this will help go towards your larger winter bills.

As you know the price increase will also have an impact on the DD amount and also if you have changed tariff recently.

I will be more than happy to have a look at your account and see if I can help you further, just email me your details to the email address in my profile page.

Hope I can help.

Helena

bramval

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Could you pass the details of this to Consumer Focus as they are looking into this issue.

[EMAIL="contact@consumerfocus.org.uk"]contact@consumerfocus.org.uk[/EMAIL]

Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have done this as you suggest

DirectDebacle

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Hi bramval,

I'm really sorry you couldn't get through on the phone, I know we are having high call volumes at the mo.

backfoot has already put a link on to a thread where we explain the DD.

But in general, the account should be in credit at this time of year as this will help go towards your larger winter bills.

And in that other thread it was established that DD changes are not because of increased winter usage.

If Eon are telling customers that their DD change is, in part, because winter is coming, that is wrong.

Eon need to be telling them it is because spring is coming. Sounds a bit daft when you say it, but it is the truth, requiring a zero spring balance on all DD accounts is the cause.

A policy Eon have failed and are continuing to fail in properly explaining to customers.

JSF23

Just tell Eon that you will keep the DD as it is, or increase a bit if you want, but that you will clear any balance as at the next bill date.

They wanted to up mine for £125 to £201 - I just said no.

bramval

Thanks for all the information - I have now applied to another company with a lower tariff anyway - just hope that they do not try to pull the same stunt!

jalexa

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

backfoot has already put a link on to a thread where we explain the DD.

There is a "spring review" red-herring at work here because the OP (bramval) has been a customer for "the past year" and has therefore already been subjected to one (spring) review and was already on "12 months to the next "annual review". The issue is not "spring review" but the reason why (Eon's) account management (neglectful on the face of it) has allowed a situation to arise which requires such a significant short year adjustment. OK, rates may have increased, but anything else?

So a customer explanation should not be to be referred to the online procedure, but to an individual calculation. Does Eon offer an unsolicited individual calculation and if not why not? If the reason for the hike is "neglectful Eon account management" should that not result in automatic "easy terms" for the same duration as the "neglect"?

backfoot

It seems to me that it is still a symptom of the spring zero balance policy. I agree there is likely to be something else and I suspect that given the previous history,they are absorbing last years seasonality and the price increase over the remaining months to the Spring date. The rise of around 50% would not be uncommon from some of the modelling I have done.

This annual statement,whatever it is, seems to have triggerred this interim review.

The system is so hopelessly complex that I doubt even Eon could produce a logical manual explanation of the IT jiggery pokery to this customer.As his joining date was around the date of the price increase, it would have been easy to have taken his annual consumption added on the price increase and hey presto probably the £100 per month DD that he was expecting.
Instead he is rightly annoyed and taken his business elsewhere.

As they are leaving then it doesn't matter, but it is the sort of request that Eon would face from a number of us. The lack of an individual explanation would .....you know where I am going.;)

Clogged up phone lines,messages to go to the website....I did offer a friendly warning.:)