****Urgent help needed with dodgy bill****

oneunluckylady

two years ago when i moved into my rented property which is electric only, i contacted eon energy and gave them an meter reading and was told as i only have electric in my property they will put me on the economy 7 tarrif.
so with every month that has passed up untill october last year i had been payng £30.00 pm . In october i recieved a letter telling me that they had underestimated my bills and that i should in fact be paying £42.00 pm. This being fine i was happy with the direct debit to increase and have never missed a payment since ive been with eon. In january i got a vist from one of their staff to read the meter. My eon online statements are quarterly and as the direct debit was leaving my account each month without fail i mainly only checked my bank account. I checked my eon account online yesterday and saw on my statements and bills that i had been in credit for past two years up untill my recent statment due to vist from their staff saying i now owed £1075.00.
I called them up immediately and was told that yes i have made my payments as requested by them every month, but they had made the mistake of underistimating my bills and that i did infact now owe them £1075.00 i then was asked to give them a meter reading and was told that as i am in an electric only property i was indeed put on the wrong tarrif to begin with and should have been put on an economy 12 tarrif instead and that YES EON had made the mistake of underestimating my bill. i was met with the response that they could only put me on a repayment plan to pay £200.00 pm to clear their mistake.

Obviously upset by this i then followed their online complaint process and contacted their complaints department and spoke to various staff members ,eventually ending up speaking to a manager about their mistake and that i now owed a huge debt due to THIER mistake . I was met with the response of "yes we have underestimated your bills and we agree we did ask for you to pay £30.00 then £42.00 each month and have made every payment by direct debt without fail and yes it does look like you have been put on the wrong tarrif. but you have used the energy and the only way to move forward is to put you on a repayment plan of £190.00 pm. And that although an error has been made we will not discount or reduce the size of the bill now outstanding. They then said that my direct debit will continue to take only £42.00 and will of course put me into further arrears and leave me with a higher arrears balance. When i asked them about the correct amount i should be paying they couldnt give me any figures and couldnt answer my questions about what the price would be each month if had/have been on the correct tarrif. Thry hav left my complaint open.

I am completely at my wits end and i dont know what to do.
i feel that i have a case but can anyone help?
and do i actually have a case or am i going to have to bite the bullet and now pay £190.00 each month for their mistake and continue to fall into arrears?

o <

HappyMJ

Why have you posted the same thing 3 times?

molerat

What about your mistake of not checking the meter readings against the bills. You must take some responsibility , the bills clearly show estimated readings and what to do. You could have easily corrected things months ago by entering the correct meter readings on line. Why is it always somebody elses fault.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi oneunluckylady

I'm sorry we've been under estimating your usage and billing incorrectly.

You're doing the right thing by dealing with our complaints department and escalating to a manager. As the complaint is still open, we'll be coming back to you with a proposed resolution.

Must admit, there's a couple of things you've mentioned which I'm unsure of.

As an all electric property, I would expect you to be on a tariff/meter to suit these circumstances. You mention Economy 12 but this is not one of our tariffs. However, I suspect it might be something like a Restricted Hour Tariff (RHT) with 12 hours off peak electricity for heating and water heating.

Are there two meters at the property? If there's only the one meter, is there more than two registers?

I'm thinking of something like Economy 10. These are found in all electric properties and usually have day, night and stored heat registers.

Only guessing but, as we've been charging on the wrong tariff, have we been missing a register from your bills?

Just a thought, but this could fall under the Billing Code. This is where we're at fault for not billing correctly. If this is the case, we'll not back bill for electricity used over 12 months ago.

Not saying this is relevant but certainly worth asking the question.

Once the readings have been sorted out, I'd ask for the account to be totally re-billed on the correct tariff. Ask for this to take into account price changes over the two years you've been at the property.

This may involve using estimates for the time of the price changes but there's no way you should be paying for electricity used two years ago at today's prices.

The other thing I'm unclear about is why we're leaving the Direct Debit at £42/month. This, as you say, will only increase the debt.

I suspect, now a manager has the complaint, they'll be coming back with a new proposal. Once they do, I'd ask for the balance to be spread over a similar amount of time it has taken to sort this out. We're usually happy to do this.

If you're not satisfied with the resolution proposed you can, after 56 days from the time you first complained, refer this to the Ombudsman for an independent review.

Sorry this is full of speculation oneunluckylady but not quite sure what's going on here. Nevertheless, hope this gives you a couple of useful pointers.

Malc

grahamc2003

I don't think it is a 'dodgy' bill.

You don't say what type of property you're in, so it's hard to know roughly how much you should typically expect to pay for your total energy use. But, you've been paying at about £400pa, and you're recent bill based on a meter reading works out at about £1000 pa. The latter looks more reasonable to me, even if you're in a one bed flat. Didn't any bells ring at £30pm? - even 2 years ago that would be a low amount for almost any property. Did you really think that these days, £40pm was reasonable to pay for the total energy consumption?

I'd be wary of requesting a different off-peak tariff - from everything I've seen, they all work out (much) more expensive than economy 7. If you have been paying daytime rates for some of your heating, then you have a real cause for complaint. Do your heaters ever switch on during the daytime?

On every bill, it would be marked that your readings were estimated, and that you could/should check them and ring in the correct readings if they are too far out.

From what you say, it looks like eon have been incompetent, but you have been also. I think you'll be fortunate if eon agree a discount on your bill, but they may offer that goodwill gesture.

If they just agree to let you pay it off at the rate it built up, you're looking at something like £120pm for a couple of years (plus any increases during that time).

andyf3050

Top tip... you won't get anywhere with Eon... they refuse to accept any responsibility for their incompetence so to that end I have now filed my complaint with the LGO and I can only assume that with the amount of time it has taken so far, they are inundated with Eon complaints so I have to wait in the queue... I won't go into detail as my case may very soon become legal and I don't want any backlash...!

valeriej43

I have noticed that EON have more complaints than anyone slse, which i am not surprised at, i have had so many different prices for DD that i should be paying,i dont know which is the right one
I cant find anything that tell you if there is an exit fee for leaving, but i am leaving anyway, had enough of this incompetant company

Wywth

valeriej43 wrote: »

I have noticed that EON have more complaints than anyone slse, which i am not surprised at, i have had so many different prices for DD that i should be paying,i dont know which is the right one
I cant find anything that tell you if there is an exit fee for leaving, but i am leaving anyway, had enough of this incompetant company

Wow, did you really have to go back 11 months to find a thread complaining about Eon???

They can't be that bad then :cool:

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

valeriej43 wrote: »

I have noticed that EON have more complaints than anyone slse, which i am not surprised at, i have had so many different prices for DD that i should be paying,i dont know which is the right one
I cant find anything that tell you if there is an exit fee for leaving, but i am leaving anyway, had enough of this incompetant company

Hi valeriej

Just replied to the above on another thread as per the link below.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/58777417#Comment_58777417

Post number 10.

Amanda will be happy to give you all the info about your tariff when she talks to you later.

Malc

dogshome

Hi oneunluckylady - The Eon rep seems to have attracted a bit of flak, which in this case I think is undeserved

Read malc's Post 4, in which he's playing very fair by pointing out that your problem could fall within the remit of the "12 month back-billing agreement"
If this is the case, Eon can only demand payment for the the extra power used in the previous 12 months, money due for any period prior to that is written off

WRITE to Eon heading the letter Complaint, pointing out that as they have failed to bill you correctly for 2 years, the 12 month back-billing rule should be applied to the accumulated debt

valeriej43

I couldnt find the right thread i needed, which is why i came to this one, didnt realise it was an old one until later