E on bill after new meter fitted

spire2003

My mother in law was quite chuffed when e on were going to drop her DD to £6 per month as her electric bills were low. I had a look at her bills & noticed the readings on the meter were the same as the ones on the bill from 6 months ago. She was persueded to contact e on & a new meter was fitted. To cut a long story short they have now sent her a bill for £900 approx. Although she has spoke to e on she cannot understand these costs. If i understand what she has told me e on have worked out the cost per day since the meter was fitted (19 Jan) up to 28 Feb. It then appears they have muliplied that by 365 (days in year) to get to the charges. She now lives in a 1 bedroom flat with no gas. She also does not have a washer or dryer as these are communal ( retirement flats) She previously lived in a 3 bedroom detached bungalow & only paid between 5 & £600 for both gas & electric. She also had a washer & a dryer there. Any comments ????? Is this the way e on operate ?

victor2

Difficult one that. It sounds like E.On have assumed her electricity usage is pretty constant all year round in order to calculate the usage when the meter was not working. If you don't have electric heating and have low energy light bulbs that is roughly true. However, as she doesn't have gas, does she use some electric heating in the winter? If so, get back to E.On and explain that - they should take it into account when estimating what her usage would have been and not assume that it would be constant throughout the year.
In the past, I have found E.On reasonable people to deal with and it's got to be worth a phone call.

jalexa

spire2003 wrote: »

Although she has spoke to e on she cannot understand these costs. If i understand what she has told me e on have worked out the cost per day since the meter was fitted (19 Jan) up to 28 Feb. It then appears they have muliplied that by 365 (days in year) to get to the charges. She now lives in a 1 bedroom flat with no gas.

Ask that E.ON provide a written explanation and justification for the calculation.

If there is any element of electric heating, likely in a property with no gas, then it is absurd to consider a winter month as typical.

It would be extremely poor customer service to jump to that conclusion without evidence. Give them one and one chance only to resolve the issue, then if not satisfied raise a formal complaint in writing or by email.

lithopsian

Do you have access to bills going back more than six months? Has the meter been broken for as long as a year? Certainly E.On have records going back that far and probably a lot further. Try to find out actual usage figures for a previous year. As things stand I wouldn't accept the bill they have provided. At the very best it is somewhat skewed in their favour, at worst they have just made up the maximum amount they think they could get away with. Time to push back and give them a chance to come up with something sensible. They are in a very poor position and need to demonstrate that you owe them money, not just pick a number and expect you to pay it.

spire2003

lithopsian wrote: »

Do you have access to bills going back more than six months? Has the meter been broken for as long as a year? Certainly E.On have records going back that far and probably a lot further. Try to find out actual usage figures for a previous year. As things stand I wouldn't accept the bill they have provided. At the very best it is somewhat skewed in their favour, at worst they have just made up the maximum amount they think they could get away with. Time to push back and give them a chance to come up with something sensible. They are in a very poor position and need to demonstrate that you owe them money, not just pick a number and expect you to pay it.

Its a bit awkward going back any further than a year as 1 year is the length of time she has been there. The previous owner of flat died and apparently she was in & out of hospital for the last couple of years of her life. I am going to ring e on tomorrow. The lady that is dealing with this issue is aware i am calling. There may be some logical explanation but mum in law is getting so worked up it is making her ill. I dont think she absorbs what the e on lady is telling her.

lithopsian

Tricky. Still, taking the coldest week of the year and multiplying it by 52 won't stand up in court. I imagine you would rather pay a reasonable sum for electricity actually used than have this drag on in the hope of shaving it to a bare minimum payment. So tell them to be sensible, remind them you're the one that tipped them off that your mother was getting free electricity, and maybe come up with your own idea of what you think is reasonable. Don't pay for electricity going back more than 12 months from the billed date and remember that they should take into account the significant price rise that almost certainly happened last year.

Terrylw1

If the meter had stopped hence there was no advance in the bills, they change the meter and can re assess for lost consumption, which h they also have to correct on what thy pay back to the distributors.

Given the previous year cannot be used, the should use consumption they have or monitor it from when the metet was fittef. They should then look towards spreading this over the year but apply a seasonal weighting.

Its not easy really and its basically estimating as you can really understand the seasonall changes completely.

The may have used a default daily value until the start getting reads which could be better or worse.

Ask how they did it, if its incorrect, agree to do some reading monitoring so they can do it with better data but expect to give your own reads for a few bills to get things more accurate.

victor2

spire2003 wrote: »

Its a bit awkward going back any further than a year as 1 year is the length of time she has been there. The previous owner of flat died and apparently she was in & out of hospital for the last couple of years of her life. I am going to ring e on tomorrow. The lady that is dealing with this issue is aware i am calling. There may be some logical explanation but mum in law is getting so worked up it is making her ill. I dont think she absorbs what the e on lady is telling her.

Arm yourself with those facts plus what appliances, particularly for heating and hot water she has. Explain you have become involved because it's making your MIL ill and you just want to sort out the situation so that both parties can move on. E.On would be in the best position to estimate the actual usage over the past year, given the property details. It's a lot of money to MIL, but a drop in the ocean to E.On and it just may not be worth their trouble doing a detailed analysis, so they may just make a significant adjustment in MIL's favour that she can live with.
They cannot assume annual usage will be 12 times what February's was, as it had a particularly cold spell in it. I'm sure they'll appreciate that. They might just postpone settling the debt until they've got some significant readings going on, but if you knew that was happening, you'd just really minimise the usage of electricity to keep the figures as low as possible.

E.ON_Company_Rep_Chris

Hi spire2003

First of all, I want to thank you for picking up on the fact that your mother-in-laws meter had stopped advancing and for helping her understand what happens next.

We do have a system in place to pick up on problems like this, I suspect the property being empty for so long before she moved in is the reason it slipped through the net this time and am glad to hear that the meter has now been changed.

In terms of how we work out the charges for electricity used whilst the meter wasn’t working, then use recorded on the new meter certainly helps us with this. As you’ve quite rightly said taking 6 week’s worth of winter use just isn’t fair when we’re back-billing over an extended period time.

You’ve said that your mother-in law has lived at the address for a year now and that the readings hadn’t advanced in six months. Did we get meter readings when she moved in? Had they advanced on any earlier bills that we sent?

Any use recorded to the meter before it stopped is also taken into account when working out an average per day for the new bill. If it wasn’t working at all for the whole period then we may have to refer to use at similar properties in the complex and of course the electrical appliances in use in her home.

Specialists in this area always deal with these matters so I’m confident that you’re in good hands. It may take a while to sort out but let me know how you get on when you speak to us. If you need my help at all, I’ll be happy to take a look.

Amanda

chanz4

Offer them 50% of it, this also happens the same when people steal from providers