eon- dd disappeared, now owe £1665 - HELP

victor2

wroe1123 wrote: »

Malc- I've not spoken to anyone from eon or had any contact until September when I got a letter saying I owe £1600...

No bills, either by post or online, showing that payments were not being received?
If E.On have totally ignored you and just let the debt mount, then that is reprehensible of them. However, I would lean towards Malc's explanation that they would have made multiple efforts to contact you regarding the matter. They should have a record of that too.

londonlydia

I know this is quite random, but can you ask that they run a check that they havent got more than one account at your property? This happened to my parents. When my parents moved to their house, the person accidentially set up two identical accounts, each with the same readings. Both were coming out as DDs (my parents didnt realise as they thought they were having 2 payments for dual fuel split out). Anyway, eventually someone realised, and so they canclled one of the DDs, but didnt close the account. So, for ages they had one account accrue loads of debt, whilst the other was in credit from when they worked out how much they had been overpaying. Eventually they closed the debt account, but it was months after...

So, first thing is to try and understand how mucn you should be charged. If you have meter readings, request they send you an itemised bill showing how they worked out that's how much you spent.

That is very high I would say....

londonlydia

victor2 wrote: »

No bills, either by post or online, showing that payments were not being received?
If E.On have totally ignored you and just let the debt mount, then that is reprehensible of them. However, I would lean towards Malc's explanation that they would have made multiple efforts to contact you regarding the matter. They should have a record of that too.

In my experience it's one thing saying what they are meant to do, but in reality it's getting through to the right person who doesnt just shuffle the problem on to another department...

savvy

londonlydia wrote: »

I know this is quite random, but can you ask that they run a check that they havent got more than one account at your property? This happened to my parents. When my parents moved to their house, the person accidentially set up two identical accounts, each with the same readings. Both were coming out as DDs (my parents didnt realise as they thought they were having 2 payments for dual fuel split out). Anyway, eventually someone realised, and so they canclled one of the DDs, but didnt close the account. So, for ages they had one account accrue loads of debt, whilst the other was in credit from when they worked out how much they had been overpaying. Eventually they closed the debt account, but it was months after...

So, first thing is to try and understand how mucn you should be charged. If you have meter readings, request they send you an itemised bill showing how they worked out that's how much you spent.

That is very high I would say....

I've just gone through similar with Eon, the idiots cancelled my DD without me knowing, due to a phantom change in tenancy. I could understand if we'd had a tenancy over the last 21 years of living here but we haven't, in all their wisdom they decided to move some random woman in our house and us out! I didn't notice the DD not coming out until I was trying to put some meter readings in one day and it kept saying my account was closed, I assumed it was a glitch at their end and tried a few days later. Still couldn't access anything so rang them and alerted them to the problem - after that I had a barrage of massive bills and palmed off to a debt collection agency as they just wouldn't listen to me!!

Luckily I had recorded all my calls to them and had the name of the person that had changed my account and made the mistake Some kind person on here gave me the CEO's email address where I made a very strong complaint and they wrote some of the bill off, reinstated the original fixed price plan they were trying to steer me off of and cancelled the baliffs! A year later and I have finally paid off the rest and only just been able to set up a DD again grrrr!

My advice to the OP is record ALL calls, and be dogged in trying to find out who exactly cancelled your DD (my guess would be Eon!) and then complain to the CEO

Buzby

Irrespective of who cancelled the DD, the customer remains fully responsible to pay any outstanding amount or bill, the fact the supplier has the account details and a mandate to take funds is not accepted by the court as adequate mitigation of a debt building up.

DD users should be aware there are man circumstances where the 'benefit' of a DD is primarily to the merchant, NOT the payer - and they should be closely monitored.

System

No excuse for EON stopping your direct debit but you need to take some responsibility yourself. Didnt you know the payments had stopped? Surely you realized you had more money in your account than you should have?

Prepayment meters? Surely you can negotiate something with them other than resorting to this!

wroe1123

I didn't keep an eye on my dd's so didn't kno it had stopped, I'm not saying that's not my fault, what I do think though is that eon should have contacted me a lot sooner, I got regular emails and cards through the door asking for readings.
I am not on any benefits, so they have said :
DD at £296
Meters at @£210
Or disconnection .

londonlydia

I would say seek further help... chat to the energy ombudsmen, Citizen's Advice Beureau or some expert (probably a search on the MSE pages will help you). It all sounds a bit fishy and they seem unwilling to help you.

Ring Eon, record your calls if you can (mobile record on speakerphone?). Request they send you the information on how they worked out your bill owed from your meter readings.

Also, you appear to have paid some money, have they got a record of that? Can you get your bank to verify where that £200 went? I wonder if it's paying off somewhere else....

jalexa

wroe1123 wrote: »

My bank blame eon and eon blame my bank for the dd stopping.i didn't cancel it.

But that is the central issue. *If* it is an E.ON error then you should be able to drive a harder bargain than offered. *If* it is a bank error you should expect an offer of an interest free overdraft.

You need to demand clarity of each organisation via a written complaint.