E.ON sending bills early!

samfan121

I have gas and electricity with eon and pay my bills quarterly. I know it's not the most cost effective but I like being able to control it and knowing that I have extra cash in the summer when bills are lower.

Anyway, quarterly bills should be every 3 months right. But I have today (Nov 22) received my latest bill, when my previous one was only Sept 9. The same thing happened last November as well, and they then didn't bill me until mid March, meaning I had a 4 month bill, which was obviously much bigger.

Is there any reason for this? It doesn't make sense to me. If you sign up for monthly direct debit you pay on a fixed day every month. If you sign up for quarterly them it should be every quarter, not mostly every quarter but sometimes 2 or 4 months?

fightyfish

probably to do with when they get the meter reads.

it was explained to us like this - you should get 4 bills a year, so one every 90 days.
in practice this doesn't always work out as meter readers don't read your meter on the exact date your bill is due (or at all sometimes for different reasons.)
So your bill may be due on the 1st but your supplier then has to wait for a meter read in order to bill you - they will wait a while (around 30 days) for one, and then if one doesn't come through they will estimate you one.
so if no-one read your meter your estimated bill would come out 30 days after your 'due date' and your quarterly bill will be for about 4 months rather than 3.
your next due date remains 90 days after your original due date - so you'll be due your next bill in 60 days in this example or about 2 months. if a reader gets to your meter this time round then you'll get a shorter bill.

in summary you will always get 4 bills a year but not for perfect quarters unless you know when your bill is due and give a meter reading yourself at the right time.

samfan121

Thanks that does make sense if it was a late bill and then an early one, but actually it's been the other way round - early bill in Nov, late one in April and the rest of the year is fine.

e.g. My last bill was only 2 months ago, but the bill before that was 3 months, the bill before that was 3 months, the one before that 4 months, the one before that 2 months.


Plus I enter my own meter readings once a month.

fightyfish

oh right..odd.
are bills normally to your own reads? have you given a read recently?

have you spoken to them to see what their explanation is?

samfan121

Yes, I called them today. They have no idea apparently!

I tend to submit a read every month or so, and then before I receive a bill they always request one via email "Please submit a meter reading so that we can accurately prepare your new bill which is due very shortly".

Over the past 2 years my billing periods have gone as follows:

133 days
42 days
95 days
69 days
114 days
85 days
96 days
76 days (most recent)

When I called them about it today they said my next bill date would be March, meaning another 100+ day period again, and therefore a bigger payment.

It's all a bit weird.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi samfan

I'm sorry you weren't given an adequate explanation when you called.

This sounds like a result of our billing window. If I might explain.

Each account has a bill date. For quarterly accounts, if we receive a meter reading 14 days either side of this date, a bill is automatically issued.

Readings received outside of this window are logged on accounts but not used for billing.

If you wish, as you enter readings online, you can overcome this by using the Real Time Billing facility on our website.

To do this, just check your online account to see when your bill is due and give us readings on the date within the window 91 days after the previous bill.

Hope this is useful. Let me know if you need any more info as happy to help.

Malc