EON -Complaint been open 180 days and still not dealt with!

snuggle69

I am just about at the end of my tether with this one. In a way I feel that I am being victimised due to owing them money.

Roll back just over 2 years I split with my husband who had always been in control of the finances and the bills. He just upped and went one morning without telling me leaving all kinds of chaos behind him.

I had a knock on the door and it was an EON representative saying that we owed a lot of money on our electric and gas and that they had come to fit a pre-payment meter to our electric. They couldnt fit a gas one due to the meter being below ground level and the engineer deemed it as unsuitable, so an agreement was made to add the gas debt to the electric meter and pay everything through that. I thought that was everything sorted!

In June this year I received a letter from EON saying that I owed £2000 on my gas bill and that they could now offer me a prepayment meter as they had a trial going on in the area. I phoned up and explained what had been arranged 18 months previously and it turned out that they had forgotten to add the gas on and had just been charging for electric, and the electric debt.

I explained that previously I had been told they couldnt fit a prepayment meter due to it being below ground level but was told its ok they can do this now, so he made an appointment and at the same time raised a complaint regarding the failure to do what they agreed 18 months previously.

The representative and engineer turned up to fit the meter, and surprise surprise it couldnt be done due to the meter being below groundlevel and water in the box. Just to add to it all he said that the meter reading was massivly different to the last reading, and he wasnt happy that the meter was even working properly due to the problem with the water. They didnt fit the meter, and arrange for a weekly call to me over the following 4 weeks for a meter reading to see what was going on. He phoned through to confirm this with his office. It was also agreed again to add the debt whatever it turned out to be to the electric meter and then set up a direct debit for a monthly payment for any future useage which I was more than happy with.

Well no phone calls materialised regarding the readings when I phoned them they said there is nothing wrong with the meter but my bill was £2500 when the representative came out and due to the change in the meter reading it was now £4500! I again requested a call back regarding this and despite me phoning several times I got nowhere and nor would anyone set up a direct debit for me.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago, whilst I was at work another EON rep turned up with an engineer and told my son they were fitting a prepayment meter he just presumed this was arranged and even though the engineer wasnt happy to do it the representative insisted it went ahead. When I got home I again phoned EON explained everything and was told it would be looked into and someone would come back to me.

4 days later I tried to top the meter up I put credit on the card, tried the card in the meter.....nothing, when I removed the card it was soaking wet...... as expected the water had leaked into it. I phoned EON and spoke to a very rude manager who basically said its tough you shouldnt owe us money then you wouldnt be on a meter this is all your own fault. He was extremely rude, and even at one point asked if I was recording the conversation when i said no he just carried on being rude and abusive to me. In the end he told me that nothing would be done until the credit ran out. Which happened the following morning. The representative was extremly helpful and read the notes regarding the problems, she checked with the previous engineers reports and could see that the meter shouldnt be there. The temperature was 1 degree above freezing all day. I will add now that I am a chronic asthmatic who in July had pneumonia, which EON are well aware of it is on their system.
I was told the Engineer would be there within 4 hours. After numerous phone calls during the day someone eventually turned up at after 10pm he again agreed that the meter wasnt suitable but had no choice but to replace it with another one!
The representative phoned my again the following day to say she had made an appointement for a credit meter to be fitted, the debt to be passed to the electric meter and she would ring me the day it was fitted to set up the direct debit and arrange the debt transfer.

This was booked for last friday, again I had to take a days unpaid leave from work the engineer turned up.....with the wrong meter! He apologised but said that this was a special size meter and had to be ordered so went away again.

I got back onto the phone and spoken to the same lady, she was as unhappy as I was and added it all to my complaint. Another appointment was made for 21st December but they agreed if this meter broke in the mean time they would bring the appointment forward.

I tried to top up on Monday evening, and again the slot had water in so the card wouldnt work. I called EON who again said I had to wait till I was off gas. I called yesterday morning and was told someone would be out without 4 hours. It took 61/2 hours before they turned up. Yet another unpaid day off work for me. And all he could do was fit another card meter until friday.

I now have to take my 4th unpaid day off on Friday to hopefully finally get this sorted out. I have been told that my complaint will be investigated further but the main priority is to ensure a regular supply for us.

I have now found out that as my complaint has been open for so long I can take it to the industry regulator which I am now doing.

I know I owe them money but there was no need to be rude, or abusive and nor should they have taken 2 years to sort this out, if they had done it originally half of that debt wouldnt exist as I would have been making monthly payments.

So for anyone thinking of switching to EON DONT DO IT. They couldnt care less about the welfare of their customers.

snuggle69

Does anyone know if I would get anywhere if I claim back my lost days wages? There must be some kind of fault lying on their doorstep?

Wywth

You owe £2k on your gas?
That's over 5 years consumption for us at current costs (so more if using historical costs)

Likewise, £4.5k is about 12 years consumption.

Haven't you been paying for any gas?

As for your complaint, you know you can take it to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if it's not been resolved, don't you? Not sure why you've let this go for 6 months ... but if you've not been paying anything for the last 5-12 years I suppose I could understand.

I hope you enjoyed yours day off on Friday, but you could have requested a 2 hour appointment, as late as 8pm or on a Saturday morning.
Can't see a claim for compo getting too far. Perhaps £20 for a missed appointment. They'll deduct it from the money you owe.

SwanJon

It sounds like there's a few issues going on.

1) I've never heard of gas debt being put on an electricity meter (or vice versa). I'm fairly sure it is against the Utilities Act (2000). Whoever told you that needs a talking to. Don't believe anyone who tells you it in future. You can see the balance on the meter on screen S

2) As you thought the gas debt was being paid off through the electricity meter, what options did they give you to pay for ongoing consumption? Did you get quarterly bills/statements? What was the balance on these? If you have not recieved any bills/statements ask E.ON what happened to them? (Prepping for the 12 month backbilling rule)

3) The innapropriate fitting of the gas meter - technically the box is part of the house, so they may have a get out there, and the response times seem around normal (especially this time of year). That said, depending on the age of your son, it's possible they shouldn't have fitted it without an adult present. You can ask for a goodwill gesture, but if the appointment hadn't gone ahead it would be in the region of £20/appointment.

When you go to the Ombudsman, put the story down clearly with as little emotion as possible, and leaving out anything not directly realting to the complaint. Bullet points with dates and one or two sentances should say everything you need to.

Good luck

snuggle69

Wywth wrote: »

You owe £2k on your gas?
That's over 5 years consumption for us at current costs (so more if using historical costs)

Likewise, £4.5k is about 12 years consumption.

Haven't you been paying for any gas?

As for your complaint, you know you can take it to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if it's not been resolved, don't you? Not sure why you've let this go for 6 months ... but if you've not been paying anything for the last 5-12 years I suppose I could understand.

I hope you enjoyed yours day off on Friday, but you could have requested a 2 hour appointment, as late as 8pm or on a Saturday morning.
Can't see a claim for compo getting too far. Perhaps £20 for a missed appointment. They'll deduct it from the money you owe.

Hi and thanks for your comments, I know it was a long post but I did explain that until 2 years ago I had no knowledge that any money was owed on either the gas or electric, sadly my ex had not been paying any bills, and then ran away when he realised it was all catching up with him....leaving me with 4 children to pick up the pieces!

I have been trying over the last 2 years to make payments but as you can see EON kept changing what happened and on several occasions I have tried to set up direct debits with them but they have always put something in the way. And as stated as far as I was aware they debt from 2 years ago was put onto the electric meter, it has since transpired that although thats what their agent was meant to do....he didnt! I have also recently found out I should have been received statements of payments made on my electricity meter, but again no one has ever been sent.

As for the amount used..... again I did try to explain that even the representative that came out thought that was impossible to have run up considering the gas in the house is only heating and hot water. He felt that the meter was faulty due to being wet all the time and had requested weekly meter readings, which eon failed to do and when I called and tried to arrange it no one ever phoned me back. I only managed to hand one over during the whole 4 week period!

The other problem now is as someone else just removed the faulty meter their complaints department have said they may struggle to find it now to enable in house testing.

Even the complaints team admit the whole case is a shambles.

As for my Friday off, that was the 3rd unpaid days leave at short notice, my employer is beginning to get a little unhappy about it which is understandable.

Surely if the problems are down to their incompetance there must be something they can do, and to be honest if they chose to reinburse me for lost earnings I would be more than happy for them to reduce the debt by that amount.

The sad part about all this if they had done what they came to do 2 years ago, I would have almost paid off the original debt by now, and definatly wouldnt have any current debt as it was meant to be a monthly direct debit.

I hope this all makes sense?

snuggle69

SwanJon wrote: »

It sounds like there's a few issues going on.

1) I've never heard of gas debt being put on an electricity meter (or vice versa). I'm fairly sure it is against the Utilities Act (2000). Whoever told you that needs a talking to. Don't believe anyone who tells you it in future. You can see the balance on the meter on screen S

2) As you thought the gas debt was being paid off through the electricity meter, what options did they give you to pay for ongoing consumption? Did you get quarterly bills/statements? What was the balance on these? If you have not recieved any bills/statements ask E.ON what happened to them? (Prepping for the 12 month backbilling rule)

3) The innapropriate fitting of the gas meter - technically the box is part of the house, so they may have a get out there, and the response times seem around normal (especially this time of year). That said, depending on the age of your son, it's possible they shouldn't have fitted it without an adult present. You can ask for a goodwill gesture, but if the appointment hadn't gone ahead it would be in the region of £20/appointment.

When you go to the Ombudsman, put the story down clearly with as little emotion as possible, and leaving out anything not directly realting to the complaint. Bullet points with dates and one or two sentances should say everything you need to.

Good luck

Hi there, I am hoping that transferring the debt to the electric meter is not illegal as thats what they are planning to do on Friday when they come to fit the new meter!

Until August this year I had recieved no bills, statements or anything from them, as I said previously I have only recently found out I should receive a statement for monies paid on my electricity key meter.

Apparantly the gas meter was originally fitted by a 3rd party supplier when the house was built and should never have been fitted below ground level in the first place. the box is just in the soil, no solid base nor shingle underneath it for drainage. It is in the grassed area at the bottom of a slope next to the house. Everytime we get heavy rain it fills with a couple of inches of water! The representative that called in July felt that the meter was faulty due to the water and corrosion on it.

snuggle69

Wywth wrote: »

You owe £2k on your gas?
That's over 5 years consumption for us at current costs (so more if using historical costs)

Likewise, £4.5k is about 12 years consumption.

Haven't you been paying for any gas?

As for your complaint, you know you can take it to the ombudsman after 8 weeks if it's not been resolved, don't you? Not sure why you've let this go for 6 months ... but if you've not been paying anything for the last 5-12 years I suppose I could understand.

I hope you enjoyed yours day off on Friday, but you could have requested a 2 hour appointment, as late as 8pm or on a Saturday morning.
Can't see a claim for compo getting too far. Perhaps £20 for a missed appointment. They'll deduct it from the money you owe.

Do you know where I can find out that this 2 hour appointment rule exists, as I asked for a restricted time slot and was told that was not an option as it would be fitted by a third party supplier called G4S

penrhyn

G4S??? The security company that runs prisons and failed to provide staff for the Olympics?

snuggle69

penrhyn wrote: »

G4S??? The security company that runs prisons and failed to provide staff for the Olympics?

Apparantly so, I did ask them to confirm the company name twice! Although I cannot find anything about them fitting gas meters online anywhere!

penrhyn

I would have thought it would be Siemens, perhaps they think they need G4S security to protect themselves against you;)

http://www.siemensmetering.co.uk/pg.asp?p=Residential

snuggle69

penrhyn wrote: »

I would have thought it would be Siemens, perhaps they think they need G4S security to protect themselves against you;)

http://www.siemensmetering.co.uk/pg.asp?p=Residential

Lol, I have been very patient with them! I find that losing your temper gets you nowhere, and at the end of the day the poor people at the call centres are not to blame most of the time.

It is definatly g4S though