EON standing charge but no supply to property

AnnieDaPea

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Whilst we understand this won't please all our customers, feed back tells us the majority prefer this method of charging.

I do not believe that, simply because that is significantly different from the tale I was told today by someone who purportedly works in the Directors' Office at E.On. As at least one "explanation" must be incorrect, it may be reasonable to suppose that neither is precisely accurate.

We think we've written to all affected customers to let them know about this change but we did not make any announcement via national news media.

I have corrected your post for you.

As others have said, whilst there's a meter at the property, we'll apply the standing charge even if there's no usage. This is to cover things like maintenance, rental and making sure the meter is safe.

Rather than simply making money from customers who use little or no gas? Or doesn't E.On exist to make money?

Hope this explains the changes made recently. Give me a shout if anyone needs any more info as will be happy to help.

Until this morning, I was completely unaware of this standing charge. When I telephoned E.On to question the bill and threat to pass the matter to the "Debt Recovery Team" I had received, I was told that the standing charge had been imposed by OFGEM and that all companies did the same. The "reason" given to me today differs significantly from the explanation given above, whilst a little research shows that some companies charge appreciably less and a few impose no standing charge at all.

You may think my opinion to be quaint, eccentric or antediluvian, but I really do not like being told fibs. It means that I can no longer trust anything else from that company and that I will henceforth have to find one or more different energy suppliers.

You and your Crack Management Team are thus to be congratulated for having lost one (and possibly more) hitherto loyal customers.

joncombe

AnnieDaPea wrote: »

You may think my opinion to be quaint, eccentric or antediluvian, but I really do not like being told fibs. It means that I can no longer trust anything else from that company and that I will henceforth have to find one or more different energy suppliers.

A lot of energy companies seem to be trotting out the line that they have to impose standing charges. I have an Executive Complaint with Npower and I initially got the following response.

We have appropriately communicated our plans for the new tariffs to Consumer Focus and Ofgem, our industry regulator, who are introducing a new licensing condition which means all tariffs must have a standing charge.

When I told them this was wrong and Ofgem have stated that companies are free to introduce tariffs with no standing charges, I got this response instead.

Your point about Ofgem's proposed new rule is correct. We do not have to include a standing charge; but we will have to abolish the two-tier structure. We elected to introduce daily standing charge as, in our view, they represent the best way to collect costs equitably from all npower customers

So it seems NPower and possible Eon like to lie to customers that they have to introduce a standing charge. Only when you supply them with evidence that this is not the case do they admit it. Like you I don't like being lied to and I suspect the energy companies are happy to push the blame for introducing standing charges onto Ofgem on the assumption the customer won't bother to check if it is true.

undaunted

Personally I'd agree with annoyedate.on's view - there is no contract here.

Unfortunately I have a vague recollection of a seeing reference to a court case (commercial property / landlord) where the Judge ruled that he had to pay the standing charge as he'd chosen not to remove the supply as had been suggested.

Not sure where that will leave you if the supply is capped but not removed

It's about time someone brought the enegy market into order, right now the so called deemed contract system is a mess.

POPPYOSCAR

Hi EON rep.

Could you please tell me what 'A' means by the meter figures on the bill. I understand it means Actual but what does Actual mean?

Thank you.

molerat

Read by a meter reader

POPPYOSCAR

molerat wrote: »

Read by a meter reader

Thank you but I would like confirmation from the EOn rep.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

AnnieDaPea wrote: »

I do not believe that, simply because that is significantly different from the tale I was told today by someone who purportedly works in the Directors' Office at E.On. As at least one "explanation" must be incorrect, it may be reasonable to suppose that neither is precisely accurate.


I have corrected your post for you.


Rather than simply making money from customers who use little or no gas? Or doesn't E.On exist to make money?


Until this morning, I was completely unaware of this standing charge. When I telephoned E.On to question the bill and threat to pass the matter to the "Debt Recovery Team" I had received, I was told that the standing charge had been imposed by OFGEM and that all companies did the same. The "reason" given to me today differs significantly from the explanation given above, whilst a little research shows that some companies charge appreciably less and a few impose no standing charge at all.

You may think my opinion to be quaint, eccentric or antediluvian, but I really do not like being told fibs. It means that I can no longer trust anything else from that company and that I will henceforth have to find one or more different energy suppliers.

You and your Crack Management Team are thus to be congratulated for having lost one (and possibly more) hitherto loyal customers.

Hi AnnieDaPea

I'm sorry you were given contradictory information when speaking to our Director's Office.

Just to be clear, the comments I've made in this thread about our standing charges remain valid.

We first announced the move to a standing charge last year. As above, this was in response to feed back from many of our customers. This followed our Reset review, launched in November 2011, which looked at all our relationships with customers.

On the back of the Reset review, many changes have been made to the way we service customer's accounts. The introduction of standing charges is just one of a number of changes and preceded the implementation of Ofgem's Retail Market Review by quite a time.

We've now written to all customers affected by the change to a standing charge. We did, also, announce the change in a press release from our Chief Executive at 10.36am on Monday, 10 December 2012. A copy of this is available on our website.

Many thanks for bringing the comments made by an advisor in our Director's Office to my attention. I'll be feeding back to the manager of this section so these advisors can be re-briefed with the correct information.

It's certainly not appropriate to comment on other suppliers and this is something I'll be stressing. What other suppliers do is not our concern and I apologise again for these comments.

Malc

POPPYOSCAR

Hi EON Rep

I see you are on line, I would be grateful for a reply to my post as above.

Thank you.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Hi EON rep.

Could you please tell me what 'A' means by the meter figures on the bill. I understand it means Actual but what does Actual mean?

Thank you.

Hi POPPYOSCAR

Actual meter readings are accurate readings taken from the meter. These can come through meter readers or via electronic message depending on the type of meter.

Hope this helps.

Malc

POPPYOSCAR

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi POPPYOSCAR

Actual meter readings are accurate readings taken from the meter. These can come through meter readers or via electronic message depending on the type of meter.

Hope this helps.

Malc

We have a standard meter and it has not been read by anyone as we have our own box and only we have the key.

So why does our bill state that it has been read?