Massive Gas & Elec bill that is NOT correct and i can prove it

cmanning_2

Hi everyone
Im really stuck with my Gas and Elec provider EON,
for the past 8 months they've been chasing me for a £1000+ bill, even though i have been paying £89 per month which should cover my expenditure.

I have spent so much time on the phone with a relatively useful person in the "we promise to help our customers" dept who put a hold on the account while it was being investigated since 2/8/13. But now they've decided to say i owe them £1400! ive struggled with this alone for too long please help me!

Here are some facts:
1) My electricity is the only thing im disputing the Gas is ok.
2) I moved in on 1 july 2012 the meter reading was done by the estate agent (i know im silly i should have done this ) at 28214
3) EON say there was a reading by their people on 27/7/2012 at 28648 - i dispute this (my meter is in my garage which was FULL of stuff from moving house!)
4) Estimated readings were taken until 2/8/2013 when i sent a reading of 36603 (this is the only point in history i can trust)
since then i have taken meter readings religiously (some months even daily).
5) today's meter reading is 39690
6) 265 days between those readings and 3087 units used an average of 11.64 per day (standing charge is 0.28 per day)
7) a check meter was installed to ensure my meter was reading correctly - it was, 11 unit is deemed the average usage per day (in January)
8) EON ran through a likely usage calc based on all the electricity appliances and lighting in my house - 12 was deemed the probable daily unit usage.
9) The bill EON expect me to pay dates from 29/6/2012 to today covering 664 days using 11476 units
10) i have proved that 11 units per day is my average usage, 11.64 units over 664 days is 7734 a discrepancy of 3741 units totalling an extra years electricity!!!
11) last fact if my usage from 2/8/13 - today is accurate (which is proved correct) then from 29/6/2012 to 2/8/2013 8389 units would have been used over 399 days averaging 21 units per day over that period (how could i half my electricity usage over night)
12) last fact honest im VERY frugal and waste concious


Am i being stupid? to me its obvious their historical data between 29/6/2012 and 2/8/2013 is wrong

molerat

Unless you can disprove the opening meter read you are stuck. As far as EOn are concerned that read is a fact. They have checked the meter and it is accurate, they have the reading from an independent source on 29 Jun 12 which you did not dispute. The time for you to have challenged that reading was at the take over when you had the opportunity to. You failed to submit or challenge any readings for 13 months. How do EOn know that you were not running a sauna up to 2 Aug 13. An expensive lesson.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hi there cmanning,

molerat is spot on here, it all appears to boil down to this start reading.

We can't just change this reading if we have been provided with a reading and we don't have an alternative to replace it with.

It sounds like you have actually been following the correct procedures with us for this, having a check meter, consumption discussion etc.

In your case a complaint should be open on your account and this won't be closed until a resolution is agreed.

As you appear to not agree with what's been said at the moment, it should be passed to a review team to look at.

If, after 56 days, we've not come up with a satisfactory resolution you can go to the Ombudsman for an independent review.

I'm sorry though, as it sounds like it's dragging on a bit for you

Helena

Cardew

Unfortunately, you cannot 'prove' the bill is incorrect.


As said above, in all probability the start reading was incorrect and the previous occupant has escaped paying the full amount.


However it was your agent that gave the meter reading, and you didn't check. The electricity has obviously been used , so what do you expect E-on to do?


You should take the mater up with your estate agent and ask him to contribute, or get some money from previous occupant!!


We get many many complaints on here where posters don't bother to check any meter readings when they move in, or afterwards(13 months in your case) and then somehow think it must be the Utility Company's fault.

2013yearofthehouse

Rather than looking at it as going from 21units a day to 11units a day over night, are you sure there wasn't a short period, or periods, where you could have been using a lot more than usual instead? Have you changed any applicances at all? Or had any work done to the house? Had any guests stay? Etc.

Is it just you or are there others in the household that could have been using more than they think? I'm assuming it's not just you in the house, as 1 person being very frugal probably wouldn't usually use 11 units a day, unless you have lots of high draining appliances or lighting.

For example, there's 2 of us, not that frugal, desktop computer on all day, TV several hours a night, cook by electric, etc, but we average 7 units a day. However, before we got a new fridge and TV, we averaged 9 units a day. When we were having some work done, we were averaging 12 units a day. When one of us was away for a while, we averaged 5 units a day.

Sorry I don't mean to come accross as being on Eon's side (I'm not, as it's perfectly plausible and more likely the estate agent reading was wrong!), just want to ensure you've looked at every possible sceinario, just in case

pooch

cmanning wrote: »

Hi everyone
Im really stuck with my Gas and Elec provider EON,
for the past 8 months they've been chasing me for a £1000+ bill, even though i have been paying £89 per month which should cover my expenditure.

I have spent so much time on the phone with a relatively useful person in the "we promise to help our customers" dept who put a hold on the account while it was being investigated since 2/8/13. But now they've decided to say i owe them £1400! ive struggled with this alone for too long please help me!

Here are some facts:
1) My electricity is the only thing im disputing the Gas is ok.
2) I moved in on 1 july 2012 the meter reading was done by the estate agent (i know im silly i should have done this ) at 28214
3) EON say there was a reading by their people on 27/7/2012 at 28648 - i dispute this (my meter is in my garage which was FULL of stuff from moving house!)
4) Estimated readings were taken until 2/8/2013 when i sent a reading of 36603 (this is the only point in history i can trust)
since then i have taken meter readings religiously (some months even daily).
5) today's meter reading is 39690
6) 265 days between those readings and 3087 units used an average of 11.64 per day (standing charge is 0.28 per day)
7) a check meter was installed to ensure my meter was reading correctly - it was, 11 unit is deemed the average usage per day (in January)
8) EON ran through a likely usage calc based on all the electricity appliances and lighting in my house - 12 was deemed the probable daily unit usage.
9) The bill EON expect me to pay dates from 29/6/2012 to today covering 664 days using 11476 units
10) i have proved that 11 units per day is my average usage, 11.64 units over 664 days is 7734 a discrepancy of 3741 units totalling an extra years electricity!!!
11) last fact if my usage from 2/8/13 - today is accurate (which is proved correct) then from 29/6/2012 to 2/8/2013 8389 units would have been used over 399 days averaging 21 units per day over that period (how could i half my electricity usage over night)
12) last fact honest im VERY frugal and waste concious


Am i being stupid? to me its obvious their historical data between 29/6/2012 and 2/8/2013 is wrong

Your thread title says you can prove the bill is wrong; you've not proved it to me yet

At point 4 you say a meter reading you say is correct at 02-Aug-2013 was 36603
At point5, you say the meter reading today is 39690 (which presumably you agree with)

So in 9 months you used 3087 kWh - As the average customer uses just 3200 kWh for 12 months where the customer also has gas, I think we already have evidence that your point 12 is cast into doubt

SuperHan

Well, you have to present some starting point.

For this, you HAVE to take the landlords reading, given that it's independent and that you were happy to trust them reading it at the time. So accept that as fact (whether it's erroneous or not, unless the estate agent took photos of the meter - which they may have, try asking for these to prove they were read correctly, you're never going to prove it).

That means that between moving in and your reading, you averaged 21 units a day.

And between the estate agent reading and the eon reading you averaged 16 units a day. Which is reasonable considering the 21 a day average.

So you're in a very difficult place to say 1 - that their reading was wrong, as the estate agents reading which you have effectively adopted as your own, seems in line with their reading, and as such 2 - that your bill is wrong.

I think you might have to suck this one up, I'm afraid! And next time, always do your own readings!!!!

[Deleted User]

If the electric meter is in an awkward position, or is a dial meter or even a small digital meter, its easy for estate agents to mess up a reading, also meter readers make many mistakes rushing it and looking at meters from above or at angles because maybe a car is in the way. With digital meters we have to get at least dead level and below to make sure 4s and 9 s or 7 s and 1s are correct. Its quite possible for both the independent readings to be wrong. Quite hard to disprove them though