Large electricity bill

Pink1127

My mum moved into a new warden aided flat in February 2013. She moved from a smaller flat to a larger one on the same site. We contacted EON to inform them and gave them meter readings from the old and new flats. She was informed her monthly direct debit would only be £25. In July 2013 she realised she had not received a bill and rang EON. Still no bill arrived. She queried this again and also her monthly payment. She was told the account
had been unbillable due to no product details, it is a complex meter. The person that she spoke to said he would make it billable but actually did nothing about it. She then received a bill in April for the last 14 months. This said she owed £802.10. Upon speaking to EON myself about this it was decided to go ahead with a complaint. We increased her payment to £82.00 a month, the highest my mum can do. EON have now said that is not enough she needs to pay £124 a month to clear her debt and for her electricity usage. EON will not accept that they should have dealt with this earlier rather than letting the bill get so high. I really don't know what to do next for my mum to sort this. Any advice would be appreciated thank you

Andy_WSM

Part of the problem here is that the original £25 is totally unrealistic. Didn't anyone question why such a low amount? Had your Mother been paying a realistic amount from the outset then a large debt would not have built up. I get that EON were slow getting the billing right, but ask anyone on here how much they pay for an all electric property (making an assumption here as it's a flat and you haven't mentioned gas and the complex meter usually indicates heating) and you will likely find that you don't have a large bill at all.

Only thing I can suggest is that you negotiate with EON that you should have the same amount of time to pay back the debt as they have had to sort out the billing.

Nada666

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Only thing I can suggest is that you negotiate with EON that you should have the same amount of time to pay back the debt as they have had to sort out the billing.

But that would be even higher than £124 per month!

Nada666

You should qualify for a reduction under the back-billing rule - so you should ask for two months to be knocked off. More than a hundred pounds off.

(But that would still leave repayments of £120 or £130.)

At least, if she was warm, she knows her future bills will only average to just over £80 per month. It may be easier to pay the £800 off in one or two lump payments.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning Pink1127 and welcome to the forums.

I'm sorry that we've left your mum in this situation, I do know it's not very nice at all.

I understand you raised a complaint? What's happening with this? Is it still being looked in to, or has it been closed?

I think first of all, we need to establish why it took so long to bill your mum and why we didn't keep her informed.

We can then make sure we're now billing correctly and the account is on the right tariff.

Then, we need to resolve the balance that's owing on the account at the moment. It may be that the account does fall under the billing code as Nada666 says, this is something we can look in to.

Also, we can look at how best to pay this off and that your mum is able to manage.

Please just let me know if you need my help

Helena

Pink1127

Very sorry I reposted this before I saw your reply.


The complaint is awaiting me to say that my mum can pay the £124 a month to clear the debt and pay for the electricity she uses. She has already increased her payment to 82. Nobody at EON seems to want to take responsibility for this
even though I was told it is not her fault. She did query the lowering of the direct debit to be told it was correct. Apparently the system had automatically done this due to the flat being for a length of time. Somebody had made the account billable but done nothing with it. The problem should have been picked up in December when a bill was due. She didn't receive the bill until April. I just can't understand how this could of been left so long and nobody picked it up resulting in a very large bill and my mum being expected to pay it back at

Pink1127

Yes we did query the direct debit amount to be told it was correct. Apparently the system automatically set it at this because the property had been unoccupied for a while. It still should have been picked up by EON that she was building up a large debt. Not having any bills from them we didn't see the amounting debt. Yes it is a flat but there is no gas as it is warden aided property

Clueless101

Out of personal curiosity, why does the property having a warden mean there's no gas? Up until 3 years ago my grandmother lived in a wardened property and she had gas - has something changed in recent years?

mazza111

Clueless101 wrote: »

Out of personal curiosity, why does the property having a warden mean there's no gas? Up until 3 years ago my grandmother lived in a wardened property and she had gas - has something changed in recent years?

It will just be like there are all electric houses, there will be some SH that are all electric too. My mum's in SH and the gas charge is included with her rent.

Clueless101

mazza111 wrote: »

It will just be like there are all electric houses, there will be some SH that are all electric too. My mum's in SH and the gas charge is included with her rent.

Ah I see what you mean now, sorry I thought you meant there was no gas to the property at all, which is why I thought you meant that wardened properties don't have gas, apologies for the misunderstanding.

This does bring up a more interesting situation though.......like Andy (the poster of the first reply) I had assumed the large amount of electricity usage was because the property was all electric, since this would also explain why presumably your Mum's usage has gone up because she has a larger flat. But a larger flat would mean an increase in heat needed, while other usage (assuming no additional new appliances, excessive lighting etc) should be around the same unless your mum's habits have changed. Since you have now said your mum does have gas, does the gas heat her flat? And hot water? If so, what is the complex meter for? Is she paying unnecessarily higher charges for her electric now? Higher than her old flat? £800 of electric would be an awful lot for a property that doesn't heat using electric.

Lomast

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