Ridiculous EON Bill From Last Home

Sami_Shaw

Hi All,

We recently received a bill for gas and electricity from EON for a property that we vacated TEN months ago.

The bill is for £800, despite us having dutifully paid each bill quarterly during our time at the last property.

Phoned EON "customer service" today. Firstly they told us tough luck we have to pay. Then after some time on hold a "manager" came on the phone saying he would investigate and call us back. Four hours later we recieved an email stating that we do owe £800 as we had only previously paid £279 for energy at the last property, which of course is wholly untrue.

To add insult to injury we paid a bill of around £700 a couple of months ago that we thought was a c*** up on EON's behalf, so this second one just seems like poor service twice in the space of three months. I'm also worried about any effect it might have on my credit rating

Can anyone advise us on the best course of action, or has anyone had any similar dealings with this ridiculous "energy provider"?

Sincerest thanks in advance!!

Cornucopia

Do you have closing meter readings from the old property? What is eOn's explanation as to why these charges are being raised now, and what is their relationship to the meter readings?

Also, consult the back-billing rules to see how it relates - even if the charges are accurate, you may be able to get them partially written-off.

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/publication/finish/43-code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills/412-the-code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills-back-billing-for-domestic-customers.html

Sami_Shaw

Cornucopia wrote: »

Do you have closing meter readings from the old property? What is eOn's explanation as to why these charges are being raised now, and what is their relationship to the meter readings?

Also, consult the back-billing rules to see how it relates - even if the charges are accurate, you may be able to get them partially written-off.

Hi Cornucopia,

We provided meter readings the day we vacated the property and told them that we wanted to transfer the account over to the new property, which they had no issue with at the time.

They contacted us ten months later to say we owe this amount as firstly we had only paid £297 the entire time we were at the last place, and secondly that the estimated bills had been lower than they expected. But I'm sure even that wouldn't add up to an additional £800!!

I'm going to get bank statements tomorrow to prove that we had paid and call them back with the dates/amounts. I'll definitely have a read of the back-billing info beforehand though, thank you very much for that

Cornucopia

If you no longer have your old bills, it might be worth asking EOn for copies before things get serious.

Unfortunately, you're going to need to prove them wrong, and whilst the figures may look wrong, that's not going to be enough.

Sami_Shaw

I had considered doing that if they still can't find the payments we made on their systems, but it may be worth getting the paperwork regardless in case any other mysterious bills materialise.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning Sami_Shaw and welcome to the forum

There is obviously some confusion here and everything needs to be looked in to carefully so we can establish what's gone wrong.

First of all, look at the bills from your previous home did you provide a meter reading when you first moved in? Did we bill to the meter reading you provided when you moved out?

It sounds like it could be what we call a catch up bill, this is where we have used underestimated meter readings to produce your bills, then you've provided an accurate read when you moved out so we've billed to that causing a larger than expected bill.

Did you provide regular reads when living there? Did we use these to bill?

I know all of this is a bit of a pain, but it let us establish what's gone wrong, I'd also have a look to see how much you have actually paid when the account was open.

You say you paid all of the bills on receipt of them, but were you paying estimated bills?

Did you have an online account for the house, this stays active for 1 year after an account is closed so you should be able to get everything you need from there.

Helena