E.ON Electricity - Customer Service

RikShrewsbury

Hi Guys,

Ive had a nightmare with E.ON, I started using them in May 2014 for electricity, my house runs purely on electric. I was told to make a figure up that I was happy to pay so I said £40 (direct debit).....

Thought nothing of it until i received an email and letter on January 27th 2015 saying that I was £3500 in debt and that my monthly payments were going up from 40 to £400 a month. At that point i switched off everything, including my heating. I rang their customer service team and they asked for a meter reading, I gave what I saw and was told that the information did not make sense and that I would have to wait till Thursday 12th of Feb for someone to come and take a meter reading, I spent 17 days without heating and having barely anything on in the house, i presumed it had been due to my heating use as several E.ON engineers had taken meter readings so thought it was genuinely my fault.

The engineer came yesterday and said that the engineers had taken wrong readings, speaking to E.ON customer services they told me that I wasn't £3500 in debt, but was still in £800 worth of debt, he tried suggesting that I pay £300 a month until the debt is cleared, there was no apology about the blatant failings of their engineers behalf and he was quite rude, several abysmal "customer service" calls then followed which i wont go into....

I want to contest this as I would like to have been notified about my overspend and would have happily upped my monthly direct debit instead of getting that email saying I was in a massive amount of debt with them. The way they have handled all of this has made me feel like I dont want anything to do with them, I want to move but feel trapped in a way. My dealings over the phone with them have been useless so wanted to put this in a letter.

Can anyone suggest a good template or angle to try and get some of my quote qoshed. its only £800 but I am angry about their service and there lack of manners/sympathy.

Thanks

Rik

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Is there any particular reason you feel you shouldn't have to pay for something everybody else has to?

You were given the opportunity to set a DD appropriate for your consumption. You chose to set it at a level that is ridiculously low - did all the news stories (up until last month) concerning energy price rises never twig a thought that maybe you weren't paying enough? You also get bills through, a perfect opportunity to look at the meter readings and check all is in order.

It sounds to me like eon made a mistake with the £3k bill, and corrected it quickly. They should allow you to repay the debt over the period it accrued (10 Months). My very rough calculations make that £140 per month for actual usage, plus £80 a month for debt, a total of £220 per month. If they're exceptionally kind they may knock off a token amount, say £50 - but that's a total guess.

I don't think they'll do more than that, and nor should they.

I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but talk of "contesting it" and treating it as a "quote" is nonsense - you've used it and now it's time to pay for it.

JJ_Egan

Likewise the problem is the OP setting a low DD and not bothering to keep on top of usage and billing .No reason users cannot read their own meter .

You can certainly write a letter complaining of poor CS .

[Deleted User]

The usual payment for bad mannered "meter readers " ( not engineers ) is about a tenner. Thats what BG pay out. Being £800 quid down smacks of you happy to pay some lowly estimated bills and not submitting plenty of readings yourself. Mistakes happen when meters are read stuffed away in cupboards choc o block with stuff

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning RikShrewsbury and welcome to the forums.

I'm afraid I do agree with the others here, although the poor customer service is not acceptable and we should be giving you a clear answer to why this has happened.

It sounds like it's either because all of the readings we've used to bill you up to now have been underestimates, or because we've billed the day and the night rate the wrong way round (if you have an E7 meter)

We always advise you to look at your bills and enter your own meter readings, or check the reads on your bill against those on your meter. This really does help to keep everything up to date and accurate. It also means you can keep your eye on tariff's and if we have anything new and also the amount of energy that you're using.

I understand we have actually sorted the issue out and re-billed the account correctly, so I'm pleased this has been done so quickly.

I have to be honest and say I don't think any of the balance will be written off, but you may wish to ask to spread the balance over a longer period of time as Bluebirdman of Alcathays says.

Have you got an online account? If not I'd suggest registering as you can then pop your own reads on, check usage, tariff's, produce bills etc and it really will help.

I'm sorry about the phone conversations that you've had.

Helena