Switching issue e.on and extra energy.

Woodywing

We switched December and have had a nightmare. Switched on the 22nd. Extra offered to do the meter read. My wife took them up as we have 2 year old twins and she wasn't sure where the meters were. That was the start of a nightmare.

She asked E.on about dealing with our final bill, was advised that she should cancel the direct debit and deal with the bill when it came. Extra then called in on Jan 8th, 16 days after we moved. I was in and had found the meters. The guy took the electric and left, not taking the gas. We then received a bill for just under 400 from E.on based entirely on that electric reading and a gas estimate that by the 11th of Jan we still hadn't reached.

I wasn't best pleased. I don't like the idea of paying for my energy for 3 weeks twice. So I asked extra to re calculate to give a figure estimated for December 22nd. We then received a chase from E.on on the bill and my wife informed them we were disputing the reading. This would apparently take 6 weeks to deal with.

5 weeks later and e.on have decided that we hadn't paid the bill so they would mark that down and damage my wife's credit rating.

Extra still have not raised the disputed read. 5 weeks a formal complaint and two chase up calls and still absolutely nothing.

E-on have stated that they will not remove the credit issue as my wife cancelled the direct debit. THEY TOLD HER TO DO THAT. They were also made aware of this in two subsequent conversations. Each time my wife checked that this would not be a problem. Strangely they have no call recording from December when their staff member advised my wife to cancel the dd. They have also refused to try to find the recordings of the conversations in January. The guy giving me verbal notification of their full and final offer, of 15 quid for the calls but no removal of the credit issue, insists that they just see it as us not paying, despite their advice. He even told me that I can't ask for all data and call recordings as I will have to go to the ombudsman to get anything. Have E-on never heard of the data protection act?

Does anybody know what their data retention policy is? I want to know why a call recording on a live case would be deleted so quickly and why they haven't even tried to look at the calls in January. Also is anybody aware of what call recording system they use?

CashStrapped

I have tried to summarise your post as some points are not quite clear.

Are you talking about:

a)Two properties (your old and new)?

b)Switching from one supplier to another in a new property you just moved into?

Points to clarify:

1) If (b): You have moved to a new property and Eon were the existing supplier.

2)You wanted to switch to Extraenergy in this new property.

3)After moving in and creating an account with Eon giving opening readings, you then initated a switch to extraenergy.

4)Extraenergy then asks for their opening readings for the switch which they came to do themselves. However, they only took electric ones.

So...if I have understood everything correctly:

You should be paying Eon for the metered period from when you moved in, up to the reading taken by Extraenergy.

If you did not give Eon an opening gas or electric reading when you initially moved in, then this is the cause of the problem. You have kind of shot yourself in the foot as all they (Eon) can now do is guess what the opening meter reading may have been. If extraenergy had no gas meter reading either, then all of your gas use has also been estimated.

If I have misuderstood any parts of your post please correct my clarified points.

footyguy

Woodywing wrote: »

We switched December and have had a nightmare. Switched on the 22nd. Extra offered to do the meter read. My wife took them up as we have 2 year old twins and she wasn't sure where the meters were. That was the start of a nightmare.

She asked E.on about dealing with our final bill, was advised that she should cancel the direct debit and deal with the bill when it came. Extra then called in on Jan 8th, 16 days after we moved. I was in and had found the meters. The guy took the electric and left, not taking the gas. We then received a bill for just under 400 from E.on based entirely on that electric reading and a gas estimate that by the 11th of Jan we still hadn't reached.

I wasn't best pleased. I don't like the idea of paying for my energy for 3 weeks twice. So I asked extra to re calculate to give a figure estimated for December 22nd. We then received a chase from E.on on the bill and my wife informed them we were disputing the reading. This would apparently take 6 weeks to deal with.

5 weeks later and e.on have decided that we hadn't paid the bill so they would mark that down and damage my wife's credit rating.

Extra still have not raised the disputed read. 5 weeks a formal complaint and two chase up calls and still absolutely nothing.

E-on have stated that they will not remove the credit issue as my wife cancelled the direct debit. THEY TOLD HER TO DO THAT. They were also made aware of this in two subsequent conversations. Each time my wife checked that this would not be a problem. Strangely they have no call recording from December when their staff member advised my wife to cancel the dd. They have also refused to try to find the recordings of the conversations in January. The guy giving me verbal notification of their full and final offer, of 15 quid for the calls but no removal of the credit issue, insists that they just see it as us not paying, despite their advice. He even told me that I can't ask for all data and call recordings as I will have to go to the ombudsman to get anything. Have E-on never heard of the data protection act?

Does anybody know what their data retention policy is? I want to know why a call recording on a live case would be deleted so quickly and why they haven't even tried to look at the calls in January. Also is anybody aware of what call recording system they use?

I'm equally as confused as CashStrapped.

If you are talking about 2 properties, you needed to provide the outgoing reading to the supplier at old property. failure to do that means (a) you don't know what it was and (b) you will be reliant on the new account holder to both do the right thing and be honest. Otherswise your error is going to cost you money.

At the current property, assuming you have attempted to switch suppliers, as long as the start reading of the new supplier matches the final reading of the old supplier, then the cost difference will probably be minimal ... and unless you have evidence of what that reading should have been on that date, no one else will and any dispute is likely to be futile.
(If the start/final readings are different, that should be easily & quickly resolved ... and indeed should be)

Yes, cancelling your DD before your account was finalised would lead to a different charging structure.

If you want to attempt to get evidence that you were advised differently, then do a data access request that will cost you £10. But if they no longer have the matter electronically stored, you won't get it.

Woodywing

Nope, one property switching provider from E.on to Extra.

Extra offered to do the readings and then did the elec 17 days after the contract switched and didn't bother doing the gas at all. as such the gas estimate used by e.on for the final bill was so high we still hadn't used that much by 11th Jan, when the switch date was December 22nd. There were no other readings taken or provided as they offered to do it.

The e.on issue is that despite them saying to cancel the dd in December and us speaking to them repearsdly and being assured it wasn't an issue whilst the disputed read was dealt with they have treated it as an unpaid bill.

footyguy

Woodywing wrote: »

Nope, one property switching provider from E.on to Extra.

Extra offered to do the readings and then did the elec 17 days after the contract switched and didn't bother doing the gas at all. as such the gas estimate used by e.on for the final bill was so high we still hadn't used that much by 11th Jan, when the switch date was December 22nd. There were no other readings taken or provided as they offered to do it.

The e.on issue is that despite them saying to cancel the dd in December and us speaking to them repearsdly and being assured it wasn't an issue whilst the disputed read was dealt with they have treated it as an unpaid bill.

You say "so high". Are they higher than the meter readings today?

If not, as I said, if the start/final readings are the same, I wouldn't worry about it - the cost difference will be insignificant (and even if you could prove otherwise, the suppliers probably wouldn't have to change the agreed reading unless it really was "so high" - there are agreed limits under which the suppliers are not obligated to change the readings)

What happened to the meter reading taken on 08 Jan, if you claim the agreed meter reading used was higher than the actual one you presumably took on 11 Jan???

The issue you have with what you claim Eon told you, is proving that matter. They will otherwise simply refer you to the terms you agreed to ... and may still do anyway as usually they say something like they cannot be overridden except in writing by a director of the company.

CashStrapped

It is always your responsibility to submit and then ensure start/end meter readings match when switching suppliers.

This is the root cause of all the problems have occured.

If they did tell you to cancel the DD this was probably in lou of you paying the final bill and closing the account.However because you began to dispute it (even though you did not have any actual meter readings to calculate what was really owed), the DD was still live at their end when they automatically tried to request the final amount.

Solution: Pay what is owed. Rememeber to take meter readings for future switches and not to cancel DD untill the account is closed.

Any disputes with a DD should be done via the bank. That is what the DD system is for. You have a DD guarantee by which you can always request a DD that is incorrectly taken, back to you account.

Woodywing

The 8th was purely elec, was still not reached, despite 17 data passing. The 11th was my reading on the gas and that wasn't reached yet either.

On the e.on issue there are at least 3 calls with advice from their staff that we have followed. I cannot believe that they would delete a recording on a live case, and that they wouldn't even bother to try to find the recordings for the calls in January. They can put what they like in their conditions but if a member of their staff advises to do something surely that supersedes anything else as they are acting as an agent of the company.

Woodywing

Cash strapped, I would agree with you but for the small matter of my wife checking on 2 occasions that there was no issue with not paying until after the dispute was sorted. If they'd said "actually you need to pay it now to avoid impacting your credit rating" we'd have had to pay it and await rebate. But they didn't say that despite being specifically asked if not paying right now would be impacting it.

CashStrapped

Type here all the dates and meter readings you have taken (estimated and actual) then we can get a better picture. Also include the date you moved in and the meter readings you took at that point.

In reality however, as footyguy says, over such a small period the difference will be minimal, so you may as well pay and forget.

With regard to the DD credit file issue. I understand you point. However you have the choice of expending a lot of energy trying to prove eon wrong, for little gain or just getting on with life. If you had supplied all the actual readings required there may not have been an issue to begin with. So I would just live an learn.

footyguy

Woodywing wrote: »

Cash strapped, I would agree with you but for the small matter of my wife checking on 2 occasions that there was no issue with not paying until after the dispute was sorted. If they'd said "actually you need to pay it now to avoid impacting your credit rating" we'd have had to pay it and await rebate. But they didn't say that despite being specifically asked if not paying right now would be impacting it.

Your credit rating will not be affected unless you failed to pay a bill that they had notified you to pay.

So when did they send you the bill, and why did you not pay it?

footyguy

Woodywing wrote: »

The 8th was purely elec, was still not reached, despite 17 data passing. The 11th was my reading on the gas and that wasn't reached yet either.

On the e.on issue there are at least 3 calls with advice from their staff that we have followed. I cannot believe that they would delete a recording on a live case, and that they wouldn't even bother to try to find the recordings for the calls in January. They can put what they like in their conditions but if a member of their staff advises to do something surely that supersedes anything else as they are acting as an agent of the company.

So can we clarify 2 more things please?

1. Is the final reading used by Eon the same as the start reading used by Extra?

2. Assuming there was an agreed reading as in (1),; that reading is actually higher than the meter reads today? (for each gas & electricity)
In which case, what were the 2 agreed readings, what was the electric reading taken on 08 Jan, and what are the meter readings today.
(you might want to arrange taking a photo with proof of date, e.g. with todays newspaper or a dated letter from a reliable souce next to it - no need to post here, but may come in handy as evidence of a dispute)