E.on

badmemory

Couldn't agree more. Trouble is if you get told by the comparison site that you will save £250 a year, then many people expect their DD to go down by £20 per month and don't look into it any deeper. Unfortunately, not everyone is as well informed or proactive as they might be. Not until they get caught out that is.

This is one of the things that need dealing with in financial education.

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning fifty,

Thank you to the other posters for the information:)

If possible I'd be grateful if you could give me a few more details.

The payments do depend on the actual usage, so if you use more than you did last year or more than is predicted the payments will need to be increased to cover this.

We would also recommend when using a comparison site to use your usage in kWh instead of £ spend, as this helps with the accuracy.

Has the account been building a balance on the bills? Or does this appear to be a catch up bill where the account has been under estimated and now we've produced a bill to accurate reads?

You can also use some of the online tools to avoid this, you can produce real time bills and balances and change your own DD, it really helps to keep on top of things and keep the account as accurate as possible.

If you need any help though, please ask me.

Helena

Robin9

Sosumi - let me try and reply to your post- Why?

My initial very brief, tongue in cheek comment (post #3) ,response was intended to help fifty find a possible reason for the adjustment to his/her DD. As he/she would have had at least two quarterly bills in his/her 7 months with E.on he/she would now have a good indication of how correct the initial DD was.

However fifty has yet to come back to us.

Sosumi –you and I and many of the thread regulars adopt a structured approach to our utilities -taking regular readings, submitting them to the supplier, using spreadsheets. We calculate and adjust our own DD’s. To you and I that is good practise.

There is an old saying regarding computers – garbage in = garbage out.
PS fifty - my apologies for assuming you are male. I do hope you will respond in due course to the various questions that have been asked so that this issue can be resolved.

Sosumi

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena wrote: »

Good morning fifty,

Thank you to the other posters for the information:)

If possible I'd be grateful if you could give me a few more details.

The payments do depend on the actual usage, so if you use more than you did last year or more than is predicted the payments will need to be increased to cover this.

We would also recommend when using a comparison site to use your usage in kWh instead of £ spend, as this helps with the accuracy.

Has the account been building a balance on the bills? Or does this appear to be a catch up bill where the account has been under estimated and now we've produced a bill to accurate reads?

You can also use some of the online tools to avoid this, you can produce real time bills and balances and change your own DD, it really helps to keep on top of things and keep the account as accurate as possible.

If you need any help though, please ask me.

Helena

:A Helena :A,

Although I agree with everything you posted and have great sympathy for E.ON in its unenviable position of needing to protect itself from those who, by deliberate intent or through simple naivete, extract more energy from E.ON than they pay for, whilst all the time being accused of rapacity every time it attempts genuinely to assist its customers. I do think it is worth pointing out that customers who are diligent and responsible are (usually) in a far better position than E.ON to predict the amount of energy they are likely to consume in the next year. And, thereby, the correct amount they should pay each month by Direct Debit.

That’s because the calculation involves all sorts of personal and domestic factors of which E.ON is totally unaware.

Last August, for example, E.ON’s online Direct Debit tool started advising me that I should increase my monthly payments by £15.50 (namely, a not inconsiderable£186 a year) in order to arrive at a zero balance by the time of my next annual review the following April.

What E.ON had no way of knowing was that the previous month (July) I had had all the ageing, double-glazed but wooden framed, windows in my house replaced with new uPVC units equipped with the latest type of smart glass, and that the following month (September) we would be departing to Spain and Portugal for several weeks, leaving the house on tickover. Which was why I had set my Direct Debit at the level it was. And why I ignored, politely, E.ON’s prompting to raise it.

(I have to concede, in passing, that even I was surprised by how much cosier and draught-resistant the new windows made our house the following winter.

And, for the record, my own subsequent online tweaking – downwards – of my Direct Debit left me exactly on target for a zero balance on the scheduled 25 April annual review of my account. But E.ON jumped the gun by a week when I submitted meter readings on 17 April and then had to reimburse me £25! :rotfl: )

Yet that was just my own situation. Others may know, for example, that a heavily consuming elderly parent is shortly to be relocated to sheltered housing. Or that a profligately consuming son and/or daughter will be dispatched to University ere winter comes.

So, while I commend E.ON for its committed efforts to do the right thing for itself and for its customers, it has to be recognised that E.ON’s crystal ball makes crude assumptions and is far from infallible.


But hey! If Mystic Malc and the boffins in E.ON’s weather forecasting department are able to predict now, with any degree of precision and reliability, just how severe next winter is going to be, then please do share the secret with us on here – we’ll update our spreadsheets accordingly and very gratefully, and we promise not to share this commercially sensitive information with anyone, especially E.ON’s competitors.

:shhh: :grouphug:

Robin9 wrote: »

Sosumi - let me try and reply to your post- Why?

My initial very brief, tongue in cheek comment (post #3) ,response was intended to help fifty find a possible reason for the adjustment to his/her DD. As he/she would have had at least two quarterly bills in his/her 7 months with E.on he/she would now have a good indication of how correct the initial DD was.

However fifty has yet to come back to us.

Sosumi –you and I and many of the thread regulars adopt a structured approach to our utilities -taking regular readings, submitting them to the supplier, using spreadsheets. We calculate and adjust our own DD’s. To you and I that is good practise.

There is an old saying regarding computers – garbage in = garbage out.
PS fifty - my apologies for assuming you are male. I do hope you will respond in due course to the various questions that have been asked so that this issue can be resolved.

Robin9,

Thank you for your extremely gracious reply. :kisses3:

I confess that when I read your initial posting:

Robin9 wrote: »

I presume that all your bills on based on the actual readings you have giving E.on

which i queried,

Sosumi wrote: »

---

Why?

I thought you had probably just enjoyed an extremely indulgent Sunday luncheon lubricated with rather too much electric Ribena. :dance:

(As had I. But at least I retained the sense not to betray it by posting more than one word! )

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Morning Sosumi,

I agree with you, we don't have a crystal ball and although Malc is normally pretty good at predicting the weather, things change.

That's the point really things do change, customers usage changes. We don't know every time someone has new windows or if they're going away for long periods, this is why the DD tool is so good, as you can change your payment amount, you can also speak to us and let us know a change in circumstances.

It's so good that we have some very knowledgeable customers especially on here and they take control of their accounts, payments and meter reads, we can't ask any more really.

I do fully understand your point and Malc and I are always trying to give the most open and best information we can on here to help as much as we can.

Thank you

Helena