Prepayment meter installed

stuartcharlesgraham

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I'll try and keep this as brief as possible.

I live in a small two up two down house, 1 bedroom and one bathroom. I have a modern boiler and am not in an awful lot, when I am I only have my computer on, so I don't use a lot of electricity. I moved in almost a year ago in April 2016.

When I moved in I spoke to Eon to set up my account, provided them with all my details and just assumed everything was OK. I never received paper bills but I assumed that I was on online billing from my previous property and that was why. Stupidly I never checked and nor did I check my bank account.

I then receive a letter through the door from their debt recoveries manager just prior to Christmas saying I owe £680.93 (5 October balance) and then unless I paid within 7 days or made arrangements a prepayment meter would be installed.

I called him back, left a voicemail, he called me, and we played a lot of phone tennis (I work away a lot). Then Christmas came, he was off (and so was his phone) for three weeks. I left around 5 messages asking him to get in touch.

He then left me a message yesterday at 8am (I wasn't here) saying unless I came back within 5 minutes he was going to install the prepayment meter. I didn't get the voicemail until 30 minutes later by which time he had gone.

My balance has shot up to £1,334.19 including a £55 visit fee. I haven't had a bill produced for this £1,334 advising of my usage. So from 5th October to now the account has gone up to £654.00, possibly correct as that is around six months I guess during the winter.

My questions are:
1) Is that sort of usage correct for a very small house? I know usage is different dependent on property, but any guidance would be gratefully received.
2) Given I have made attempts to get in touch with them (I can prove all the times I've tried to call this Field Manager) do I have any case against them? I don't think it's my fault if he hasn't been available when I've made attempts to get hold of him to sort this out. Plus I gave them my details and they've obviously done nothing with them.

I want my meter put back and an investigation done in to my bill to make sure I'm paying the right amount.

I've written to the Chief Exec, no reply as yet.

Hope someone can advise!

Stuart

Bob_Bank_Spanker_2

It isn't your meter, it belongs to the energy company. You haven't mentioned payments, have you actually paid anything in 9 months?

We would need readings to tell you if what you are using is normal, but I'm afraid it doesn't sound like eon have done much wrong here.

footyguy

stuartcharlesgraham wrote: »

Hello,

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. I'll try and keep this as brief as possible.

I live in a small two up two down house, 1 bedroom and one bathroom. I have a modern boiler and am not in an awful lot, when I am I only have my computer on, so I don't use a lot of electricity. I moved in almost a year ago in April 2016.

When I moved in I spoke to Eon to set up my account, provided them with all my details and just assumed everything was OK. I never received paper bills but I assumed that I was on online billing from my previous property and that was why. Stupidly I never checked and nor did I check my bank account.

I then receive a letter through the door from their debt recoveries manager just prior to Christmas saying I owe £680.93 (5 October balance) and then unless I paid within 7 days or made arrangements a prepayment meter would be installed.

I called him back, left a voicemail, he called me, and we played a lot of phone tennis (I work away a lot). Then Christmas came, he was off (and so was his phone) for three weeks. I left around 5 messages asking him to get in touch.

He then left me a message yesterday at 8am (I wasn't here) saying unless I came back within 5 minutes he was going to install the prepayment meter. I didn't get the voicemail until 30 minutes later by which time he had gone.

My balance has shot up to £1,334.19 including a £55 visit fee. I haven't had a bill produced for this £1,334 advising of my usage. So from 5th October to now the account has gone up to £654.00, possibly correct as that is around six months I guess during the winter.

My questions are:
1) Is that sort of usage correct for a very small house? I know usage is different dependent on property, but any guidance would be gratefully received.
2) Given I have made attempts to get in touch with them (I can prove all the times I've tried to call this Field Manager) do I have any case against them? I don't think it's my fault if he hasn't been available when I've made attempts to get hold of him to sort this out. Plus I gave them my details and they've obviously done nothing with them.

I want my meter put back and an investigation done in to my bill to make sure I'm paying the right amount.

I've written to the Chief Exec, no reply as yet.

Hope someone can advise!

Stuart

Have you considered following the suppliers complaint procedure. That way your complaint will be handled by specialist customer service employees employed to resolve customer complaints such as yours ... rather than some overpaid fat-cat whose job is to be responsibile for the overall success of an entire organization and thereby create returns for his investors (shareholders!). He's not going to waste his time looking at your bill.

In the unlikely event you fail to get satisfaction from the specialists employed to resolve complaints such as yours, you can eventually ask the energy ombudsman service to assist you (all as described in the supplier's complaint procedure)

[Deleted User]

Hi,

first thing to do is work out how much you actually owe.

So, what was your start/opening meter readings, and what are your meter readings now, what tariff are you on, unit price, standing charge?

You say you received a letter from their 'debt recovery agencies', it takes a while to get to this stage, you should've had original bill and then maybe a couple of reminders before it got to debt recovery.

You say you 'want your meter put back', has it been changed already?

Andy_WSM

It looks to me that Eon have followed a procedure and you have not.

In the first few sentances I read the word "assumed" more than once - there's your mistake, right there. You don't tell us how much you have paid, if anything. You don't tell us your tariff information, any readings you have submitted. Opening readings, monthly consumption?

The meter that was removed is not "yours", your responsibility is after the meter. The meter is merely a method to make you pay for your consumption, something it seems you have neglected to do?

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Good morning stuartcharlesgraham and welcome to the forum.

There's some excellent advice on the thread already, so thank you very much for this.

I would also like to ask if you could give me a bit more information.

I understand you called when you moved in and gave your details, did you also provide your start meter reads? How did you arrange to pay your bills? Did you set up a Direct Debit with us? Or was it another way?

It is odd that you haven't received any bills, but have received a debt collection letter, so this is something to look in to.

If you had an online account, you would have set this up by registering a username and password, you would then have had an email to let you know when the bill was ready.

I know you've tried to call the field manager, but have you contacted us? To ask for your bill or for anything else?

We need to establish the bill is correct, you'll need to speak to us and get an up to date bill, you can provide us with your meter reads and we can do it for you.

It'll then be a case of going from there, to find out what's gone wrong and how to get things right for future bills. I'd suggest doing as footyguy says and get a complaint raised on the account, you'll then have a complaints manager dealing with it for you and you'll have a point of contact.

I'm here to help as much as I can though, so please just ask.

Thank you

Helena