EON cancelled my Direct Debit - now blaming me for doing it ??

whiteswan

Hi

I am an EON business customer.

Paid by direct debit for many years no problem.

My contract is due for renewal but I haven't had a written quote - so I called them last week - given new prices - but not great so I said I will wait for the paper quote which was promised within 7 days (still not arrived)

Today I get a phone call from credit department at EON saying I have cancelled Direct Debit - but I haven't - they don't believe me and say my bank has confirmed it is myself who has cancelled it.

I rang bank and they told me its just cancelled - they cannot tell me today who cancelled it.

Now in my dim and distant memory I seem to remember getting a quote a few years ago and the person at eon saying that they would have to cancel my direct debit to be able to give me a quote - they re-installed it before the end of the call....I think !!

Does anybody know if EON have to cancel my DD to be able to quote me on a new tariff - or have I completely made this up ?

It doesn't seem to make any sense - but I am bit angry at being called a liar by EON.

System

I tend to find that when I switch suppliers that the mandate remains in place but the supplier stops requesting payments. Rarely, if ever, have I seen one cancelled after I have moved on. The rules appear to say:

Quote: Managing your Direct Debit mandates

Once a Direct Debit Instruction is set up, you can cancel it by submitting a cancellation message to the banks. Your customer can also cancel it through their bank.

You will receive a message from Bacs whenever there are changes to your Direct Debit mandates (for example, if a payer cancels their Direct Debit mandate). For full details on how these messages are received, and their meanings, see the ADDACS section of Messages from the Banks. Unquote

Surely, your Bank would have all such messages on file. I would gently suggest to your Bank that they check again.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

whiteswan wrote: »

Hi

I am an EON business customer.

Paid by direct debit for many years no problem.

My contract is due for renewal but I haven't had a written quote - so I called them last week - given new prices - but not great so I said I will wait for the paper quote which was promised within 7 days (still not arrived)

Today I get a phone call from credit department at EON saying I have cancelled Direct Debit - but I haven't - they don't believe me and say my bank has confirmed it is myself who has cancelled it.

I rang bank and they told me its just cancelled - they cannot tell me today who cancelled it.

Now in my dim and distant memory I seem to remember getting a quote a few years ago and the person at eon saying that they would have to cancel my direct debit to be able to give me a quote - they re-installed it before the end of the call....I think !!

Does anybody know if EON have to cancel my DD to be able to quote me on a new tariff - or have I completely made this up ?

It doesn't seem to make any sense - but I am bit angry at being called a liar by EON.

Hello whiteswan and this does sound a bit odd. We don't need to cancel a Direct Debit to sort out a tariff renewal.

We send business customers on fixed plans a reminder letter before it's time to renew with details of a new offer. These generally go out around 60 days before the end of fixed plans. If we haven't heard by the renewal date, customers are moved on to our variable price plan which is usually more expensive than fixed plans. We no longer automatically roll business customers on to another fixed plan. With variable plans business customers have to give us 30 days' notice to leave. A new fixed price plan can be agreed at any time.

Whatever a customer chooses to do about a tariff renewal, there's no need to cancel a Direct Debit. I'd talk to our specialist business teams (contact details are on our website). They'll be able to go through your account and let you know if anything's happened from our end that you might not be aware of. They also have more access than advisors in our credit teams.

I'm sorry we upset you when speaking to you about this whiteswan and hope this points you in the right direction.

Malc

Pagett

whiteswan wrote: »

Hi

I am an EON business customer.

Paid by direct debit for many years no problem.

My contract is due for renewal but I haven't had a written quote - so I called them last week - given new prices - but not great so I said I will wait for the paper quote which was promised within 7 days (still not arrived)

Today I get a phone call from credit department at EON saying I have cancelled Direct Debit - but I haven't - they don't believe me and say my bank has confirmed it is myself who has cancelled it.

I rang bank and they told me its just cancelled - they cannot tell me today who cancelled it.

Now in my dim and distant memory I seem to remember getting a quote a few years ago and the person at eon saying that they would have to cancel my direct debit to be able to give me a quote - they re-installed it before the end of the call....I think !!

Does anybody know if EON have to cancel my DD to be able to quote me on a new tariff - or have I completely made this up ?

It doesn't seem to make any sense - but I am bit angry at being called a liar by EON.

Speak to your bank again.

They will be able to look into the now defunct DD mandate and tell you why/how it was cancelled. You may need to persevere a little, as many bank employees do not know the ins & outs of the DD scheme - most know little more than joe public understands, but keep raising the issue higher until you get an employee who can answer the question.
Raise a formal complaint against your bank if necessary to obtain the answer, but hopefully it won't need to go that far.

Then, armed with appropriate evidence, you can make a solid complaint against the energy supplier.

Pagett

Hengus wrote: »

I tend to find that when I switch suppliers that the mandate remains in place but the supplier stops requesting payments. Rarely, if ever, have I seen one cancelled after I have moved on. The rules appear to say:

Quote: Managing your Direct Debit mandates

Once a Direct Debit Instruction is set up, you can cancel it by submitting a cancellation message to the banks. Your customer can also cancel it through their bank.

You will receive a message from Bacs whenever there are changes to your Direct Debit mandates (for example, if a payer cancels their Direct Debit mandate). For full details on how these messages are received, and their meanings, see the ADDACS section of Messages from the Banks. Unquote

Surely, your Bank would have all such messages on file. I would gently suggest to your Bank that they check again.

It may be rare, but a service provider can, and indeed should, send a final transaction code with the last collection, and that cancels a DD mandate

My my former days working in a bank, I think it's code 19, but I might be recalling incorrectly.

Anyway, my last energy supplier did just that