Gas meter tampered with in house we bought - Now we are being charged

Clowndog

My partner and I recently bought a house and moved in at the end of September, we soon changed energy suppliers to Eon (from Npower) as they were offering a cheaper fixed rate.

When I got my first bill in February I was shocked to see we had used £136 worth of gas in 3 months.

We had previously been with Daligas in our rented house (of a similar size) and our annual gas bill with them was £170.

I raised this with Eon sometime in March and around the same time I noticed that the gas meter had dish cloth tied around the top it so I also reported this and sent photos of it to them. I hadn’t noticed it before as it’s under the kitchen sink in a cupboard with loads of other junk.

They sent some guys round to look at it who advised it had been tampered with and then they installed a new one last week. The guys advised that I wouldn’t be liable to pay anything more since I had reported the meter.

Yesterday I received a bill with a £97 revenue protection charge on it. So I called Eon today and they said I am liable to pay it as I have only just reported the meter. I said this is completely unfair and I that I wanted to dispute it and also make a complaint. They are calling me back at 4pm today.

I absolutely can’t afford to pay it and I’ve already been paying well over the odds for my gas and now they expect me to pay more on top of this for a tampered meter that I reported!

Please can anyone help? Has anyone else been in this position before? Or can anyone advise where I stand here?

Thank you.

JJ_Egan

Did you take meter readings when you moved in .

Clowndog

Yes we did

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Clowndog wrote: »

My partner and I recently bought a house and moved in at the end of September, we soon changed energy suppliers to Eon (from Npower) as they were offering a cheaper fixed rate.

When I got my first bill in February I was shocked to see we had used £136 worth of gas in 3 months.

We had previously been with Daligas in our rented house (of a similar size) and our annual gas bill with them was £170.

I raised this with Eon sometime in March and around the same time I noticed that the gas meter had dish cloth tied around the top it so I also reported this and sent photos of it to them. I hadn’t noticed it before as it’s under the kitchen sink in a cupboard with loads of other junk.

They sent some guys round to look at it who advised it had been tampered with and then they installed a new one last week. The guys advised that I wouldn’t be liable to pay anything more since I had reported the meter.

Yesterday I received a bill with a £97 revenue protection charge on it. So I called Eon today and they said I am liable to pay it as I have only just reported the meter. I said this is completely unfair and I that I wanted to dispute it and also make a complaint. They are calling me back at 4pm today.

I absolutely can’t afford to pay it and I’ve already been paying well over the odds for my gas and now they expect me to pay more on top of this for a tampered meter that I reported!

Please can anyone help? Has anyone else been in this position before? Or can anyone advise where I stand here?

Thank you.

Hello Clowndog and thank you for reporting this. Thank you also for taking photos. These will be very useful.

I can understand your frustration particularly given the comments made by our representatives. This will now sit with our Revenue Protection team. They deal exclusively with allegations of energy theft and follow guidelines given us by the industry regulator.

What usually happens in these cases is this team will investigate the situation and, if necessary, arrange for the meter to be replaced. As, indeed, they've done here. Also, based on the information we have, we'll have estimated how much energy we think was used but not recorded by the meter due to the tampering.

As Revenue Protection are involved, your account will have been ring-fenced and for the time being will only be dealt with by these advisors. For now, you'll need to talk to this team only. No other advisor will be able to help. Please phone any of our numbers (on your bills and our website) and ask to be put through to Revenue Protection. If you let the first advisor you speak to know your concerns, they'll raise a complaint which will be taken over by Revenue Protection.

Thank you again for reporting the meter tampering Clowndog and hope this helps point you in the right direction.

Malc