E-on rides roughshod over loyal customers

GNTUK

There must be thousands of E-on customers in this same position. In 1965 when I built my house, atomic energy had just been invented and the government, who owned all electric companies, was concerned about the waste of electricity during the night when nobody wanted to use it. So they decided to encourage builders to soak it up by installing heating cables in the concrete floor called under floor heating at a special low rate of about half the price of normal electric. The supply was allowing 15 hours of heating via a time switch. It was called Off Peak Tariff. Thousands of houses were built using this technique. I know that some years later free standing storage heaters became commonplace with another tariff called Economy 7 providing 7 hours of heating and another with 10 hours. Then came privatisation. My Yorkshire Electricity Board customers were taken over first by Staywarm, who were then taken over by Powergen followed by E-on. In every change of supplier they were obliged to take on the tariff that the customers were using.
I believe there were other tariffs I am not aware of but that made it difficult for people to change suppliers, first with obstruction and with the inability to get the same tariff.
In 2013 the politicians wanted to encourage people to save money by making it easier to switch suppliers and so brought in standardised tariffs to make it easier. I could see the way things were going so I wrote to my MP who agreed with me that it looked likely that my tariff had been overlooked. He forwarded my letter to The Energy Minister who wrote to me in April 2013 and I quote from the last two paragraphs:
“We know that there are lots of existing tariffs out there which people value and we are discussing our proposals with consumer groups and the industry.”
“Our tariff proposals aim to end the poor value ‘dead tariffs’ where customers are on a standard variable rate tariff that is no longer open to new customers and these customers will be moved to the cheapest standard variable rate their supplier offers. Customers on a tariff which is not open to new customers but which provides the cheapest deal for them will be able to stay on this tariff.”
Yours ever,
The Rt. Hon. Gregory Barker MP
I have put my case to E-on’s top brass and the ombudsman. The replies I have received were-Top Brass: It was a business decision. Ombudsman: They had no wish to help my plight. (You will remember the BBC Panorama programme investigated the ombudsman to find they nearly always sided with the big companies because it was quicker and the easiest way to deal with the complaints!)
We have no gas supply to our house. E-on said the best solution for me was to go onto Economy 7. A man from Simply Meters came to fit the new meter but took it away saying it would be illegal to fit it because the house would never be warm enough. He said, “At your age it should not be happening to you. You should stay on your present tariff and after I report back someone will get in touch with you”. No one did. On 12th November I got a bill to show that I had been put on one rate for everything - 17.16p incl VAT when I was previously paying 8.2425p for RHT. I keep a daily record of my electric consumption and looked back at December 2018. It cost me £239. December 2019 with almost identical kwh consumption, cost me £450. It is outrageous to be forced to pay so much more when I am a pensioner.
I have a solution. E-on should be taken to the high court for breach of contract. That means getting a top QC which I on my own can’t afford. I think it needs a class action but who knows how to gather all these ill-treated customers together? I am sure it can be done through the internet but I have no experience in this technique. Can anyone help?

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

GNTUK wrote: »

There must be thousands of E-on customers in this same position. In 1965 when I built my house, atomic energy had just been invented and the government, who owned all electric companies, was concerned about the waste of electricity during the night when nobody wanted to use it. So they decided to encourage builders to soak it up by installing heating cables in the concrete floor called under floor heating at a special low rate of about half the price of normal electric. The supply was allowing 15 hours of heating via a time switch. It was called Off Peak Tariff. Thousands of houses were built using this technique. I know that some years later free standing storage heaters became commonplace with another tariff called Economy 7 providing 7 hours of heating and another with 10 hours. Then came privatisation. My Yorkshire Electricity Board customers were taken over first by Staywarm, who were then taken over by Powergen followed by E-on. In every change of supplier they were obliged to take on the tariff that the customers were using.
I believe there were other tariffs I am not aware of but that made it difficult for people to change suppliers, first with obstruction and with the inability to get the same tariff.
In 2013 the politicians wanted to encourage people to save money by making it easier to switch suppliers and so brought in standardised tariffs to make it easier. I could see the way things were going so I wrote to my MP who agreed with me that it looked likely that my tariff had been overlooked. He forwarded my letter to The Energy Minister who wrote to me in April 2013 and I quote from the last two paragraphs:
“We know that there are lots of existing tariffs out there which people value and we are discussing our proposals with consumer groups and the industry.”
“Our tariff proposals aim to end the poor value ‘dead tariffs’ where customers are on a standard variable rate tariff that is no longer open to new customers and these customers will be moved to the cheapest standard variable rate their supplier offers. Customers on a tariff which is not open to new customers but which provides the cheapest deal for them will be able to stay on this tariff.”
Yours ever,
The Rt. Hon. Gregory Barker MP
I have put my case to E-on’s top brass and the ombudsman. The replies I have received were-Top Brass: It was a business decision. Ombudsman: They had no wish to help my plight. (You will remember the BBC Panorama programme investigated the ombudsman to find they nearly always sided with the big companies because it was quicker and the easiest way to deal with the complaints!)
We have no gas supply to our house. E-on said the best solution for me was to go onto Economy 7. A man from Simply Meters came to fit the new meter but took it away saying it would be illegal to fit it because the house would never be warm enough. He said, “At your age it should not be happening to you. You should stay on your present tariff and after I report back someone will get in touch with you”. No one did. On 12th November I got a bill to show that I had been put on one rate for everything - 17.16p incl VAT when I was previously paying 8.2425p for RHT. I keep a daily record of my electric consumption and looked back at December 2018. It cost me £239. December 2019 with almost identical kwh consumption, cost me £450. It is outrageous to be forced to pay so much more when I am a pensioner.
I have a solution. E-on should be taken to the high court for breach of contract. That means getting a top QC which I on my own can’t afford. I think it needs a class action but who knows how to gather all these ill-treated customers together? I am sure it can be done through the internet but I have no experience in this technique. Can anyone help?

Hello GNTUK and welcome to the Forums.

As you know, we're phasing out older meters like your RHT set up as we're no longer able to support them. There are a number of options available including different meters and tariffs.

From your post, I believe you've already been in touch with our Simpler Metering team. This is a specialist area of the business responsible for managing these changes. As the Economy 7 option our engineer came with isn't suitable, please talk to Simpler Metering again and they can go through the alternatives available.

One possible alternative is an Economy 10 meter. Like the old RHT meters, Economy 10 is designed mainly for all electric properties with storage heaters, immersion water heaters and other types of electric heating arrangements. They give 10 hours of off-peak electricity for all usage not just for heating and hot water. This is active at three times of the day in each 24 hour period - in the afternoon, during the evening and at night. This could possibly help with the issue of warmth our engineer was concerned about.

I'm not saying this is a solution as I don't know the specific circumstances. It's just one possible option you might want to look at. There are others and our Simpler Metering team are best placed to talk to you about all the alternatives.

Thank you GNTUK.

Malc

Talldave

"No longer able" or "no longer want"?

Cardew

This is a big problem in Scotland where there are several 'legacy' tariffs where energy companies have 'captive' customers.


It is often not a case of getting new meters as the property requires alteration to the wiring to be compatible with Economy 7.

GNTUK

Talldave said:

"No longer able" or "no longer want"?

Quite clearly, they don’t want to. I am getting my costs doubling. This January it has cost me nearly £500 just for January alone, and I have no escape to another supplier because no one does the 15 hour off peak tariff any longer.

stewie_griffin

I think you've incorrectly recollected what happened in the past. YEB was acquired by Innogy which until very recently had nothing to do with EON. Staywarm was a special tariff offered by Powergen (who were bought by EON) so you must have switched to them at some point. You would have paid a fixed monthly price on Staywarm so you would have only moved on to the  RHT tariff when Staywarm came to an end. The point I'm making is that EON aren't the host electricity supplier for your region so why should then continue to offer a tariff for your legacy meter setup when other suppliers don't have to offer a tariff as well. You made the decision to switch to them albeit many years ago. The original contract you agreed wasn't for an RHT tariff so I don't see how they would be found in breech of contract if you went to court.