Eon send HUGE bill after no bill for 8 months

Robin9

Looking at your meter readings, assuming reading 1 id day and reading 2 is night you used 4000 kwh day time and 6000 night time in 14 months. Your day time is high.
Do you take 15 min showers - then that's 50p EACH, EVERY day that alone is £30 a month.

RelievedSheff

MS15 said:

RelievedSheff said:

MS15 said:

JJ_Egan said:

Right you failed to supply meter readings so supplier estimated.

Do you have your opening meter readings + the last reading you gave .

If so do you know your tariff prices . Total to be paid can be worked out less amount actually paid .

opening meter reading 1) 36063 2) 32354 (23/01/19)
last reading 1) 40171 2) 38398 (31/03/20)
Not too sure about tarrif prices, where would i find this?

On your bills or on your online account.

If you are on the standard variable rate you will be paying an extortionate rate and need to get onto the best deal EON can offer you ASAP.

Unfortunately you will be stuck with EON until the debt is paid back as they won't allow a switch to a cheaper supplier with that amount of debt.

EON seem to have put your direct debit at £180 which won't be enough to cover your debt and what you are using so you really need to think about raising that as well to get the debt cleared as quickly as possible.

it states that my current tarrif is £1267 for 12 months, so how have they charged me £1500 for 8 months?

No it doesn't read it again. It will estimate, and that is only an estimate how much energy you will use over 12 months. You have used more then that estimate so are being charged for what you have used.

You are best off just ignoring the estimates on your bills, submitting regular meter readings and keeping track of your own usage. Remember that as the months get warmer you will useless energy.

Richie-from-the-Boro

It's all (in great detail) available on your online account. I'm all electric and use 8500kWpa. Of course 70% of that is winter use. You must supply regular (and photograph-evidence) your meter readings each time you do this. You are going to use £1k-£1500pa, depending on your use/tariff budget/plan for it. Need further help - ask. Lotsa good helpful people here.

Tell the group NSH/panel/wet electric + tariff name/area code + get best tariff after you've paid off your arrears. Best of luck.

MS15

Thank you everyone for all your help, you live and you learn i guess. Currently setting up a payment plan to pay off the debt. I for sure will not make the same mistake again. You have all been very helpful and i can't thank you enough for explaining things in a way that i could understand. 

matelodave

No thats not your tariff - thats a guesstimate of how much leccy you'll use and gives them a base figure to work out your DD.
The tariff is the cost per kwh and the cost for your daily standing charge. If you have an economy 7 tariff you'll have two rates for the kwh. A lower one for off-peak (usually between around midnight and 7 am which provides hot water and storage heating) and a much higher peak rate for all the rest of the time. It will be written on your bill

using your figures -  opening meter reading 1) 36063 2) 32354 (23/01/19)
last reading 1) 40171 2) 38398 (31/03/20)
means you've used 4108 kwh at rate 1 and 6044 at rate 2. based on those I'd guess that rate 1 is off peak and rate 2 is peak.
Do your own sums to work out what you've used (use your own tariff figure - this is a guess but shows you how to do it)

rate 1 (off peak = 10p/kwh) = 4108 x 10p = £410.8, rate 2 (peak = 15p/kwh) = 6044 x 15p = £906.60 which give a total of £1317 plus what ever your dailystanding charge is.(say 20p/day).
There are 433 days between 23/01/19 and 31/03/20 so your standing charge is 433 x 20p = £86.6 so your total cost from 23/01/19 to 31/03/20 based on my guesses is £1317+ £86.6 = £1403.6.
Spread over 14 months = £100.26/month is what you should have been paying.
However if you only paid £30 a month you'll have only paid 30 x 14 = £420 so you'll be around £983.6 in arrears which means that not only do you have to pay for your onging leccy you also have to pay the arrears back so divide 983.6 by 12 = £81.96 which has to be added to your normal £100.26 DD = £182.22 an month which is what your DD should be to pay off your arrears in 12 months - you might be able to negotate a longer repayment period but even over 24 months it will be around £140 a month.

Do your sums using your own figures and you should be able to work it out. You then really do need to learn how to send in your meter readings every single month and to check your bill every single month so you know aht you are using, how much it's costing and what you can do to reduce your consumption. You also might ask if you can get onto a cheaper tariff

Gerry1

Find out whether you have storage heaters, on demand heaters, or both.  If you couldn't pick it up by yourself and if it's ever still warm half an hour after you've switched it off, then it's storage.  They normally come on overnight and need to be on E7 with a circuit switched by the meter.  Look at the meter when it switches over in the late evening (dial 105 to check the times) and make sure that the cheap rate register starts clocking up.

As you're out in the daytime you might find it cheaper to use the storage heaters only overnight Fri>Sat and Sat>Sun and to use plug in on-demand heaters in the week.  If you read the meters daily you could try this and see which method works out cheaper.  Remember to turn the storage heaters' output control to minimum when you go to bed and turn them up when you get home in the evening or when it gets chilly.

Don't use instantaneous electric showers: they'll cost a fortune because it'll usually be at peak E7 rate.  Check the rating plate (or assume 10kW), just do the kWh sums, don't forget 5% VAT: you'll be horrified !  Instead, use hot water from the tank heated by the immersion heater on cheaper E7.

Find out whether the immersion heater (the lower one if there are two) is on a circuit switched by the meter (good) or by a local timer (bad).  If there's a timer, it's important to make sure it mimics the E7 times exactly, otherwise you're paying the crippling day rate.  A motorised one is problematic because it will get permanently thrown out of kilter by power cuts, so check at least weekly.

There may be a Boost heater halfway up the tank.  Leave it permanently switched off: it's only for use in an emergency, to give you half a tank of very expensive hot water if you're run out in the daytime.

Torry_Quine

Just to say I pay £40 per month, all electric and on N Scotland
 I'm often astonished how much some pay.

Robin9

Torri - I don't know your age or lifestyle, type of property  - but just because you can heat, light, cook and live for £40 doesn't mean others can. 

The OP is a youngster, learning some facts of life the hard way. Probably full of excitement at independent living.

My wife and I are OAPS in a 1970's detached in the Midlands - there's always someone at home, I'm an early bird, my wife a night owl. Gas heated.  My electric is above the average of 10000 kwh  - I pay about £60 (and I know I can and need to improve on that)

matelodave

we are the same, both of us at home all day, heating on all day and it comes on overnight if its cold but we do have a heatpump so our £78 a month for just under 7000kwh just cannot be compared with anyone else. We are also aware of what use and when we use it after over 50 years of paying our own bills. I don't think we were quite as clever when we started out on our own in 1969

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

MS15 said:

Hi, I am 19 and moved into my own flat just over a year ago, i am with EON and was paying £25-£30 a month for electricity from January 2019 to July 2019 when they stopped sending bills. I tried several times to contact them but either the phone would be put down or the online live chat would lose connection. Now after 8 months they have sent a bill of £1500 which suggests i have been spending £180+ a month on electricity which just doesn't make sense. I live in a one bedroom flat with my partner we both are out the flat for the majority of the day from Monday-Saturday due to working and university. We have tried to contact EON again today but due to the current circumstances of COVID-19 no one is around to answer out calls as it is not an emergency. 
I am worried and stressed as i can not pay this huge bill. Please Help.

Hello MS15 and welcome to the Forums.

Already some excellent advice on here - thanks all. I agree with what others have said. It sounds like you've had a catch-up bill following a series of estimates where we haven't had accurate meter readings and the charges have been lower than the electricity actually used. Totally understand, these can come as a shock and that's why it's best to do what others on here have said and give us readings on a regular basis. Catch-ups can also give a false picture as they lump more usage than would be expected into a shorter period of time.

Don't worry, we'll be happy to set up a payment plan to spread the balance over a more manageable period. From a later post, am I right in assuming you've already been speaking to us about this? If not, we've advisors available through the Live Chat service on our website and on our Social Media channels - twitter and Facebook. Availability is limited due to the Coronavirus pandemic. At the moment, we're prioritising emergencies, supporting our vulnerable customers and keeping homes on supply. This is against falling staff levels that have forced us to close a number of areas.

As a result, we might not respond immediately depending on the priorities we're dealing with at the time and I would ask for your understanding and patience at this difficult time. Whilst bills and reminders will continue to go out, collections activity will be paused and there'll certainly be no disconnections. It would be good if you could agree an arrangement as this will start to reduce the debt and make the account more manageable when we come out the other side of this pandemic. A Direct Debit also gives cheaper daily standing charges and unit prices per kWh.

Just to pick up on some other things mentioned on this thread. One thing you can do straightaway and if you haven't already, is set up an online account. It's easy to do via our website and this will let you look after a number of things independently including giving readings so bills can be kept accurate.

You can change tariff too. I suspect you're on our standard Energy Plan. We've more competitive tariffs available and you can switch to one of these yourself through an online account. The change will take place immediately meaning, going forward, you'll be paying less for the electricity you use. At some point, there's the option of changing supplier as well. As others have said, the outstanding balance would need to be sorted first.

Another benefit of an online account is the ability to manage a Monthly Direct Debit. It's a great way to keep on top of your account and to make sure the payments are covering the ongoing usage as well as bringing down the debt.

It sounds like the meter is a two-rate Economy 7. These are often found in all electric properties with storage heaters. With Economy 7, there are 7 continuous hours of cheaper off-peak electricity at night for all usage. Make sure you use as much electricity as needed during these off-peak hours. Storage heaters usually charge up during the off-peak hours and then gradually release the heat throughout the day. Follow Gerry1's advice here for an effective way to use them.

There's lots more information on our website about how to save money by saving energy.

Hope this is of interest MS15 and stay safe.

Malc