EON

Spiersey01

I am in need of some advice please.

My husband passed away three weeks ago from Motor Neurones Disease. Following his diagnosis in Dec 2018 we moved to a bungalow when his mobility deteriorated. At our old house we were with Eon for elec and gas and transferred them with us to the much smaller bungalow. Eon set my DD at £30 per month. My husbands condition meant that he needed a lot of high level medical equipment at home including, hospital bed, electric air mattress, powered wheelchair, feeding pump and most notably an NIV ventilator to keep him alive. He used this equipment for approximately 1 year before he passed. This equipment was permanently plugged into the electricity, we had no choice for this to be the case.

When I contacted Eon to advise them of my husbands passing and to remove his name from our joint Eon account, they made me aware of a bill of over £2000 outstanding on my account and told me that in order to account for the usage over the last year and the outstanding balance my monthly direct debit would need to be over £300 per month.

My husband leaves me with 2 children and a household to run and although I will shortly be returning to work I have been unpaid since May 2018 due to becoming his full time carer. There is no way I could afford that sort of outgoing on one bill.

Now of course it was my obligation to check what was happening with the Eon bills however when you are a full time carer for somebody with Motor Neurones Disease and the toll that takes on a person, checking your emails is your last priority and besides which in my old house my DD’s for Eon went up and down according to usage and this was something they did automatically.

When I queried why EON had not adjusted my DD to avoid such a large debt accruing I was told that it is my responsibility to check the email bills they send me quarterly and that they do not keep a check on peoples accounts.

Since my husband passed and all of his medical equipment was turned off I can see on my smart meter that the usage has dropped significantly and where we were once seeing £45 per week it is now more like £12, I explained to Eon that it is obvious that what caused such high usage in this 2 bed bungalow in which we rarely even put on the heating must have been his medical equipment but this is falling on deaf ears.

I am struggling to know how to sort this out myself and right now having just lost my husband I am feeling very worried about this and just need some expert advice please.

Biscuit_Tin

Spiersey01 said:

I am in need of some advice please.

My husband passed away three weeks ago from Motor Neurones Disease. Following his diagnosis in Dec 2018 we moved to a bungalow when his mobility deteriorated. At our old house we were with Eon for elec and gas and transferred them with us to the much smaller bungalow. Eon set my DD at £30 per month. My husbands condition meant that he needed a lot of high level medical equipment at home including, hospital bed, electric air mattress, powered wheelchair, feeding pump and most notably an NIV ventilator to keep him alive. He used this equipment for approximately 1 year before he passed. This equipment was permanently plugged into the electricity, we had no choice for this to be the case.

When I contacted Eon to advise them of my husbands passing and to remove his name from our joint Eon account, they made me aware of a bill of over £2000 outstanding on my account and told me that in order to account for the usage over the last year and the outstanding balance my monthly direct debit would need to be over £300 per month.

My husband leaves me with 2 children and a household to run and although I will shortly be returning to work I have been unpaid since May 2018 due to becoming his full time carer. There is no way I could afford that sort of outgoing on one bill.

Now of course it was my obligation to check what was happening with the Eon bills however when you are a full time carer for somebody with Motor Neurones Disease and the toll that takes on a person, checking your emails is your last priority and besides which in my old house my DD’s for Eon went up and down according to usage and this was something they did automatically.

When I queried why EON had not adjusted my DD to avoid such a large debt accruing I was told that it is my responsibility to check the email bills they send me quarterly and that they do not keep a check on peoples accounts.

Since my husband passed and all of his medical equipment was turned off I can see on my smart meter that the usage has dropped significantly and where we were once seeing £45 per week it is now more like £12, I explained to Eon that it is obvious that what caused such high usage in this 2 bed bungalow in which we rarely even put on the heating must have been his medical equipment but this is falling on deaf ears.

I am struggling to know how to sort this out myself and right now having just lost my husband I am feeling very worried about this and just need some expert advice please.

Sorry to haer of the recent death of your husband.

The supplier has indicated it is now seeking to adjust the monthly DD to recover the accrued debt on the account, presumably over the period it accrued, as well as to address ongoing consumption.

If regular meter readings are available to the supplier, and they see your consumption reduces now, the monthly payment should be reduced slightly in time to reflect lower ongoing usage.

Other options are to pay off the debt now, whioch would reduce the monthly payment and allow you to seek a new supplier/tariff if you need.

If there really is "no way I could afford that sort of outgoing on one bill", the supplier may seek to install a PPM to recover the debt. That will probably also result in you paying a higher charge for the ongoing consumption.

Hope you sort things soon.