Eon Late payment fee

E-Type_Man

I have no doubt that similar questions have been raised on this subject, but I am wondering where I stand with my situation.

I moved into my property in March and immediately applied via Uswitch to change my energy supplier away from eon, as I have had bad experiences with them in the past. The date for switching was given as the 30th March and from that date on I began a direct debit with my new supplier. However Eon kept sending me bills for gas supplied. I sent eon a letter stating that they were no longer my supplier and I also contacted Uswitch and Avro my new supplier, to inform them of the situation. On 2nd of June eon wrote to me explaining that once Avro have responded to them and supplied them with a final reading, a final bill from eon would be sent. Finishing, eon said that this could take upto 6 weeks.

On 5th of june I received from eon a letter saying that, thay were about to charge me £20 as a debt collection fee if I did not pay by 14th June. Reluctantly I paid the debt via the post office on 12th June.

Now I have just received another bill from eon which was estimated and it has included the debt collection charge of £20.

My question is. Is it legal for eon to charge a debt collection fee. When I moved into my property, I did not sign up with eon and therefore, we have no legal contract between us.

Would I be within my rights to refuse to pay the £20

Cardew

E-Type_Man said:

My question is. Is it legal for eon to charge a debt collection fee. When I moved into my property, I did not sign up with eon and therefore, we have no legal contract between us.

Would I be within my rights to refuse to pay the £20

You do have a legally binding 'deemed' contract with Eon.

When anyone moves into a property they are immediately on a legally binding deemed contract with the existing supplier to the property. This contract exists until your new supplier takes over the supply. Normally this only takes a few weeks. However quite often there is a dispute about the final meter readings for the old supplier(Eon in your case) which are the start meter readings for your new supplier(Avro) this sometimes seems to cause a lengthy delay; also Covid19 seems to be another excuse for delay.

You will need to read Eon's terms and conditions to see if you are liable to be charged for late payment; I expect it will be in those T&C's.

dunstonh

I have no doubt that similar questions have been raised on this subject, but I am wondering where I stand with my situation.

Not in this section as this is the oil, LPG and alternative fuels section and EON are not active in those areas.

Would I be within my rights to refuse to pay the £20

You may wish to ask in the energy forum.  That section also has an EON rep posting there.