No electricity bill from e.on for 17 months

LM25

 I am writing this in order to see if anyone can advise - if anyone has experienced similar issues and can help me with next steps.

I was with e.on from Sept 2019-Sept 2020, and did not receive a bill for my electricity throughout that duration of time. I spent hours and hours chasing this throughout the year, to just received apologies, and was told they were looking into it and there was nothing for me to do my side. I had to then follow up, and speak to someone else and repeat the same issue again and again. This did not get resolved and I chose to leave e.on due to the issues and level of service. Upon leaving, I received a final bill and nothing was even mentioned about the lack of electricity bill - which shows how poor they were at dealing with the issue. With my old supplier, I would monitor my electricity bills monthly to help me with budgeting/ etc, so I was frustrated that I had no visibility of this and I didn't want to receive a higher than expected bill, especially since I had changed supplier.

 On February 1st, I finally received my first and final electricity bill from e.on for Sept 19 - Sept 20. This was only after I had been chasing Shell energy (my new supplier) for my bills, but they said they couldn't give this due to receiving no meter readings from e.on, therefore raised a dispute. The bill is much higher than expected and higher than I used to pay with my previous supplier too. Obviously it is also in one lump sum too. Yesterday, I spoke with e.on about the bill and asked for compensation, and expressed my issues with the level of service I received. I also flagged that I should only pay from Feb 2020 due to Ofgem's back billing protection and that I should received at least £30 compensation due to the delay. I was told that someone will be in touch with me in 7-10 days - overall they weren't very helpful and couldn't answer any of my questions. This left me even more frustrated, as I have no answers regarding the bill and have wasted another 1.5 hours on hold most of the time. I also want to avoid late payment charges on the bill so this is another concern.

 I am wanting to check where I should go from here, and what I should do next, as well as how much I should be paying? If anyone can advise it would be greatly appreciated.

 Thank you in advance for your help.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

do you have opening and closing readings for your time with e.on from Sept 2019-Sept 2020?

niktheguru

Did you complain in writing at all during the year, either email or post, or was it all done over the phone?
Did you take meter readings throughout the year, you say you normally do for your records.
This matter is really easy to sort out. You should have a meter reading that you gave shell when you moved to them. You should also have a meter reading from the previous provider you left to join eon. Those are therefore your opening and closing readings with eon. It is very easy to work out how much you need to pay eon as a result. 
If this is higher than what your "direct debits" were then you should have to pay the short fall. However you can as you have stated argue regarding the backbilling rule, seeing as you made efforts to get bills from them. (but do you have proof of this?) (However unless you have meter readings from february 2020, that will be another minefield of trying to predict what the reading should be for feb.)

Make sure you take an accurate meter reading NOW. (also take a picture of this reading with a mobile phone that has a date stamp) Is it higher or lower than your final eon read?

LM25

Hi,
Thank you for the replies. I do have meter readings from the start and end of the contract with e.on. I also have live chat evidence of some of the conversations with them where I have chased for the bill.

I actually had a phone call from e.on this evening offering a discount of around £90. They said this is the maximum they will give, but I can take it further if I wish with the ombudsman. They said if I choose to reject the offer and take further there is a risk I could end up having to pay more than the discount offered depending what they think. I believe based on rough calculations I should have been discounted around £50 extra going by the back billing protection and £30 compensation. I am thinking I may just accept the offer from e.on as it is still a good saving at least. What are your thoughts?

niktheguru

You still haven’t answered many of the questions asked, so it’s difficult to give any accurate thoughts on your situation.
if you have all the meter readings you can easily calculate if you’ve actually been over or undercharged for the energy you’ve used.
you seem to be well versed in the back billing regulations and the auto compensation entitlements (or at the very least you’ve looked them up, which is good) so it doesn’t sound like you’re an absolute beginner with utilities.
so it really depends upon what you are looking for in this scenario. Are you looking to pay the accurate amount for the energy you used, are you looking for how you can write off the most (due to back billing) or are you looking for how you can get the most compensation out of them?

it all depends upon what you’re willing to accept really, I certainly wouldn’t accept being overcharged, but if through the 90 quid compo you’ll have paid less than you owe then that seems ok. If you want to fight further due to their incompetence you can go to the ombudsman, but it may take more time and is dependent upon whether you want to wait to get a bit more money or whether you want to just draw a line under this and move on.

dogshome

Back- Billing rules certainly apply to some of the energy on this Leccy bill.

The rule is that when a supplier fails to bill, they can only Bill for energy that has been used in the last 12 months, and that 12 months is counted back from the Date on the first bill they did manage to produce

So if this First and Final bill is dated 15th February 2021, they can only bill from 16th February 2020, and the costs of Power from Sept X 2019 until 15th February 2020 must be written off - Do the sums to see how the offer of £90 shapes up

No idea how much Elec you use, but £90 seems cheap for 5 Winter months