EON confusion

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Helena

Hiya Huggamugga and thanks for the update.

The first thing to do is to get the accurate meter read to us, so the account can be re-billed and you'll know exactly where you stand. I mentioned a photo, because if the read is really different this is something we may ask for and Live Chat is the quickest way to get this to us. 

Once that has been produced we can look at the Direct Debit amount again to ensure this is covering usage and any balance there may be.

There does appear to be a bit of confusion over the credit/debit thing. This will be clear once you have a re-vised up to date bill. It sounds like the account is in debit and credit your mum is referring to, are the payments she's made by Direct Debit, I could be wrong here.

It's worth looking at how the home is heated, if everything in the property is electricity only, this can be quite expensive, especially over the winter months. 

As I say, your mum can give permission for you to speak to us, if that would be better.

Helena

Robin9

@Huggamugga    When you've got the authority to speak set up you can arrange for the meter to be on the must read list.  

If the Eon projections are right - then your mum at £41 has been seriously underpaying  - but lets get the readings sorted.

I belive you said you tried to input readings online - does that mean you can also download old bills  ?  Look for one with A for Actual on them -   meter readers are rare and you may have to go back in time.

What is your mums heating - storage rads, panel heaters ..............

macman

You can send meter readings without having an online account, which is what the OP appears to have been trying to do. But because of a possible earlier misread, the reads are being rejected. I would urge the OP to set up the online account immediately so they can see exactly what is going on here. All they need is the account number and address. 
Then they can access the full billing and read history.
Based on only paying £41 per month, I suspect that the £723 balance is actually a debit, not a credit, and Eon have now hiked her DD to recover the debt owing.

Huggamugga

it is a debit and not a credit...i am getting a photo of the readings today and also sorting the letter of authority so the whole thing will take the pressure off my mum.  She is electric only and has obviously been massively underpaying.  I don’t think my dad knew how to read the meter so it was not done and I was unaware that the bill had gone so awry.  I think the problem with the readings we have taken is that they appear to be way lower than estimated.  As i say she lives in a small cottage and is loathe to turn the heating on.

thanks again

Gerry1

If she's using plug in electric heaters in the daytime (panel, magic dust, convectors, fan heaters, electric fires, halogens, oil filled radiators etc) then nothing else is more expensive (apart from using them on an Economy 7 tariff !).

nottsphil

Gerry1 said:

If she's using plug in electric heaters in the daytime (panel, magic dust, convectors, fan heaters, electric fires, halogens, oil filled radiators etc) then nothing else is more expensive (apart from using them on an Economy 7 tariff !).

Let's hope that last bit doesn't prompt the gasless to switch to a single rate tariff

Gerry1

nottsphil said:

Gerry1 said:

If she's using plug in electric heaters in the daytime (panel, magic dust, convectors, fan heaters, electric fires, halogens, oil filled radiators etc) then nothing else is more expensive (apart from using them on an Economy 7 tariff !).

Let's hope that last bit doesn't prompt the gasless to switch to a single rate tariff

It's quite surprising how many people think it's cheaper to use halogens, fan heaters etc rather than GCH or NSHs.  Perhaps it's because the small physical size makes them seem more 'innocent' than using a big boiler or NSH.

Unfortunately, far too many people have no clue about the cost of a kWh or how many kWhs they use; they are fixated on their fixed DD and nothing else, so they make wrong decisions all too easily.

macman

In the time taken to make these posts you could have had the online account up and running. It's fairly pointless getting a letter of authority for you to administer the account: it could take weeks for that to make it's way through Eon's admin system, especially with staff WFH. Ongoing, if you aren't nearby, you need to run it online.
It's also likely that your mum is paying a premium for paper billing rather than online.

nottsphil

I don't think you get my drift Gerry! 
 If you read your post again you still might not see how that last bit could read that nothing else is more expensive than using those items on an Economy 7 tariff. To you and me (though not initially), it's obvious that last bit also referred only to daytime use. But for somebody with little understanding of the concept of split rate tariffs, I don't think it would be.

Gerry1

nottsphil said:

I don't think you get my drift Gerry! 
 If you read your post again you still might not see how that last bit could read that nothing else is more expensive than using those items on an Economy 7 tariff. To you and me (though not initially), it's obvious that last bit also referred only to daytime use. But for somebody with little understanding of the concept of split rate tariffs, I don't think it would be.

TL;DR: If you're on an E7 tariff, never rely on electricity for your main heating unless they're Night Storage Heaters.

==================

Nothing is more expensive than heating using daytime E7 rates (except burning £50 notes), we're certainly agreed on that.

But unless you're a complete night owl, using plug-in on-demand heaters on an Economy 7 tariff is almost certainly going to work out be more expensive than using single rate.

The E7 day rate may be about 15p/kWh and the night rate about 8p (YMMV), so the savings at night (probably only the immersion heater, assuming it's on an E7 switched circuit or a correctly set up local timer) will be dwarfed by the expensive day rate when the vast majority of room heating will take place.  Having to rely on electric heating is bad news, but it gets even worse if you have E7 but no NSHs.