Another Example of Spurious Eon Final Bill

[Deleted User]

brewerdave said:

TDolor said:

ColinD1 said:

Don't believe everything you read in a press release. The functionality may depend on them having past history or it may be disrupted by an anomalous reading. If you take the  reading being used by Eon,Green would be owing me money as I have used negative electricity. Perhaps Green have used defensive programming?
I have raised the problem with both sides, at the moment Green have been more responsive and Eon putting the blame on Green and demanding their pound of flesh and not putting the erroneous bill on hold.
I came to the forum looking for advice on a way forward. Knowing about the ARD process helps, but I as the customer do not know what has happened. What I do know is that Eon are asking for payment for electricity I have not used. You could say it's less than £150 extra and it should/may sort itself out later in the year, but if they have no process to sort it out for someone else it could be £1000 or more and the person may be out in serious financial problems.
Mistakes happen, they should be corrected lessons learnt and avoided in  the future.

It doesn’t exactly work like that. PROVIDED both suppliers use the same reading to open and close their accounts then any overpayment to the old supplier will leave you in a situation where you will only pay the daily standing charge until the actual meter index passes the validated opening meter reading. No credit will be applied to your account.


Despite what you might read on this forum, these types of problem are not that common. The ‘system’ works as it should for most consumers and it will improve when smart metering is fully rolled out and working.

Well I must be unlucky then ! Happened to me three times on switches over the past 3-4 years! Then the biggest issue I've experienced ,is that front line CS staff do not understand the "rules" . More than once ,I've had "250kwh difference is allowed" quoted back to me even when it means I'm being charged twice for units.
On one occasion ,when switching from First Utility to One Select, it never got sorted at all because of the demise of O.S - but F.U made such a mess of trying to sort it out that I ended up by ~£25 as a result of them changing my start reading with them as the SOLR from Usio !!
Furthermore, if the changeover reading is way above the actual ,then you quickly run into the "COMPUTER SAYS NO" situation when you come to enter the next month's readings - had that issue as well - good job I'm retired so I have the time to grind the b********ds down !

I agree, you have been unlucky. There were 657,000 energy switches in April 2021. If the problem was widespread, there would be a public outcry. 

LHW99

Not sure Eon's bill process is particularly good anyway. I'm trying to resulve an issue where they used the same start reading on two successive electricity bills (not the gas though) so charged twice for units. Currently into the 4th week after writing a letter (signed for, so definately reached them) without even an acknowledgement. I can see Ofgem next in line.

[Deleted User]

LHW99 said:

Not sure Eon's bill process is particularly good anyway. I'm trying to resulve an issue where they used the same start reading on two successive electricity bills (not the gas though) so charged twice for units. Currently into the 4th week after writing a letter (signed for, so definately reached them) without even an acknowledgement. I can see Ofgem next in line.

Delete ‘Ofgem’ insert ‘Energy Ombudsman Services’: a private arbitration company which is part of Ombudsman Services.

A supplier can use the same start reading on two bills if the last reading used for billing was an estimate. When an actual reading is provided, some suppliers choose to roll back the charges and re bill against the two actual readings.

ColinD1

Reed_Richards said:

ColinD1 said:

...Mistakes happen, they should be corrected lessons learnt and avoided in  the future.

@ColinD1, I'm beginning to wonder if you aren't more interested in having a moan than actually getting your problem sorted.  You have persistently failed to say what starting reading Green are using.  If you really don't know and Green really are responsive then you can ask them.  If it happens to be the same reading that Eon are using then, even though it is wrong, Eon are completely blameless.    

The immediate problem is that Eon have provided me with no option other than to stop my direct debit to avoid paying for electricity I have not used. Having searched, there have been larger mistakes. Perhaps you would like to say where your limit for providing loans to energy companies would be?

Besides the short term problem with Eon, as the reading is so wrong the first bill with Green is potentially going to foul a sanity check.

As I said mistakes happen, concentrating on determining who is to blame is useless. Eon can check the reading is incorrect because the increase for the least three weeks I was with them was significant more than the three winter months before. They wanted me to take it up with Green, which I have done. But no suggestion on what to do in the meantime. So my immediate problem is an illogical bill from Eon.

 Green have referred the meter issue to the approved process, which it looks like  is the appropriate action on my and their part. As someone else said they had problems because the readings were not sorted out in a timely way. I am much happier having money in my pocket rather than attempting to sort out things down the line. Firms make up their own rules and appear not to be accountable to the regulators until enough noise is made  but I was unable to find how they assess this.

I have not seen the statistics on how many people switch and how can we know how many go wrong?. In my sample of 1, it is 100%. If it had not been such a large amount I, like most people, would have nodded it through unnoticed. If problems are rare, they should be easy to treat individually rather  than being unhelpful as Eon were (blameless or not). In most cases charging for services not delivered is considered seriously and to carry on when you have been told could be considered theft or fraud. As I said mistakes happen, they need to be addressed not ignored or denied.

If I was looking for conspiracy I would postulate that Eon were trying to starve Green of funding and swelling their own balance sheet (at my expense). But I think finger trouble is more likely.

Reed_Richards

Eon have no choice but to take the figure that Green passes on to them.  It may be an illogical figure but Eon cannot do anything about that.  All they can do is check that they haven't accidentally corrupted the figure from Green.  By focusing all your ire and attention upon Eon you are missing a lot of possible avenues by which the problem might be sorted.  And stopping your direct debit will just be digging yourself a deeper hole.  

ColinD1

I have contacted Green and they have said they are taking the appropriate action.
I have Eon trying to charge for electric I have not used and refusing to stop the bill.
I do not know who is to blame, but I did not dig the hole.
If you have anything useful to add, please do so.
Would you pay a bill, to reduce the argument to absurdity, for £50000 knowing you did not owe it?
How would you advise the sub-postmasters suffering wrongful accusations and imprisonment?
An error has been made, an explanation needs to be found and the correction made and, if possible, steps need to be taken to correct it for other people it happened to and stop it happening.
This is the process by which quality is improved. It is unfortunate that the service industries appear to specialise in ignoring problems or blaming someone else.

[Deleted User]

ColinD1 said:

I have contacted Green and they have said they are taking the appropriate action.
I have Eon trying to charge for electric I have not used and refusing to stop the bill.
I do not know who is to blame, but I did not dig the hole.
If you have anything useful to add, please do so.
Would you pay a bill, to reduce the argument to absurdity, for £50000 knowing you did not owe it?
How would you advise the sub-postmasters suffering wrongful accusations and imprisonment?
An error has been made, an explanation needs to be found and the correction made and, if possible, steps need to be taken to correct it for other people it happened to and stop it happening.
This is the process by which quality is improved. It is unfortunate that the service industries appear to specialise in ignoring problems or blaming someone else.

The are two key issues here. One, both suppliers are required by Ofgem to use the same meter reading/s to open and close your accounts. The supplier that needs to address this problem with E.oN is Green as it has the Licence obligation to manage the transfer of supply. If you look at the graphic that I posted, you provide Green with a transfer reading; it is validated by Green’s data collector and it is then passed back to Green and on to E.oN’s data collector for onward transmission to E.oN. Two, E.oN either accepts the validated reading for Final Billing or it raises an ARD.

What would I do? I would calculate what I owe E.oN on the basis of the validated opening reading being used by Green (assuming you are happy with it). I would make a one off payment to E.oN based on what I owe, and I would cancel the DD in E.oN’s favour. I would then write to E.oN (Complaint) explaining what I have done and invite them to raise a new bill once they have agreed opening reading with Green. Remind them of their Licence obligation to use the same reading as Green to close your account.

ColinD1

I think I know that the "correct" reading should be 3824  as my reading 3 days later was 3835.
I do not know what has happened between the companies and have no way of knowing. I will explicitly ask Green what they think the handover reading is. Their app does not show this.
 I had thought of using the unable to pay the bill route, but your idea leaves me in control.
I will give Eon a day or two to reply and then contact them again.
I have no paricular gripe with Eon until they said they would take the money regardless of what I said even after I had pointed out it being grossly inflated and referred back to their previous bill and reading. I think the term is unhelpful. The customer is at the mercy of the supplier.

Reed_Richards

For future reference , it's worth bothering to take the handover reading on the day of the handover.  That way nobody, yourself included, has to make an estimate which leaves much less scope for errors to arise.  The "correct" reading is the one that Green hands over to Eon, even if it disagrees with your own estimate.  You can challenge it if you think it is too far out but not having your own reading might make that harder. 

ColinD1

The industry standard is plus or minus 5 days. Perhaps you would know what exact time the transfer occurs, so I can avoid problems in the future? Some people do have lives to lead!
"Correct" in this context mean an answer hat
 No sensible estimate would give an answer that is nearly 1000 greater than the customers reading (which would be difficult to falsify as it can be checked against the Smart meter), which I am afraid I believed would do all this automatically without any customer intervention. I did wait for the second generation meter on the hope of better functionality.
I presume you are not responsible for this estimation process or customer service at Eon?
You seem very keen to have your questions answered, but you have not said how much you would loan to Eon? More than £5000?