Eon DD price rise - Cheap Energy Club

Gerry1

You haven't made an effective comparison.

In my area with your usage figures I obtained the following results, inc VAT.

£1561.23 Separate Suppliers, Variable

£1643.45 Dual Fuel, Variable

£1659.11 Separate Suppliers, Fixed

£1801.70 Dual Fuel, Fixed

£1833.42 Your result

Start comparing with Citizens Advice and 'Which? Switch' !

RTF

Someone has pointed out that @ £560 metered arrears we have more than 28 days worth of debt, and will be BLOCKED from changing enrgy supplier.  Sigh.  We've had conversations with them on the phone today (although we were bounced around x 3 for more than 1 hour)  An offer of a DD reduction from £224 pm to £197 pm was made, but rejected by us. 

They agreed that for new customers they are offering much lower tariffs, but the way they say their conscience works is that these rates cannot be offered to loyal existing ones, but only new ones.  Apparently I can get a written copy of a new offer and use this to bargain with them for a lower new customer rate. Really?  What do the sick, old or vulnerable dowhen faced with all this malarky? 

Has anyone ever CANCELLED their direct debit and started paying manually, this way regain control of the payment amount?  I don't ever want to be in this situation again.

Robin9

You still owe the money -  can you clear the debt?

You can stop the DD  but all will happen is that you will be put on  a more expensive tariff.  

PS Have read the electricity meter yet ?

niktheguru

RTF said:

Someone has pointed out that @ £560 metered arrears we have more than 28 days worth of debt, and will be BLOCKED from changing enrgy supplier.  Sigh.  We've had conversations with them on the phone today (although we were bounced around x 3 for more than 1 hour)  An offer of a DD reduction from £224 pm to £197 pm was made, but rejected by us. 

They agreed that for new customers they are offering much lower tariffs, but the way they say their conscience works is that these rates cannot be offered to loyal existing ones, but only new ones.  Apparently I can get a written copy of a new offer and use this to bargain with them for a lower new customer rate. Really?  What do the sick, old or vulnerable dowhen faced with all this malarky? 

Has anyone ever CANCELLED their direct debit and started paying manually, this way regain control of the payment amount?  I don't ever want to be in this situation again.

DO NOT CANCEL YOUR DIRECT DEBIT unless you want even more misery. Don't do things that are going to make life harder for you.
Your electricity and gas use doesn't seem too out of the ordinary, you do seem to be a high gas user. Do you have an old boiler? is your heating on all the time? Has the consumption readings tailed off in the last month with the hot weather? (if the consumption is the same then it may suggest there may be something wrong like a leak....i doubt anyone has had their heating on this month!)

If the amount you owe is TRULY what you owe you need to pay it off as soon as possible (if you can afford it) and then switch suppliers.....don't use moneysupermarket, use "citizens advice bureau switching tool" as it will give you a greater variety of companies and deals. If you cant pay it off right away then pay as much as you can monthly with your direct debit so that you can get out of the debt and then switch.

RTF

We live in a small 2/3 bedroom house.  Our friends with much larger houses have lower consumption.  My young son does have Raynauds condition (side effects of a cardiac condition & medicine he has to take) which means he shivers with the cold and turns blue on his hands, feet, lips, etc, even on normal days, so I guess it is possible we are using more gas on the C/H is all I can think.  Boiler is not too old circa 2009.

I have a debilitating condition (EDS) which leaves my semi paralysed and bed ridden for months, I can't keep track of everything all of the time but I just wished I'd taken meter readings, written it on a piece of paper, and posted it to them when their smart meter and website was not working.

The timing is terrible the £100 pm increase is intolerable, I have had to pay out a lot of medical expenses in the past few months, there are more to come, plus the car has broken down. I will sort it myself/ speak to my bank/ get a gas leak test/ tell the wife our cheap holiday break is cancelled.

Thanks everyone for the very useful feedback.  I've learn't a lot.   After this never again will I use Eon.

niktheguru

I truly sympathise with you. Living with Ehlers-danlos can be extremely challenging and indeed your sons raynauds could be why you have a heating bill on the higher usage bracket.
In future it would be good to either take meter readings monthly, or just to ensure that the meter readings are accurate on your bill, this can either be by checking your online account periodically or checking your bills when they come. You need to try your best to ensure that bills aren't based on ESTIMATEs for any period of time. I do appreciate with you illnesses you've had other things to worry about and this happens.

The reason for such a high direct debit increase is that the payments you have been making have obviously not been covering your actual usage. So firstly it needs to be increased to ensure it covers your monthly usage. Then it needs to be increased even further to start to pay off the debt that has accrued on the account, so it will seem like a massive increase. The lower the increase the longer you will be in debt to these companies.

Also, it may be worth trying to see what in your house is using all your energy, are the inefficient appliances, do you heat the water up too much in the day, do you have electric showers? etc etc. Small changes can add up to reducing your usage. 

Good luck! 

IanC_IB

RTF said:

...we had the smart meter installed just before lockdown, but then it didn't work nor take reading until just recently

Hi

Hopefully you're still around to read this .

If EON installed a smart meter in ~March 2020 but only started issuing bills with readings from it in June 2021 then they should write off any amount that is over 12 months old (eg from March 2020 to June 2020).  This is a part of the back-billing regulations that they have to abide by.

Post back if you think it might apply and want more info / help.