EON Massive bill?

mikejay

I can only get bills dated back to June 2019 the dual tariff free electricity was when smart meters first came out looking on google that was 2016. Has anyone got an email contact for BG or Eon as i am trying to keep all communication via email so i have backup of what is said. It also helps as I can send pictures of the readings and bills. So far I have messaged and sent meter pictures to BG on facebook messenger which has been ignored, Eon on fb messenger who said they would open up a final meter reading dispute. And today once I found the dual registers with eon on there online account chat.   

Reed_Richards

Your story is newsworthy, in my opinion.  In 2016 British Gas offered some of its customers free electricity but did this in a way that can lead to customers who later switch supplier being mistakenly billed for that free electricity years later.  I wonder how many other people have suffered from the same mistake without realising it?  Just the sort of issue that Martin Lewis could get his teeth into, I would have thought.   

MWT

Reed_Richards said:

Your story is newsworthy, in my opinion.  In 2016 British Gas offered some of its customers free electricity but did this in a way that can lead to customers who later switch supplier being mistakenly billed for that free electricity years later.  I wonder how many other people have suffered from the same mistake without realising it?  Just the sort of issue that Martin Lewis could get his teeth into, I would have thought.   

It is actually a bigger problem that that as it affects anyone who has at some point been on a two rate tariff on their smart meter and then changes to a single rate tariff.

The meter itself is working entirely correctly but it becomes vital to only use the the first register for any meter swaps or supplier switches.

I was in that position with my smart meter which started as E7, so accumulated usage in two registers, then changed to a single rate tariff so the first register continued to accumulate usage but the second register stopped.

When my meter was later changed (for reasons related to Tesla Powerwall compatibility) I noticed the engineer had only written the old meter's first register value on the meter exchange ticket and I initially thought that was a mistake, but on reflection it is of course entirely accurate for a smart meter in single register mode. 

mikejay

Reed_Richards said:

Your story is newsworthy, in my opinion.  In 2016 British Gas offered some of its customers free electricity but did this in a way that can lead to customers who later switch supplier being mistakenly billed for that free electricity years later.  I wonder how many other people have suffered from the same mistake without realising it?  Just the sort of issue that Martin Lewis could get his teeth into, I would have thought.   

Exactly does Martin Lewis ever check these pages I doubt it. But it was him on his rants about switching that prompted me to switch using his money saving club . This has been a total disaster partly my own fault for submitting the total meter count but trying to fix it is like banging your head against a brick wall. Just spent and hour trying to explain it all and it is in a meter reading dispute and will take 4 to 6 weeks to fix.How was I to know i had an old set of units in my meter. They are still insistent  i will be put on a dual rate tariff as that is my type of meter they call it day and night rates. Said I will have to submit both readings in future not total and if rate 2(night) never changes I will only be billed for rate 1 but would not answer when I kept asking will I be billed for the 3348kw in register2. She told me when I gave my 1st reading on the 18th March I gave them 23333 so subtract the 3348 from that is 19985 so inline with the smart reading BG has of 19992. And when I submitted my 2nd reading again I used the total because I did not know of 24502 again subtract the 3348 and it is 21154 and my actual reading on rate 1 is now 21202. God help any other people who could have switched and had to pay massive bills for electric BG gave away free in a promotion back in 2016.I asked her to email me the chat transcript as it was over an hour long she said I would get it after chat closes guess what no chat transcript

I have sent Martin Lewis a link and explanation on his facebook messenger account as I think this needs highlighting.

MWT

I'm sure you have tried, but the key point remains that every smart meter installed to date is capable of being in either single rate mode or multi-rate mode and it can change between those over time.

It must have been in single rate mode when you switched or you would have been asked to provide 2 meter readings for it.

They just need to leave it alone at this point.

Still feels like you are dealing with parts of E.ON that do not fully understand smart meters so I would definitely make a formal complaint and object to them changing you to a dual rate tariff as you will be paying a penalty for the 'day' rate and getting no benefit from the night rate, unless of course they change your meter back to dual rate as well which would be perverse.

Simply having a smart meter that was once in dual rate mode doesn't mean you have a dual rate meter...

mikejay

MWT said:

I'm sure you have tried, but the key point remains that every smart meter installed to date is capable of being in either single rate mode or multi-rate mode and it can change between those over time.

It must have been in single rate mode when you switched or you would have been asked to provide 2 meter readings for it.

They just need to leave it alone at this point.

Still feels like you are dealing with parts of E.ON that do not fully understand smart meters so I would definitely make a formal complaint and object to them changing you to a dual rate tariff as you will be paying a penalty for the 'day' rate and getting no benefit from the night rate, unless of course they change your meter back to dual rate as well which would be perverse.

Simply having a smart meter that was once in dual rate mode doesn't mean you have a dual rate meter...

Thanks MWT  yes spent over 1 hour trying to tell them I did not want a dual rate and they kept saying my meter is dual rate so it stays dual rate. I asked to speak to an expert in 1st gen smart meters smets1 as hopefully they would understand. But they just kept telling me its a day and night meter and the readings are still in dispute.Told me to ignore my bill? but when I first got this massive bill there app told me to change my direct debit from £65 a month to £371 to cover the bill. Which I did but can not afford it, now it wont let me lower it as it says I will owe them too much. And to think some of the comments told me to basically suck it up and pay it as I had used it Makes you wonder how many people have just done that not realising.

No idea if Martin Lewis checks his messages as he has not looked at it yet   

MWT

I would get the complaint in now, I wouldn't wait as it just extends the time to get a proper resolution.

They are heading in the wrong direction and need to be encouraged to focus on that, the complaint should help...

Gerry1

mikejay said:

MWT said:

I'm sure you have tried, but the key point remains that every smart meter installed to date is capable of being in either single rate mode or multi-rate mode and it can change between those over time.

It must have been in single rate mode when you switched or you would have been asked to provide 2 meter readings for it.

They just need to leave it alone at this point.

Still feels like you are dealing with parts of E.ON that do not fully understand smart meters so I would definitely make a formal complaint and object to them changing you to a dual rate tariff as you will be paying a penalty for the 'day' rate and getting no benefit from the night rate, unless of course they change your meter back to dual rate as well which would be perverse.

Simply having a smart meter that was once in dual rate mode doesn't mean you have a dual rate meter...

yes spent over 1 hour trying to tell them I did not want a dual rate and they kept saying my meter is dual rate so it stays dual rate

Stop phoning, put in all in writing so you have have an audit trail for the ombudsman.  Start by sending a letter headed COMPLAINT by snail mail, getting a free Certificate of Posting.

Petriix

The very simple (and somewhat obvious) solution is to make sure that your rate 2 units are also used as the opening/closing reading. Because rate 2 has been used at some point in the past, it must always be used in the future, even though it won't change.

Whether energy companies have the appropriate software to handle this situation is a separate question. But the correct switch readings must include the rate 2 units as part of both the final reading from BG and the opening reading with EON. Otherwise EON will keep trying to charge you for them.

The same issue will occur every time you switch in the future until companies come up with a sensible way of dealing with historical rate 2 usage. Maybe there already is something in place, but the more reliable solution (after getting the current billing issues resolved) would be to replace the meter.

MWT

Petriix said:

But the correct switch readings must include the rate 2 units as part of both the final reading from BG and the opening reading with EON.

Problem is that simply isn't correct.

A meter in single rate mode should only ever require a single reading at the point you switch, it is trying to handle the two registers that is causing the problem, as that requires the receiving company to switch the meter and the tariff to a dual rate status...

All was already working just fine this time with a single reading until the OP accidentally gave the wrong meter reading...