Dubious charges to hike up average bill

NorthtoWest

I was with Bulb energy before they folded. I was moved to E-on Next in October '21. I have been paying £85 a month for my gas and electric. By the time each quarterly bill was issued I have always been in credit. Just before it was time to calculate the new direct debit amount in April (with the hike in electricity costs), E-on Next made 8 charges to my account making me in debit by -£990.26! They then recalculated my monthly direct debit to £190.76! Then reversed these charges! I had a back and forth, via email, with their customer services dept who would not answer the question as to why they had made these charges/refunds. I escalated it to the complaints department. The answer came back:

"When you were initially billed, there were anomalies in the calculations that were system driven as part of the move of supply to us. This was re-billed from November 2021 to March 2022, and is why the bill shows multiple reversed charges and them replaced with correct charges". - They didn't replace them with correct charges - they literally charged my account -£990, recalculated my DD they refunded these charges!

"On the back of rebilling your charges, the payment review we completed shows that the payments you need to be making to cover the consumption you use and so you do not remain in a debit balance every month (as you were prior to the the balance going up to £900 odd), that £190 is better suited" 

I have now been able to reduce the monthly DD but I think this is disgusting behaviour.  As your article says, a massive percentage of customers didn't think they could challenge their new DD amount. Anyone else experience anything similar?