105 year-old being charged £295pm from June by Eon - please help.

victor2

Hoopie said:

Thank you. She is currently paying £137pm as from March. It goes up to £293.45 from June 1st.
I have not seen any evidence of debt anywhere, eg red letters, and I've been reading her post for about a year now.
The Nov bill shows £392 paid (6 x £42 plus £3.52 credit from last bill, plus warm homes discount of £133), and elec charges of £555 (estimated readings). With a new balance of £187.50
Almost all her meter readings are estimated.
She has not provided readings as she is 80% blind. 
I think I'll go and find some more recent statements

If you have authority to manage her account, and are prepared to do some work for her, there are a few things you can do...

Submit meter readings now, and be prepared to submit them monthly for her.

Is a smart meter feasible for her? You say she lives in a flat, is her meter in the flat? Eon are rolling out smart meters, so worth asking them if they can do it for her. Some of their tariffs require you to agree to them installing smart meters if they can. There might be a benefit to switching in the future to a tariff requiring a smart meter, but the immediate benefit will be that it will remove the need to submit readings and Eon won't have to estimate.

If she doesn't have an online account, set one up for her so that you can keep an eye on things. I did that for an elderly relative and used a new email address purely for that purpose, so I can monitor that as well.

See what the balance is on her account. Is there a debit balance?

Maybe the meter reading you gave triggered a large catch up bill and increase in DD.

If there is no accurate usage to go on, it is next to impossible to estimate what her annual usage is likely to be. Monitor the account through the summer. Her usage should be relatively low, so it's a good time to clear the debit balance (if there is one). Also might be a good time to talk to Eon and see about reducing her DD. She is presumably on their standard variable tariff, so rates will go up in October, but you could aim to get the account straight by then, if not in credit a bit.

Hoopie

Miraculously, Eon have just set up her account online and I can access it. 
The latest statement is today. This shows:
She is not on the cheapest tariff - yet no-one mentioned that to me from Eon.
Her elec charges from  11th Feb 22 (estimated) to 11th May (reading taken with photo evidence) are £185.97 - so 3 months worth. So £100 less than she's being changed for one month from June!
Estimated annual use Day is 8093
Estimated annual use Night is 2809 kwh.
And estimated annual cost is £3511 - for someone living alone?
There is something here I really really don't understand.... I am very grateful for any help.

QrizB

Hoopie said:

Estimated annual use Day is 8093
Estimated annual use Night is 2809 kwh.
And estimated annual cost is £3511 - for someone living alone?

That's a lot of day rate electricity, and very little night rate.

On the current single-rate variable tariff, I make that something like £3300/yr, so yes, £3511 does sound right for that consumption.

Ideally she'd make much more use of her storage heaters (cheap night rate) and less use of her plug-in radiator (expensive day rate) but that's still ging to leave a bill of over £200/month.

If you can't make that change, switching to single-rate electricity rather than E7 could save money. Can you give full tariff details - unit rates for day and night, plus daily SC - and tell us which region she is in?

Unlike some, she can afford to pay a reasonable bill, but I simply don't understand why it is so high? I live in a semi-det house with 4 people and pay less than half of her new bill.

I would expect your semi to have gas CH, not electric storage heaters. Despite the price rises gas is still 1/2 to 1/3 the price of cheap rate electricity, and 1/4 the price of day rate.

pochase

Hoopie said:

Miraculously, Eon have just set up her account online and I can access it. 
The latest statement is today. This shows:
She is not on the cheapest tariff - yet no-one mentioned that to me from Eon.
Her elec charges from  11th Feb 22 (estimated) to 11th May (reading taken with photo evidence) are £185.97 - so 3 months worth. So £100 less than she's being changed for one month from June!
Estimated annual use Day is 8093
Estimated annual use Night is 2809 kwh.
And estimated annual cost is £3511 - for someone living alone?
There is something here I really really don't understand.... I am very grateful for any help.

You mentioned her using electric radiators  when it was cold. How often was that?

Using electric radiators is the most expensive way to heat, and even more so if you are on an E7 tariff.

The estimated use went from 

'Estimated use  in last 12 months
Day 1208kwh, Night 5140kwh, Total 6348'

in October to 

Estimated annual use Day is 8093
Estimated annual use Night is 2809 kwh.

You urgently need to submit a meter reading here, The estimates are all over the place.

In October the share of the day rate was 19%, now it is 74.2%. Or did you post one of the two the wrong way around? 

victor2

Hoopie said:

Miraculously, Eon have just set up her account online and I can access it. 
The latest statement is today. This shows:
She is not on the cheapest tariff - yet no-one mentioned that to me from Eon.
Her elec charges from  11th Feb 22 (estimated) to 11th May (reading taken with photo evidence) are £185.97 - so 3 months worth. So £100 less than she's being changed for one month from June!
Estimated annual use Day is 8093
Estimated annual use Night is 2809 kwh.
And estimated annual cost is £3511 - for someone living alone?
There is something here I really really don't understand.... I am very grateful for any help.

The estimated 11th Feb readings are unfortunately pretty meaningless, as is the resulting charge.

However, going forward, you will see accurate billings if you give readings. Eon Next (as they now are) generate statements whenever you give readings. You (and Eon) will not be able to estimate annual usage until another winter has passed with actual readings. The day/night split is not going to be realistic through the summer either, so all you can do is give monthly readings for now and monitor the account. Make sure you download and save any statements Eon produce, so you have a record of the account's history.

What does the online account show as her balance? Debit or credit?

Robin9

Hoopie said:

Thank you. She is currently paying £137pm as from March. It goes up to £293.45 from June 1st.
I have not seen any evidence of debt anywhere, eg red letters, and I've been reading her post for about a year now.
The Nov bill shows £392 paid (6 x £42 plus £3.52 credit from last bill, plus warm homes discount of £133), and elec charges of £555 (estimated readings). With a new balance of £187.50
Almost all her meter readings are estimated.
She has not provided readings as she is 80% blind. 
I think I'll go and find some more recent statements

You won't see any red letters everything will be on the bills she gets -  you need to look at the bottom line.

No reason why you shouldn't set up the online account with your email.  She can ring up with you by her side and thenhand over to you to give them meter reads.

Then read those meters - Estimates are bad news news -  they can mislead thinking things are OK but actually hide bad news,

kazwookie

Estimates are of no real value what so ever.

You need to get to see the meter, photograph the reading, inc the serial number of the meter and get that submitted to the supplier on a monthly basis.

Hoopie

Thank you so much everyone. This has been so helpful and I feel more confident in dealing with Eon now. Now I am able to get to her online account I will be providing readings every month. I will certainly query the estimated annual use, the figures I have given are the ones supplied by Eon and written as shown. I have also moved her to a cheaper tariff and asked for a smart meter.

kazwookie

Forget what eon have supplier you / her with.

Get your own readings, off the actual meter, these are the ones you need.

victor2

Nice to hear some positive feedback!