EON cant be right

Fa1rlight22

Hi, typing this on behalf of my GF. She is at her wits end with EON, she is trying to sort her fathers energy problems out and getting nowhere. He has a smart meter and for some unknown reason, he has to submit gas readings as EON say they are unable to get them. He has been told by Eon that his DD payments are going to increase shortly.
Currently because of financial reasons, he has cut back on the mount of showers he has and now sits in the evening with candle for light.

My GF has looked into the cost of the energy and the standing charge and her fathers tariff is actually better than her suppliers tariff, yet his bills are considerably more, which don't make sense as he lives on his own in a bungalow, where as my GF lives with her 2 children, who as you can imagine eat up the the gas and the electric, 30 minute showers daily, games consoles left on 24/7, it just doesn't add up.

Eon are offering no help whatsoever so she just doesn't know where to go from here, OFGEM I guess?
Really need peoples thoughts and help on this.

Thanks for reading

N 

MattMattMattUK

Fa1rlight22 said:

Hi, typing this on behalf of my GF. She is at her wits end with EON, she is trying to sort her fathers energy problems out and getting nowhere. He has a smart meter and for some unknown reason, he has to submit gas readings as EON say they are unable to get them. He has been told by Eon that his DD payments are going to increase shortly.
Currently because of financial reasons, he has cut back on the mount of showers he has and now sits in the evening with candle for light.

My GF has looked into the cost of the energy and the standing charge and her fathers tariff is actually better than her suppliers tariff, yet his bills are considerably more, which don't make sense as he lives on his own in a bungalow, where as my GF lives with her 2 children, who as you can imagine eat up the the gas and the electric, 30 minute showers daily, games consoles left on 24/7, it just doesn't add up.

Eon are offering no help whatsoever so she just doesn't know where to go from here, OFGEM I guess?
Really need peoples thoughts and help on this.

Thanks for reading

N 

The first place to "go from here" is to look at his actual usage, how many kWh of both gas and electricity he is using and calculate if his bills are accurate. Direct Debit payments are not bill payments, your partner may be underpaying, her father overpaying, both may be correct etc. He may also have arrears. 

Thirty minute showers heated by gas will use less energy than seven minute showers heated by standard/day rate electricity. Games consoles use very little energy really (it would take 5-7 hours of playing to use one kWh on a PS5 or XBox Series X, it would take 30-50 hours to use that much on a Switch, in standby which they put themselves into after thirty minutes they use less than 0.5w, meaning it takes three months in standby to use a kWh). Modern LED bulbs use very little energy, 150-250 hours of usage to use one kWh, even my 65" OLED TV takes 6-7 hours to use a kWh. 

Your first step is to establish his usage, Ofgem is irrelevant in this situation. 

Gerry1

Candles will be far more expensive than filamentary LED bulbs, as well as being a fire risk.

No point in complaining to Ofgem.  It would be the Ombudsman because Ofgem don't deal with individual complaints.

But what exactly is the complaint?  You would need factual evidence of something wrong which E.On are unwilling or unable to  resolve, e.g. a meter being faulty or a bill being wrongly calculated.  Just saying 'The Bill's Too High !' won't cut the mustard.

Take daily meter readings and do the sums.  Probably little chance of the meter serving someone else's property, but you can do a rough check of the electricity meter by doing the Meter Sanity Test.

Make sure that he's sending the m3 gas reading, not the kWh value, and make sure they're not doing the sums for an Imperial meter.  Also watch out for the decimal point on the meter: they can be be quite hard to read.  If you see 2.83 appearing in the conversion formula they quote in the bill then he's being overcharged.

There's a big clue being a bungalow: they are much more expensive to heat because of the larger roof area: unlike a two-storey house, all the heat that goes through the ceilings is wasted.

Robin9

Does your GF's father qualify for the Winter Fuel  Discount, Warm Homes Allowance, on any benefit ? Has he received the £150 ?

Although he has gas  is he heating water by the electric immersion ?  Is that on 24/7 /

Give us some meter readings please

Fa1rlight22

Thanks everyone for all your comments, lots of good ideas, which I plan to put into play. I will keep you updated 

[Deleted User]

OP - something to check. Is the communications hub which sits above the gas meter showing the correct flashing LEDs - in particular, is the gas paired LED flashing? The gas meter ‘talks’ to a gas proxy meter in the communications hub once every 30 minutes. If the link between the gas meter to the communications hub is broken, then no smart gas readings can be pulled from the system.

I agree with @Gerry. Smart gas meters were never designed to be read manually. Some models of smart gas meter do their own gas volume to kWh conversion (why,  I have no idea as this figure is never used for billing) There are many reports on this forum of people submitting the gas reading in kWh when it should be in volume; that is, cubic metres for a smart meter. Doing this will inflate usage by c.11.22 times what it should be.

There is no point getting angry with the supplier. It can only work on the evidence that it is provided with. Is Father on the Priority Services Register? If yes, then ask for the meter to be read by a meter reader on a periodic basis. (We old people can be a bit difficult when this is suggested!)

If you want further help, a photo of the actual meter reading that Father is taking could well solve the mystery.

If you suspect that there is a meter fault, then you can ask for an independent meter check. The meter will sent away for lab testing. If a fault is found then there is no charge and the supplier will re-assess charges. That said, some basic meter tests as suggested above may well rule this out as being the issue.

Fa1rlight22

Hi everyone, just to say thank you for all your help, it’s given us a few ideas. I will report back later as tomorrow I’m going in hospital for a hernia procedure, so I’m gonna be out of action for a bit.  

Ultrasonic

Fa1rlight22 said:

Hi everyone, just to say thank you for all your help, it’s given us a few ideas. I will report back later as tomorrow I’m going in hospital for a hernia procedure, so I’m gonna be out of action for a bit.  

I had a hernia operation myself not that long ago and if similar for you it shouldn't have you 'out of action' for too long.

One comment I was just going to add to other good advice above is that if the reduction in energy use from reduced showers etc is only a recent one then this won't yet likely have filtered through into the energy supplier's data used to predict future use. It's the latter than affects DD payments set with a standardly set up account. There are alternatives but in the first instance you want to find out what is going on in terms of actual usage, and make sure all benefit type entitlements are being claimed.