EON ignored supplied readings/faulty smart meter and marked credit file when estimated bill rejected

heartwear

Provided that the opening and closing readings on a switch are the same, then the issue becomes has the old supplier been overpaid to the detriment of the new supplier or vice versa? If the readings are not the same, then this needs to be addressed. 

Underpaying the old supplier (that is, the actual meter index reading was significantly higher than the estimated reading on switch) will result in a high bill when the new supplier raises its first bill using a meter reading. However, an overpayment of £100 to the new supplier does not mean that there has been a significant overcharge. The true cost to the consumer is (new unit price - old unit price) times the incorrect number of units.

For example:

An estimated reading of 05000 was used for the switch but the true meter reading was 05250. The old supplier has lost out on payment for 250 units at say 30p/kWh or £75. The new supplier then includes these 250 units in the first bill at say 40p/kWh: that is, an unexpected £100 goes to the new supplier.

At this point, consumers get agitated about the £100 when, in truth, the difference is only £25. 

Switch readings are validated using an agreed industry formula. Switch readings that are different from those provided by the consumer are usually down to the fact that estimated readings have been used for billing in the past. Suppliers will not just accept consumer switch readings as often meters are misread and in the present market situation, I suspect that many people lie.

@[Deleted User] - I think what you describe (my emphasis in bold) is exactly what had happened with every one of my energy providers. Maybe the person who lived in the property before me gave a wrong reading once and my actual readings where then so much out of line that nobody used them. In 2021, when EON put the marker on my credit file that I still owed them £188, I re-investigated all bills I had copies of since I had moved in. I went through the ones from EON, then EDF, then British Gas, to try and piece together a timeline of readings, where it had gone wrong and why none of the providers used any of my actual readings. I remember Green Limited said to me in a chat that they needed to investigate what I had provided as opening readings in April 2021. But they never came to a conclusion. When they went bust in September 2021 and Shell Energy took over they said the same and rejected my opening electricity reading, saying it was not in line what they had received from Green. Green never got a chance to issue me with a bill because the opening reading they had received from British Gas was way higher than what I had provided.

But my question is - if EON realised our smart meter is not working why did they not come and fix it? Are they as a business not bothered that there a 50:50 risk that they are undercharging me by using their estimates? I just want to pay what I really owe.

[Deleted User]

heartwear said:

I followed what the goodbye letter from EON asked me to do, that I didn't need to provide any readings and they would get them from EDF. If EDF had asked me to provide a reading, I would have done so. Annoyingly, I do not have a copy of the first bill EDF sent me for the period 30 April to 27 August 2018, only for 28 August 18 to 30 April 2019. So to answer your question, I don't know what the opening reading was. I didn't understand why I had to keep a record of readings myself. 

I take it that you are unable to retrieve all previous bills/meter reads from EDF via your online account with them (assuming you have set this up) and in particular the very first bill/meter reads - whether they used your reads (which you say you did not provide to them) OR  industry validated estimated opening reads that should match the closing reads on the final EON bill.

I'm surprised that EDF cannot tell you what the opening reads are going back commencing 30th April but I've never used EDF before.  Best of luck resolving your issue.

EDIT:  Just seen that you do have the opening readings 10039 on 29 April 18 so you now need to verify that this same 10039 opening read is the same as the closing read for the final EON bill. 

[Deleted User]

heartwear said

But my question is - if EON realised our smart meter is not working why did they not come and fix it? Are they as a business not bothered that there a 50:50 risk that they are undercharging me by using their estimates? I just want to pay what I really owe.

Smart meters are not clever enough to tell suppliers when they have ‘failed’. What is a failure? It could be the communications hub; it could be that network connectivity is poor when the supplier initiates a data pull and so on. 

The only ways that a supplier can get to know about a failure is if the customer tells them, OR if their billing system is set up to flag up that a system-generated smart meter bill has failed or that estimates have been used.

Even Octopus which uses half hour usage for billing its time-of-use tariff customers relies to a large extent on its customers telling me that there is an issue. Just the loss of one of the 48 daily usage segments results in a bill failure. Smart energy bills need to be checked as the present system is far from being considered to be fully mature.