Wrong electriicity supplier

danco

After two years with Bulb, they have suddenly decided that they were not my electricity supplier before mid-May, and that Eon was, and have told Eon so. They are completely wrong about this. It is due to a confusion of MPANs rhat seems far too complicated to explain here. I am hoping they will correct this with Eon, but would like to prepare in case they do not.

Bulb have currently credited me with all my past payments. I have no objection if they debit me again, since they are in fact my supplier.

But I do not want to pay any money to Eon. If they do attempt to bill me, what information should I ask for? Will they tell me the meter serial number and MPAN of their alleged supply? I assume they won't be able to supply meter readings of intermediate dates. Is there anything further I should ask for or do if they do try to bill me?

Reed_Richards

danco said:

After two years with Bulb, they have suddenly decided that they were not my electricity supplier before mid-May, and that Eon was, and have told Eon so. They are completely wrong about this. It is due to a confusion of MPANs rhat seems far too complicated to explain here. ...

Without knowing what went wrong, I think people will be hard-pressed to advise on how to put it right.

Mstty

All you can really do is keep that refunded money safe.

Get all the documents you need together to prove usage over the past two years as.no doubt whoever bills you next will get it wrong.

Did you have a good fixed rate with bulb as that won't be recognised with EON when they bill you.

In short, get all Doc's together and get ready for a long, boring and frustrating time.

nyermen

I think the bigger issue will be when Eon back-bill against their standard tariffs rather than the (presumably better?) rate you have with bulb ...

You need to keep on at bulb I would assume to rectify the situation?

pochase

There are no good fixed deals with Bulb. Bulb is SVT only.

MWT

Mstty said:

Did you have a good fixed rate with bulb as that won't be recognised with EON when they bill you.

That part at least should not be a problem since Bulb only has one tariff, the standard variable rate, it has been that way for a long time.

The better question I suppose would be if the OP really had been with E.ON would they have had access to a better fixed rate than the SVT?

In any event since the OP also claims that they never were with E.ON at all then that shouldn't be a factor either...

danco

Bulb doesn't have a fixed rate. I do have all my documents from them. Also various masses of emails.

Reed, I didn't ask for advice to put things right. I asked what I should require from Eon if they are claiming my supply is with them.  They can't just bill me arbitrarily, they must give me some information as to why they think they are the supplier, and what I want to know is is what information I should ask for.

I am hoping they will tell me both the meter serial number and the MPAN that they claim they are supplying.

The original problem, dating back several years, is that my meter has been associated with the wrong MPAN (Eon confused plot number and postal address when they installed the meters on a newbuild block of flats). Bulb, who have been my supplier from shortly after I moved in, have at last managed to get meter and MPAN as they should be. But in the process they have wrongly told Eon that Bulb were not my supplier. I expect I will be able to convince Bulb that this statement to Eon was a mistake on their part, but even if they do tell Eon this, there is no guarantee that Eon will agree.

Reed_Richards

MWT said:

In any event since the OP also claims that they never were with E.ON at all then that shouldn't be a factor either...

Reading the subsequent post by the OP, I think Eon was the incumbent supplier when the OP moved in and it's the switch to Bulb shortly afterwards that is not being acknowledged as valid.  

MWT

Reed_Richards said:

Reading the subsequent post by the OP, I think Eon was the incumbent supplier when the OP moved in and it's the switch to Bulb shortly afterwards that is not being acknowledged as valid.  

That seems likely...

danco said:

Bulb, who have been my supplier from shortly after I moved in, have at last managed to get meter and MPAN as they should be. But in the process they have wrongly told Eon that Bulb were not my supplier.

So to be clear, there is no dispute over the meter serial number, just the MPAN?

... and E.ON were your supplier when you first moved in but you quickly switched to Bulb, but used the incorrectly assigned MPAN to initiate the switch, thus the correct MPAN for your address was never switched away from E.ON, which will be why Bulb are saying that they are not your supplier...

Mstty

Thanks for the replies on bulb was trying to find an upside which I think could be the following

Alternatively you could turn this round that if EON were supposed to be your supplier for the last two years you have intact missed out on some mega fixed deals and are due a discount over the SVT.

I potentially wouldn't fight it on the above and ask them historically what fixed rates you could have had on your account if you were with them.

[Deleted User]

This sounds like a classic case of meter mis-registration. When a property is built, it is allocated a plot number and a MPAN (and MPRN if there is gas). When meters are installed, they are linked to the MPAN and MPRN - not to any particular address.

Councils are often slow to allocate postal numbers and post codes to new developments so the developer has no option but to register the property as a Plot No. Sadly, the word Plot gets left off the database so Plot 5 is registered as if was No5. Yes, this is exactly what happened to me 4 years ago. I live in Plot 6 now No 14. My electricity MPAN was incorrectly allocated to No 6 and I ended up with No 5 (Plot 14).

This type of issue affects a number of properties. The key to getting it sorted out is to get the supplier to change the database. If I am correct, then DO NOT allow the supplier to de-link the meter serial number from the MPAN. If this occurs then the result will be chaos. I sense that this is what might have happened. My new build problem took the DNO (Scottish Power Energy Networks) 6 months to resolve. In the end, I walked around my small estate of 14 homes and with my neighbour’s permission gave SPEN a list of the meter serial numbers and property postal addresses. SPEN then updated the National database that suppliers rely on.