Question about EON / EON Next bill dispute

GeoffKeig

Good afternoon all - I hope I am posting in the right area and that some of you may be able to give advice on a bill we have received from EON Next. It might be worth giving you the background by the email I'd prepared for EON Next (minus personal details):

"Dear Sirs - We were shocked and surprised to receive a bill in August stating that we had used 2,386.5 m3 units of Gas in the period May to August 2022.  To put this is perspective, we use an average of approximately 1600 units per annum so it was clear that something had gone amiss either in our supply or the billing system itself.  This caused us to look back at readings over the last year or so to try to identify how this had occurred and we found the following: -

In June 2021 we gave a reading of 34012 for our gas meter.  The September bill had an estimate of 34,125 for the same meter and the initial December bill had an estimate of 34,679.  This bill was subsequently replaced by a new bill when a reading was taken.  When we supplied the reading in December 2021, we accidentally transposed a figure incorrectly and submitted a reading of 32,608 (which should have been 34,608). 

Looking back we are shocked that the incorrect reading didn’t trigger an immediate warning - as we had been told it would.  It was nearly a years worth of supply lower than the actual reading we’d given more than six months previously (in June 2021) and clearly an error. 

The error was compounded by your actions in changing and backdating your estimates on the revised bill to fit the new reading we’d given.  You also took the June 21  out of the Gas part of the revised bill but kept it for the Electricity. This meant that when the bill came to us the readings all seemed in order and we didn’t therefore immediately spot the mistake that had been made.

Here are the list of readings and my comments: -

Reading date	Electricity	Gas	Comments
17 Jun 21	65959 A 12510 A	34,012 A	These were actual readings and correspond to previous bills
Sept 21	66,752 E 12,586 E	34,125 E
Dec 21	67,560 A 12,879 A	34,679 E	As we had provided actuals for Electricity we then supplied a reading for the Gas and awaited the amended bill we were told to expect
Dec 21 - revised bill issued by you	67,560 A 12,879 A	32,608 A	Clearly this is an incorrect reading for gas and should have been 34,608 (unless the meter is running backwards). To illustrate how out this reading is, given our annual usage is about 1600 units, this reading is almost a years use below that provided in June.
How EON estimates changed in the revised bill	These were shown from the period Jun to Dec including the June Actual reading.	Eon backdated their readings to show Aug 21 32510 E and Oct 32547 E - they then omitted the June Actual reading	By backdating their estimates and then omitting the June Actual reading, EON made it almost impossible to identify the mistake without trawling older bills - but the linear readings gave no prompt to do so.
Aug 22	70,847 A 13,449 A	35,773 A	This is a correct reading, corresponds with what we estimate our annual usage at 1600 if the June 21 actual figure is used. Otherwise it implies we’ve used 3,165 units since Dec 21 which we have not.

I presented the above information to EON Next (eventually opting  for a telephone call) and said I was not disputing the energy usage, but that they applied the wrong amount of usage to the wrong time and I asked them to recalculate and resend a bill.  For information - we did not photograph the December 21 reading.

After consulting his manager for a long time, the EON Next call handler came back and said:

1. EON Next have operated correctly in by getting reading done (which we did) in August then calculating a bill based upon that reading.

2. EON Next cannot consider the December mistake as it was EON, not EON Next providing the service.

3. EON cannot recalculate or backdate our previous readings as they have decommissioned our old meter as we now have a new smart meter.  (Effectively this is the "computer says no" response.)

Obviously we were migrated to EON Next without being asked nor being made aware that any past errors would not be able to be resolved. They didn't answer why it was possible to give an actual reading in Dec 21 some 1,300 units of energy lower than the previous actual reading in June 21 (which they accepted).  Nor did they say why this didn't generate some sort of warning or investigation (it was not far off a year's worth of energy).

Obviously I have registered a complaint.  Initially the call handler said "Okay but we'll only close it off as I have already spoken with a manager". I said fine, write to me on that basis and I will take it further. Then they changed their tune and said a manager will call me as soon as they were free. That was yesterday lunchtime - nothing yet. Nor have they written confirming their complaint's procedure which they also said they'd do.

A couple of other things to note.  The invidious way energy is billed makes comparison extremely difficult as direct like for like periods almost never exist. The call handler said "Well we sent a bill and you received a credit to your account which you should have noticed."  Actually what happened was they sent a bill which by backdating and changing their usage estimates reflect the incorrect reading, implied nothing was wrong.  Furthermore they never credited my account - they credited their own held in my name but didn't change the DD I was paying (which I would have noticed).  The reality is that many would simply pay it - and I think that is wrong.

If you've stayed with me over this long thread my apologies, but could I ask the following:

1. Are there any rules or things you can see in the above that prevent me from pursuing an accurate bill?

2. Are there any recourse rights that I may not have thought of that I should raise with them?

With thanks for you patience and high levels of concentration.

 

ariarnia

so did they credit your account with the equvalent of a years worth of energy when they rejigged the readings? because if they did and you didn't change your DD then it should roughly balance. assuming your dd was at the right level. the issue would be if the rate has significantly gone up (i don't know if you're on a fix?) so the same amount of energy is now more expensive than they refunded. 

I'm confused when you transferred from eon to eon next (chronologically). we were with sainsburys then moved to eon next a couple of years ago and when we had to query a bill the person helping us sort it could contact the team who could access the old accounts and see the old readings. so they should be able to see and verify the usage from before you transferred to eon next. Maybe not a call handler or their manager but someone in the complaints team. 

i'd make your email simpler and just email that the opening reading for your account with eon next was in error and you would like them to correct it.

a picture of the meter from when you were switched would be helpful but whoever decommissioned it should also have recorded the last reading as it would be unlikely it would have been the same as the last reading you gave. and you don't need a picture from December if you have a picture from earlier or that you can conclusively date showing usage higher than 32k before the incorrect reading was given. 

if you have the old bills from eon then you can attach them to the email (so if they say they can't access the records from eon then they should accept a bill issued by eon). The bill from June 2021 for 34k shows that the 32k reading must have been a mistake. 

[Deleted User]

I'd stay well clear of discussing your "couple of other things".

Crediting your account in this context almost always means crediting your energy account.

And calling billing "invidious" because they went back and changed estimates based a new 'actual' reading seems like a strange idea.  Wouldn't you expect an 'actual' reading to override estimated readings?

born_again

Seems they have updated procedure as I queried why I did not get a gas statement this month..
I made a inputting error with my reading which I give every month 🤦‍♀️

This was their reply.

Your meter reading on 31 August 2022 does not fall in line with previous readings.

The reading we received was 1575.0 and the previous reading was 5165.0. 

GeoffKeig

[Deleted User] said:

I'd stay well clear of discussing your "couple of other things".

Crediting your account in this context almost always means crediting your energy account.

And calling billing "invidious" because they went back and changed estimates based a new 'actual' reading seems like a strange idea.  Wouldn't you expect an 'actual' reading to override estimated readings?

If the actual reading was lower than an actual reading given six-months previously then yes, I would absolutely expect this to trigger some sort of investigation and not necessarily be taken at face value.  Especially if the new "actual" figure represented a year's average usage lower than the previous reading.  To not show the previous Actual reading on the gas - but to do so on the Electricity (which was correct) also seems strange.  Otherwise what point are meters? Given that rates change (more often recently admittedly) then incorrectly reporting usage has potential to significantly affect bills when a phone call could have sorted it. 

So, to be clear, not showing the previous actual reading that they already accepted and then backdating readings to not highlight the new erroneous reading does seem to me invidious.    

GeoffKeig

born_again said:

Seems they have updated procedure as I queried why I did not get a gas statement this month..
I made a inputting error with my reading which I give every month 🤦‍♀️

This was their reply.

Your meter reading on 31 August 2022 does not fall in line with previous readings.

The reading we received was 1575.0 and the previous reading was 5165.0. 

That's really helpful thank you.