Eon-next Customer Services gone AWOL?

Tealights

Exasperated and at my wits end with eon-next non-responsive customer services ... Has anyone heard from them in the past week or two? My fixed rate deal ends soon and they sent me a renewal email re transfer to SVT .. the figure on the main body of the email looks to be fine and in line with the EPG. However, when I click through to get to the new tariff it gives me figures for Standing Charge and Unit Rates that are way higher than the EPG rates.

It also flags up that I could get lower rates if I paid by Direct Debit (arranged via FB or Twitter) - which is odd seeing as I have been paying by DD .... I have a Smart Meter and was paying by DD without any problems. 

Until now ...
When I looked at the proposed tariff figures that eon-next is asking me to sign up to in more detail (I've not been offered choices), it's giving me rates customers who are NOT paying by Direct Debit and telling me I'm paying on receipt of bill .... but I have not cancelled by DD ...

However, the government payment in October covered my bill so nothing was taken from my bank ... I don't know if that's what's causing the confusion but eon-next are not answering their phones, not responding to the WhatsApp message they ask you to send them, not responding to email , not responding to the DM I sent the on Twitter... I just don't know what to do !

I am not prepared to select a tariff with daily SC & unit rates p/kwh etc that are far higher than those for direct debit customers when my direct debit is still theoretically active - I haven't cancelled it  ... but am running out of time before my current rate expires and getting so anxious I don't know what to do with myself!

Has anyone here had any luck getting eon-next to respond to them? It's been more than 5 days since I sent the WhatsApp and more than a week since I sent the email ... and their response has been nada, zilcho ... You don't even know if you're in a queue when you phone them .... it simply repeats on a loop a message to go online if you want to give them a meter reading (I don't) and to use WhatsApp message to get to speak to someone - but they don't call you.  Any suggestions? I'm tearing my hear out!

[Deleted User]

Just ignore it.  If you don't choose a new tariff, you end up on SVT.  If you have a direct debit and it isn't cancelled, you end up on the DD SVT.

If you find out later that you've been charged the wrong rate, it's a simple complaint and easy to demonstrate.

Mstty

Have you tried their community forum?

eastcorkram

AWOL for me too. Had been having an ongoing email conversation with them , which has been going off and on for months. They usually respond within a day or two for each message.
The last thing they asked for was a ten second video of the meter. This proved to be too big to email, and I've no idea how to make it smaller. So I sent them three still images from the video, showing the three different things shown on the meter during 10 seconds.
They've not responded to that.
Worst company I've ever dealt with. I know people say that about all the suppliers, but I've no idea how anyone could be worse than these .

Tealights

Thanks SparkyGrad - so I don't need to select anything? I won't be left without a supplier if I don't renew/select etc? That's what I think you're saying but I'm not sure I understand you correctly ... I have "ignored" it so far in as much as I haven't selected the tariff they're showing me but at the high rates for "pay on receipt of bill" customers .... oh well perhaps I just need to wait and see but I don't want any problems. 

....   At the correct rates for DD customers, my bill - even at the October -> March prices would be covered by the government payment but at the rates for non-DD customers it would not be. They want to charge around 56p unit rates and very high standing charges also - that's way above the EPG prices.

Mssty - yep thanks I have looked at their community forum - loads of complaints! Their customer services team seem to be utterly overwhelmed and inundated - and perhaps their computer billing systems can't cope with all the changes either. I have tried to Register to ask a question on the forum but keep getting an error message so can't even register! I don't appear to be already a member as when I tried a password reset request (in case I joined in the past and forgot) the reply was that they didn't recognise my email address. I am at my wits end as I say ... and I just hope that SparkyGrad is correct when he advises to ignore the renewal email.

eastcorkram - thanks and good luck! I've never had problems with them before but they seem to have been caught completely on the hop with all these changes and their level of communication seems worse than Liz Truss (who??!!). I really hope you get it sorted. Yes I don't know if any of them are particularly good ... but eon-next now are having a laugh .... and it's all too stressful by half.

elsien

Yep, having a similar game trying to get sense out of someone with regard to a faulty smart meter. The person replying to emails clearly didn’t understand English and didn’t record anything we sent to them. Twitter got things started initially but it’s been well over a week now and no further response. Managed to get hold of someone on the phone today after being on hold for about 45 minutes But again due to previous operatives not having recorded anything that was discussed we were going round in  circles about what had already been done, and the promised callback that I was absolutely guaranteed to get by the end of today obviously hasn’t happened. 

I think it’s fair to say they’re not at their best at the moment.

ETA you are correct in your understanding that if you don’t do anything you will just go automatically onto the standard variable tariff, and you’re not going to get cut off or anything like that.

Tealights

hhmmmm - I've just found this on eon-next site - but surely that doesn't give them the right to put you onto the higher rates for customers who don't pay by DD? That cannot be permissible, surely?

• Fixed Direct Debit customers will receive the money automatically as a deduction to their monthly Direct Debit. If a customer's EBSS payment takes their Direct Debit below £1 we may put them on a ‘payment holiday’, where we temporarily pause the Direct Debit."
  
  
  

Tealights

Hi elsien - good luck sorting your smart meter! Amazing they answered the phone to you - but yes how ridiculous if they haven't recorded anything from previous conversations. It's not typed in during the course of the call? No email trail? Bizarre ... I've so far had no response at all ... was on hold for over an hour the other day and zilcho. I will try again tomorrow morning

elsien

I think it’s fairly normal for customers who don’t pay by direct debit to pay a slightly higher rate, I think that happens with other providers as well. If you don’t want to fix a monthly payment, you can get around that by setting up a variable direct debit so you just  pay for the energy that you’ve used. Is that possible for you?

Nope definitely no email trail, no record of the photos sent by email. We’ve now hit the 8 weeks after which we can go to the ombudsman. They did try to close the complaint when they arranged an appointment for someone to come out, but I refuse to allow them to until the person had actually been and then the appointment was cancelled a couple of hours after the person was due to have arrived. Obviously no record on the system as to why the appointment was cancelled. But we still have an open complaint so that’s probably the next step.

[Deleted User]

Tealights said:

....   At the correct rates for DD customers, my bill - even at the October -> March prices would be covered by the government payment but at the rates for non-DD customers it would not be. They want to charge around 56p unit rates and very high standing charges also - that's way above the EPG prices.

It's not a DD vs non-DD thing that's got you worried actually, looking at that comment.

That's the old October cap prices, not the actual EPG prices that you will be charged.  E.ON Next (and others) have had big problems updating their systems to show the new tariff details, particularly on renewals and quotes.  Their billing system uses the right numbers though.

You won't be getting charged 56p per unit - it will be less than 37p (the highest non-DD EPG price I know of is 36.67p).

Tealights

Thanks again SparkyGrad - it's helpful to know that those are the October prices - or what they would have been BEFORE the EPG was announced ...

But even so, DD customers pay less than non DD customers - so why are they charging me a non-DD price at all? It's not my fault that with the EBSS my DD would be less than £1.00 ....

Can't they keep me as a DD customer and simply have the DD set at zero for a few months? They'd be getting paid anyway (by the government) ... And my account would build up credit for a while ...

The highest non-DD rate you mention is still higher than the DD rate - ok not by nearly as much as  it appears from the figures I've been quoted but it's still different. And I don't know how or when I'll be billed if I'm no longer on a DD ...

So, should I ignore them or do I indeed need to Select the new SV tariff even though the (only) one they're offering me is NOT for payment by DD and hope for the best?