EON suddenly reporting to Equifax

artyboy

b4by_v said:

@artyboy @K_S @Qyburn
Thanks all for your comments, good to know I am not going mad! Very much appreciate the advice and support

You're welcome, and I think I must have been lucky in that, when I complained, they held their hands up pretty quickly and got it fixed. What I'm seeing from this thread is a woeful lack of consistency, along with some creative porkie pies. Very glad to hear you won't be letting it drop!

b4by_v

Quick update on this one, still waiting for the supervisor to get in touch with me so I chased again and have asked to get the complaint concluded with a deadlock letter so I can take it to the Ombudsman.
The lady said that I have been in arrears since August last year (when I joined Eon!) and consistently in arrears since then. There was a period when I was in credit but have been in arrears since March and it is also my responsibility to bring my account up to date since I get statements every month.

I did say that surely an energy company is supposed to let you know that your direct debit needs to be increased to encapsulate that and they have to let you know that you must bring your arrount up to date (granted I appreciate that I must take some responsibility aswel) but I don’t see myself winning this argument
I was with Eon for 4 yrs at my previous place and always had direct debits reviews with no issues there. 

The whole thing is confusing. Arrears since I joined?! Then arrears since March (which was then reported on my file in July) as adverse credit. 

I’m speechless at this whole situation

K_S

@b4by_v Honestly the person you spoke to has not a clue of how credit reports work. Being in debit with your energy supplier is just not the same as being in arrears with adverse markers on your credit report.

Energy companies can and do review monthly direct debits and adjust them if needed to smooth out the balance, that’s just how it works. 

Simply put, you’ve done nothing wrong. From my experience, their complaints process doesn’t work particularly well so perhaps it just that this hasn’t reached someone who knows what they’re talking about. If they’re not willing to budge, then keep insisting on a deadlock letter or wait for 8 weeks and then escalate to the Energy Ombudsman.

b4by_v said:

Quick update on this one, still waiting for the supervisor to get in touch with me so I chased again and have asked to get the complaint concluded with a deadlock letter so I can take it to the Ombudsman.
The lady said that I have been in arrears since August last year (when I joined Eon!) and consistently in arrears since then. There was a period when I was in credit but have been in arrears since March and it is also my responsibility to bring my account up to date since I get statements every month.

I did say that surely an energy company is supposed to let you know that your direct debit needs to be increased to encapsulate that and they have to let you know that you must bring your arrount up to date (granted I appreciate that I must take some responsibility aswel) but I don’t see myself winning this argument
I was with Eon for 4 yrs at my previous place and always had direct debits reviews with no issues there. 

The whole thing is confusing. Arrears since I joined?! Then arrears since March (which was then reported on my file in July) as adverse credit. 

I’m speechless at this whole situation

b4by_v

@K_S Thank you for your response. I am desperately pushing for the deadlock letter but they are sitting on this with no fwd movement. 
It is so frustrating! I sincerely hope that they don’t do this to others 

b4by_v

So got my deadlock letter earlier this week and just now received this from Eon too

As you’re able to use your energy in advance of payment, this is classed as a form of credit. As such we share your payment performance with a credit reference agency. If you’re up to date with your payments or pay by monthly Direct Debit, this has a positive impact on your Credit Score. Information on what we share and why can be found in our Privacy Statement at eonnext.com. This is also in your Terms & Conditions which we sent you when you joined.If you pay on Receipt of Bill your Terms and Conditions are payment in full within 14 days of bill. If you’re unable to repay within this time, there is a risk we may have to report a late payment status on your credit file.We report your payment performance based on your account status at the end of each month. This usually updates at the Credit Reference Agency around the 25th of each month.If we’ve agreed with you to accept repayment terms outside of your normal Terms & Conditions i.e. you want to repay an outstanding debt over a period of time, we’ll share this information with the Credit Reference Agency and will show on your Credit Report as an Arrangement to Pay. We’ll continue to report this until the debt is repaid.If you do not want E.ON Next to report on your credit file, you can switch to a PAYG meter where you can pay for your energy in advance. If you have any debt at the time of switch you can repay this in full or chose to have the debt loaded onto your meter and repay over a period of time. If you chose to repay the debt on the new PAYG meter, we will report this to the Credit Reference Agency as an Arrangement to Pay until the debt is repaid. We will then mark your Credit File as Closed and not report again. We’re unable to remove any valid payment performance prior to the PAYG meter installation.

ArbitraryRandom

I'm a little confused by that response, and I think I'm safe to assume I'm not the only one. 

Could you perhaps clarify that you pay by monthly direct debit, not monthly/quarterly on receipt of bill? (and that they are in fact two separate payment methods). 

I'd also ask them to confirm if this is an FCA regulated agreement - and if they say it is, then I'd lodge a complaint with eon and let them know you're contacting the the FCA (as well as the energy ombudsman) for advice as this was not made clear at the point of application/if they say it isn't, then I'd lodge a complaint that they're offering consumer credit without being registered (neither will get anywhere, but might encourage whomever is handling this issue to escalate it to someone who knows what they're talking about).  

Finally, I'd highlight the issue isn't that they are reporting to the credit agency, it's that they're reporting you have an arrangement to pay (implying to third parties you have been unable to honour debt repayments as initially agreed or have been failing to pay an amount when due). 

K_S

b4by_v said:

So got my deadlock letter earlier this week and just now received this from Eon too

As you’re able to use your energy in advance of payment, this is classed as a form of credit. As such we share your payment performance with a credit reference agency. If you’re up to date with your payments or pay by monthly Direct Debit, this has a positive impact on your Credit Score. Information on what we share and why can be found in our Privacy Statement at eonnext.com. This is also in your Terms & Conditions which we sent you when you joined.If you pay on Receipt of Bill your Terms and Conditions are payment in full within 14 days of bill. If you’re unable to repay within this time, there is a risk we may have to report a late payment status on your credit file.We report your payment performance based on your account status at the end of each month. This usually updates at the Credit Reference Agency around the 25th of each month.If we’ve agreed with you to accept repayment terms outside of your normal Terms & Conditions i.e. you want to repay an outstanding debt over a period of time, we’ll share this information with the Credit Reference Agency and will show on your Credit Report as an Arrangement to Pay. We’ll continue to report this until the debt is repaid.If you do not want E.ON Next to report on your credit file, you can switch to a PAYG meter where you can pay for your energy in advance. If you have any debt at the time of switch you can repay this in full or chose to have the debt loaded onto your meter and repay over a period of time. If you chose to repay the debt on the new PAYG meter, we will report this to the Credit Reference Agency as an Arrangement to Pay until the debt is repaid. We will then mark your Credit File as Closed and not report again. We’re unable to remove any valid payment performance prior to the PAYG meter installation.

@b4by_v Thanks for the update. I don't understand how this would apply. Since you've got a deadlock letter, I suppose there's no point discussing with Eon anymore, it's something to take up with the Energy Ombudsman. 

The important points here appears to be these -

If we’ve agreed with you to accept repayment terms outside of your normal Terms & Conditions i.e. you want to repay an outstanding debt over a period of time, we’ll share this information with the Credit Reference Agency and will show on your Credit Report as an Arrangement to Pay.

I'm not sure what they mean by the part in bold. If they mean ANY direct-debit customer with a debit balance that will even out over time, then that would include every single of their customers who carry a debit balance, and that would be a substantial number of people. I had a debit balance when Eon upheld my complaint and took off the AP markers, as did (I assume) the other posters on this thread who had their complaints upheld. In fact I still have a debit balance, though a small one now.

In my head, how it works is - if the energy company sees a debit balance building up, they take into account the balance, your annual consumption and then adjust the DD amount upwards so that it chips away at the debit balance and evens out over time.

I know that they do this, this is what my last email from them adjusting the payment looks like. It's only a notification, not asking for my permission or anything, following which the DD went up from May. 


If the customer misses any payments, professes an inability to pay the new amount, or needs help, contacts Eon and then Eon agrees to charge a lower amount, then I would agree that that may constitute an 'Agreement To Pay' or 'Arrangement To Pay'. But if none of that has happened, and you've paid your monthly DD set by Eon religiously on time and in full, then I just don't see how an AP even arises. 

The only other thing I can think of is that your case is somehow different to myself and others that have posted on the thread as we all appear to have complained about the same issue but only you have got a different outcome at the Eon complaints stage.

Please do escalate to the Ombudsman and update the thread when you have any movement on this. Good luck! 

badmemory

It sounds to me like now would be a really good time to change suppliers & go to the papers.  There could well be a lot of reporters paying by DD not realising how they are being affected.  That would cause a landslide leaving only those with a really large outstanding balance still as customers.

artyboy

With that deadlock letter, I think that this could be a good time for Martin or someone else at MSE towers step in and publicly name and shame these cowboys.

"Energy customers credit files wrongly trashed - EON refuse to accept they are wrong" - or some similar headline.

Utterly disgraceful behaviour from them.

b4by_v

@ArbitraryRandom
Thanks for your response as I am too. I’ve had emails from 4 different people at Eon now. I asked the last guy when I had agreed to this payment plan and he said I didn’t (the system generated this automatically). 

I do pay D/D monthly but they seem to be missing anything I say tbh.

I can certainly respond to her and ask about the FCA regulation. Tbh, cannot remember what was said when I joined but I don’t recall anything being said about that on the phone (I could be wrong but I don’t recall).

Regarding your last point (I tried to do the quote thing and failed miserably!!) but thatnis exactly my issue. Thank you! I have not missed any payments, would have no issue if my D/D had to increase to cover arrears or anything but I have not had a payment plan in place so it looks like I have and as you say, cannot honour my committments. 

I’ve sent my deadlock letter to the Ombudsman today (i came down with covid on tuesday) so not felt good enough until today and just waiting for a case handler to be assigned so I can get on with the escalation but this was a very confusing response particularly AFTER she issued the deadlock letter on Monday. I assumed the case was closed.

I will of course keep you all updated on this thread with my progress as other people are being ripped off in the same fashion