Back Billing limitations, E.ON energy and Complaining to the Ombudsman

JEvans2580

Hello,

So, we had a healthy £1600+ in our energy account which felt like a bit too much so we decided to take £1000 out to pay off a loan.
We emailed our supplier (E. ON) and asked them to reimburse £1000 to us and took photographs of our meters.

They returned to us and told us the picture of the gas meter wasn’t correct so we redid this and emailed it back to them again.

A few days later a lady at E. ON responded to our request. Thanked us for our meter readings and invoiced us £600+ which had already been deducted from our account.

We weren’t given any explanation for this really, just a generic invoice for gas and electricity between May 2021 and now. They also didn’t acknowledge the refund request at all in the response.

We phoned E. ON, the customer service assistant and myself went back and forth for a while (Perfectly decent human being), they were very vague about why we had been billed, just that due to some discrepancies between May 2021 and now there was some money owed. Eventually, after a fair bit of back and forth, they told me there had been reverse charges (Either May or December 2021) for the exact amount that I had been invoiced for and at the time due to an admin error this hadn’t been reflected on my account.

After a bit more back and forth they acknowledged that this was their error and also eventually I got them to say out loud that their app which I use to track my monthly statements was ‘incorrect’ and that the balance I was being shown in my monthly reports and live on my app had also been incorrect this entire time. (There was a lot of TV politician answers before I eventually got this answer).

The person on the phone admitted 3 mistakes had been made by E. ON, 1 for my Gas Bill, one for my electric and one in the original email from the lady for not responding to our request and said it was policy to refund £10 per mistake made meaning they would offer me £30.

I pointed out that every statement from May 2021 onwards would have also been a mistake, which he actually acknowledged and agreed with. He then slowly calculated that this would be either 16 or 60 mistakes, time line was awful. He then stated that this was a lot of money (Apparently 300 is a lot when they’re refunding it but 600 I should be able to pull it out of my bum at the drop of a hat when they decide they’ve made administrative mistakes) and that he would have to ask his supervisor if this could be refunded.

We were on hold for a while and he came back and said they felt the mistake regarding billing could be seen as 1 mistake and therefore could only offer me a refund of £30, I asked him how I could escalate and they explained they would send me an email acknowledging the complaint was unresolved and directed me to the ombudsman.

I am awaiting this email but wanted to ask;

1) Do I stand a chance here? Or should I have taken the £30

2) Am I correct in my understanding that an error in 2021 would be outside of the Back-billing principle and does this matter?

It’s worth noting that within 10 minutes of this, the original lady handling our request sent us a follow-up email where she acknowledged the request and offered us a little over 800 back as we would still need to leave enough in the account to cover this month’s bill in case (presumably?) our direct debit was to bounce.

To note, this was a few days ago now and instead of receiving an email confirming the complaint is to be unresolved and I can move forward to the ombudsman, they've now sent me an email explaining how I can begin their complaints procedure. 

QrizB

1. Take the £30.

2. Back billing is not straightforward. If you have credit on your account, you are unlikely to see any back bills written off. Also, they can reverse any refunds.

[Deleted User]

If you look at your old bills you should be able to determine what has gone wrong with your account. Waiting until there is a credit of £1600 seems a little odd to me given the increase in energy prices last year.

MWT

JEvans2580 said:

To note, this was a few days ago now and instead of receiving an email confirming the complaint is to be unresolved and I can move forward to the ombudsman, they've now sent me an email explaining how I can begin their complaints procedure. 

It doesn't sound like you actually had an open, formal, complaint at the time of the phone call, so it would seem to be correct that they are telling you how to begin the complaint process.

Similarly if the error was an incorrect reversal of a charge rather than a previous failure to bill for energy used then the back-billing rules are not going to be much help as this is just a correction of an accounting error, not a failure to bill...

Similarly as QrizB has said, even when the problem is a failure to bill for energy used over 12 months ago, the supplier is allowed to use the account balance and DD payments to cover the use and to reverse any refunds given, so it doesn't look like you'd have much chance of anything more than the £30 customer service gesture. (also I agree with their assessment that the mistakes are single occurrences, you don't get to claim that every subsequent statement is a new mistake).

MeteredOut

The cynic in me thinks the OP suspected/knew they were being undercharged and waited for 2 years before requesting the credit back in the hope that E.ON could then not try to back-bill

[Deleted User]

MeteredOut said:

The cynic in me thinks the OP suspected/knew they were being undercharged and waited for 1 year before requesting the credit back in the hope that E.ON could then not try to back-bill

This was one of the concerns expressed by energy suppliers when Ofgem consulted on putting the Code into the Supply Licence. 

CSI_Yorkshire

MeteredOut said:

The cynic in me thinks the OP suspected/knew they were being undercharged and waited for 1 year before requesting the credit back in the hope that E.ON could then not try to back-bill

It is baffling to me (although it probably shouldn't be) how many people think that backbilling means "everything more than a year ago is free".

JSHarris

I think the very best lesson learned here is that we all need to take the time to make sure that we keep track of our actual energy usage.  I came to this conclusion about three years ago (for a different reason entirely) but have realised that there is a very real benefit in knowing exactly how much energy we use each hour and day.

I'm in the unfortunate position of not being able to have a smart meter, so instead I installed a MID certified energy meter that has an RS485 connection to my Home Assistant server.  Knowing exactly how much energy we use, and when, has been a tremendous benefit.  I did this initially to determine if a battery storage system made sense, but have since realised that the greatest benefit is being able to track usage and ensure that our billing is correct.

Given the changes that have taken place within the energy industry in recent years I think we all have to try and keep our own records if we can, even if this is just noting down meter readings.  The incidence of suppliers making errors seems to be higher now than it used to be (although I will say straight out that that's a subjective opinion - I don't have hard data to support it).  Being able to look back at past usage and check this against bills is something I think we may all need to do in future.  Not only is it some insurance against this sort of issue, but it also helps with managing energy costs.

gbhxu

CSI_Yorkshire said:

MeteredOut said:

The cynic in me thinks the OP suspected/knew they were being undercharged and waited for 1 year before requesting the credit back in the hope that E.ON could then not try to back-bill

It is baffling to me (although it probably shouldn't be) how many people think that backbilling means "everything more than a year ago is free".

Try Ofgem

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/check-energy-back-billing-rules

CSI_Yorkshire

gbhxu said:

CSI_Yorkshire said:

MeteredOut said:

The cynic in me thinks the OP suspected/knew they were being undercharged and waited for 1 year before requesting the credit back in the hope that E.ON could then not try to back-bill

It is baffling to me (although it probably shouldn't be) how many people think that backbilling means "everything more than a year ago is free".

Try Ofgem

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/check-energy-back-billing-rules

The OFGEM that says:

"You can’t be charged for gas or electricity used more than 12 months ago if you have not been correctly billed for it, or informed about it via a statement of account, before."

That's a big couple of 'ifs'.

And there's more in the actual rules.