No meter readings, back billing, Eon,

hullensien

A quick update
EoN responded last night and apologised - bills have been sent out every month to an address that didn’t exist - their actual comment was “ I can see from the account that we have been issuing monthly bills to the address shown as we never had notice that at didn't exist” - well they wouldn’t would they.
They also have a “reading” of 1220 on one of the meters dated 25/10/2020 (property was unoccupied at that time and had been for 6 months) and that has generated the latest estimate of 5889 - the meter actually reads 834 today??
Finally something occurred to me yesterday. I don’t know where these have been going to, but they have been going somewhere in the village - population circa 250. The address inside the envelope is correct (hence one eventually got pushed through the door) and whoever opened and read it will have identified “The Occupier” as my partner as she is sole resident (apart from when i’m here). It is now become apparent that Debt Collection letters have also been sent out to the erroneous address. I’m quite sure everyone in the village knows the contents of these letters/bills. I’ve raised a further complaint for what i would class as a serious breach of GDPR.

CSI_Yorkshire

hullensien said:

 I’ve raised a further complaint for what i would class as a serious breach of GDPR.

Yeah, completely forget about that idea.  There is no GDPR breach here and it will only distract from solving your problem.

hullensien

Latest from EoN - salient points from a fairly lengthy email

The only readings they have were given to them from the previous electricity supplier when the account was transferred to them in October 2020 - they have never taken a reading. I am also aware the property was empty for 6 or 7 months prior to that.

On one of the meters, they advised the reading given to them in October 2020 was 1202.7 - it’s only 834 today - that meter is not connected - therefore none of the readings can be relied on when calculating potential usage?

They admit they have been sending monthly bills to the incorrect address since January 2021

They admit there is a potential GDPR breach - although addressed to “the occupier” this is not anonymised as there is a sole occupant. The contents of the bills imply that a large sum of money is outstanding and a debt collection process has been invoked - would this not fall under the release of “financial data”?

They advise that the address they have been sending correspondence to is not the legal address for the MPAN - they then went on to say “that was the billing address asked for by the previous customer and unless a new customer tells us differently we would not know” - on the back of that how would we know we were the new customer?

Any advice on next steps please?

CSI_Yorkshire

hullensien said:

The only readings they have were given to them from the previous electricity supplier when the account was transferred to them in October 2020 - they have never taken a reading. 

So these were readings agreed through the industry-approved switching system.  Real readings.

hullensien said:

I am also aware the property was empty for 6 or 7 months prior to that.

Irrelevant.

hullensien said:

On one of the meters, they advised the reading given to them in October 2020 was 1202.7 - it’s only 834 today - that meter is not connected - therefore none of the readings can be relied on when calculating potential usage?

A reading was given, approved, and validated.  This does not mean all readings can be ignored.

hullensien said:

They admit they have been sending monthly bills to the incorrect address since January 2021

hullensien said:

They advise that the address they have been sending correspondence to is not the legal address for the MPAN - they then went on to say “that was the billing address asked for by the previous customer and unless a new customer tells us differently we would not know”

There is no such thing as a "legal address for the MPAN".  So what they have admitted is that they have been sending monthly bills to the address that they were told to send them to.

hullensien said:

They admit there is a potential GDPR breach - although addressed to “the occupier” this is not anonymised as there is a sole occupant. The contents of the bills imply that a large sum of money is outstanding and a debt collection process has been invoked - would this not fall under the release of “financial data”?

Which means they've asked someone internal to check, because the customer service rep sending you the email doesn't actually know anything about GDPR.  It doesn't mean that they have, or will, find any 'breach'.

hullensien said:

“that was the billing address asked for by the previous customer and unless a new customer tells us differently we would not know” - on the back of that how would we know we were the new customer?

When you move into a property, you contact the supplier.  If you don't know who the supplier is, you find out.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/moving-home-your-energy-supply/find-out-who-your-gas-or-electricity-supplier-is/
Problems occur, as you have discovered, when a new occupant ignores the system.

Have you now had an account set up for these other two meters for your partner?

It might be possible to arrange that the meters can be regularly read, with the usage tracked and then this used to backdate estimates based on the new pattern.  It's what gets done sometimes for faulty meters.  Perhaps try suggesting that.