Eon Next

kerluc

Last July I moved house and despite telling Eon Next that the move date changed, they failed to alter the date and started my new property account with estimated readings. The Ombudsman found in my favour and one of the remedies Eon Next had to do was to alter my account with the correct start readings. On 31 Jan 24 they said they had completed all the remedies to the Ombudsman, so I switched supplier due to the stress of dealing with them. I requested a
final bill and received a cheque for £105 for the credit balance. 9 days later I received another final bill which showed all the previous statements rescinded and reissued, and a new
balance of £246 debt to pay. It took 4 weeks of emails to and fro for them to admit the second final bill was due to them adjusting the starting readings to the actual meter read. So they had
not completed the remedies when they told the Ombudsman they had. During the 4 weeks of waiting for an
explanation and me stating that I had a complaint they have added a late payment fee and referred me
to debt collection. My understanding is that the FCA guidance is that they cannot add a fee whilst the amount is in dispute. Am I correct? I am thinking of sending a cheque for the remaining balance, now they have explained what it is for, but not paying the fee, with a letter saying cashing the cheque is acceptance of full and final
payment, but don’t know if they would take any notice. 

Mark_d

Whilst it took 4 weeks for you to get clarification on the second bill, this doesn't appear to be a formal dispute.  Even so, I think it was unreasonable for them to add on a late payment fee.

If you can make payment direct to EON, I would call them and make the payment but refuse to pay the late payment fee.  If this is not possible, then I would raise a formal complaint immediately.

EON caused the confusion by incorrectly sending you a refund after stating that your start reading had been corrected.  EON wasted 4 weeks to provide you with a simple explanation..which should really have been provided at the time of the £246 bill.  EON's failures are the reason for your payment being late.