Eon keeps issuing threatening demands for payment of an incorrect and inflated bill despite
My daughter recently moved into a flat supplied by Eon, but she decided to switch energy supplier because the Eon tariff was excessive and was also about to increase further.
Unfortunately, settling the account with Eon has turned into a time wasting episode of incompetence. First, Eon apparently failed to close the previous tenant's account properly and second, the Letting Agency provided an incorrect starting meter reading. But despite corrected readings repeatedly being sent to Eon by the Letting Agency and my daughter Eon has persisted in sending increasingly threatening demands for immediate payment of its inflated incorrect bill.
Eon has conveniently mislaid documentary evidence sent to them and so this has been supplied again. But still the demands for an inflated bill are issued. We hear that Eon has a backlog of emails that it has not read/actioned , but this too does not cause them to withhold issuing even more threatening letters about debt collectors. Customers with busy full time jobs are simply expected to waste hours trying to get Eon to see sense. This is an extraordinary way to run a major utility service.
My daughter has made it clear that when the correct bill is issued, the amount will be paid immediately, but the inflated bill is over £100 of what we estimate it should be.
The good news is that shortly it will be 8 weeks since the start of this incompetence and a formal complaint to the Ombudsman can then be lodged. We are also looking into making a claim for costs and inconvenience for time spent dealing with Eon incompetence.
Is there somebody on this forum that can make Eon see sense ?
Unfortunately, settling the account with Eon has turned into a time wasting episode of incompetence. First, Eon apparently failed to close the previous tenant's account properly and second, the Letting Agency provided an incorrect starting meter reading. But despite corrected readings repeatedly being sent to Eon by the Letting Agency and my daughter Eon has persisted in sending increasingly threatening demands for immediate payment of its inflated incorrect bill.
Eon has conveniently mislaid documentary evidence sent to them and so this has been supplied again. But still the demands for an inflated bill are issued. We hear that Eon has a backlog of emails that it has not read/actioned , but this too does not cause them to withhold issuing even more threatening letters about debt collectors. Customers with busy full time jobs are simply expected to waste hours trying to get Eon to see sense. This is an extraordinary way to run a major utility service.
My daughter has made it clear that when the correct bill is issued, the amount will be paid immediately, but the inflated bill is over £100 of what we estimate it should be.
The good news is that shortly it will be 8 weeks since the start of this incompetence and a formal complaint to the Ombudsman can then be lodged. We are also looking into making a claim for costs and inconvenience for time spent dealing with Eon incompetence.
Is there somebody on this forum that can make Eon see sense ?
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Comments
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You say it's coming up to 8 weeks since the start of the fiasco - but did you actually raise a formal complaint with Eon about it?
If not, then you need to do this now as the 8-week period only applies from the date a formal complaint was raised.
Either phone them and ask for the complaints team and don't get fobbed off, insist on complaints, and/or write to them a letter headed COMPLAINT detailing your woes.0 -
Don't phone to make a complaint, write and get proof of posting and then the 8 weeks clock starts ticking. If you can't get the complaint resolved then you can go to the EO , this will cost EON a larger amount in admin than the disputed amount so hopefully they will see sense!0
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Quite right to flag that up. But in our case a complaint is "any contact from, or on behalf of, a customer or potential customer who is not satisfied with any part of our service", so our initial email which set out the issue to Eon and how it had messed up amounted to the formal complaint.
Thanks again for your comment.0 -
My daughter recently moved into a flat supplied by Eon, but she decided to switch energy supplier because the Eon tariff was excessive and was also about to increase further.
Unfortunately, settling the account with Eon has turned into a time wasting episode of incompetence. First, Eon apparently failed to close the previous tenant's account properly and second, the Letting Agency provided an incorrect starting meter reading. But despite corrected readings repeatedly being sent to Eon by the Letting Agency and my daughter Eon has persisted in sending increasingly threatening demands for immediate payment of its inflated incorrect bill.
Eon has conveniently mislaid documentary evidence sent to them and so this has been supplied again. But still the demands for an inflated bill are issued. We hear that Eon has a backlog of emails that it has not read/actioned , but this too does not cause them to withhold issuing even more threatening letters about debt collectors. Customers with busy full time jobs are simply expected to waste hours trying to get Eon to see sense. This is an extraordinary way to run a major utility service.
My daughter has made it clear that when the correct bill is issued, the amount will be paid immediately, but the inflated bill is over £100 of what we estimate it should be.
The good news is that shortly it will be 8 weeks since the start of this incompetence and a formal complaint to the Ombudsman can then be lodged. We are also looking into making a claim for costs and inconvenience for time spent dealing with Eon incompetence.
Is there somebody on this forum that can make Eon see sense ?
Hello MickMiles and welcome to the Forums.
I'm sorry your daughter is having these difficulties. As the Letting Agent initially gave us the wrong meter reading, this will have not only caused a problem with your daughter's account but also with the old account for the previous occupant. We'll have closed this account to the same reading as we originally opened your daughter's account. I suspect, the previous occupant is disputing the revised reading and this is causing the hold up.
You mention documentary evidence. Is this a copy of the Tenancy Agreement? This would be useful. Also, up to date readings would be good.
I'd talk to our Home Moves Complaints team (contact details are on our website). They'll make sure the complaint is back dated from when the issue was first raised. If they're unable to sort this to your daughter's satisfaction, they'll refer her to our Complaints Reviewers. If we're still unable to sort this, we'll let her have a Final Resolution Offer letter she can use to approach the Energy Ombudsman.
As open complaint will stop further follow up although there could be something already in the pipeline. Once the complaint is registered this, too, will be put on hold.
Hope this helps point you in the right direction MickMiles.
Malc“Official Company Representative
I am an official company representative of E.ON. MSE has given permission for me to post in response to queries about the company, so that I can help solve issues. You can see my name on the companies with permission to post list. I am not allowed to tout for business at all. If you believe I am please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com This does NOT imply any form of approval of my company or its products by MSE"0 -
First, Eon apparently failed to close the previous tenant's account properly and second, the Letting Agency provided an incorrect starting meter reading. But despite corrected readings repeatedly being sent to Eon by the Letting Agency and my daughter
Maybe some of the trouble is that its the letting agent that is dealing with things? Is the bill in your daughters name?0 -
It's never a good idea to let the letting agent sort stuff out.
You are far better doing it yourself, then you know it's been done, the date it was done and you know that you've sent in the correct readings as well.Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers0 -
Thanks for the replies. But both my daughter and i (and the Letting Agent) have all been in direct contact with Eon about this ( so rest assured, we have not left it to the Letting Agent) and its is Eon's continuing incompetence (or short staffing levels) that is the remaining issue.
The Letting Agent accepted it made a mistake when it misread the dials, but we have been in direct contact with Eon to help resolve their issue without success. In short accurate readings were provided to Eon by the Agent and my daughter on more than one occasion.
As regards supplying a Tenancy Agreement of over 20 pages to Eon, there is no justifiable reason why we should need to do that when the error was the wrong reading initially sent to Eon by the letting Agent. Photos of the meter at the start of the Tenancy and copies of emails from the Letting Agency accepting that reading have repeatedly been provided to Eon.
The following sums up Eon's approach. My daughter received a threatening letter from Eon about Debt Collectors calling (for a bill she did not owe) and she asked me to talk to Eon about the mistake because she has a very busy job and presumably because I'm a natural trouble shooter!.
So I phoned trying to resolve the issue and discussed the issue with somebody at Eon. I asked for the Eon email address that the evidence should be emailed to so that Eon could see the correct figures and admission from the Letting Agency that they had misread the dials. Surprise! The Eon person refused to provide the email address on the grounds that I was not the named customer! This is not about personal details, but simply the best Eon email address for sending information. I found the address myself from their website. In short, the Eon person wanted my daughter to break away from her job and spend time phoning them. In desperation she managed this during her busy day and on all occasions, she could not get through!
Another example is the large backlog of unread/actioned emails that Eon have, that presumably contain evidence to resolve other issues, and yet these remain unread. So regardless of crucial evidence provided by customers, Eon still issue threatening letters .
From my experience, it seems Eon wants to make it difficult for people to resolve an issue and want people to spend many hours phoning call centres. Not what i would call a quality service!
We've sent the documentary evidence yet again and are now keeping a dairy of the hours wasted, number of threats issued in error to add to our case to the ombudsman and for compensation.
I will keep you posted.0 -
As stated by the Eon representative:As the Letting Agent initially gave us the wrong meter reading, this will have not only caused a problem with your daughter's account but also with the old account for the previous occupant. We'll have closed this account to the same reading as we originally opened your daughter's account. I suspect, the previous occupant is disputing the revised reading and this is causing the hold up.
If that assumption is correct, it is not surprising that the previous occupant is unwilling to stump up an extra £100(your estimate)
So who should stand the loss?
A. the letting agent?
B Eon? - they acted on the reading they were given.
C. your daughter for trusting a letting agent and not sending off a reading herself for her account.0 -
Cardew
I'm sure you're trying to be helpful but that assumption is false. It strikes me that might be a convenient ruse by Eon to cover its incompetence. I should make it clearer.
1. There isn't an argument over who will cover the cost. The Letting Agent has accepted that it is its responsibility and the previous tenant and the landlord will pay for energy used prior to the start of the new tenancy. There is not an issue. can't see how anyone can think a new tenant has any responsibility for energy used before they even took possession.
2. My daughter did not trust the Letting Agent. As we have repeatedly said we supplied information to Eon and they have ignored it, along with many other emails.0 -
Also, the Rep is wrong to presume that the account readings of the previous tenant will be the same as the new tenant. In many cases, as in this one, energy is often used during the period between lets (esp during very cold periods), for which neither tenant is responsible. That liability clearly falls to the landlord, so automatically billing the new tenant is another false assumption by the the company that causes unnecessary trouble for the innocent new tenant.0
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