EON standing charge but no supply to property

SeaBee · 11 March 2013 at 10:54PM

We moved into our new house 2 years ago. We had all the central heating taken out, the house re-wired and storage heaters fitted. We contacted Eon who were the previous owners supplier and asked them to fit an economy 7 meter, which they did. As we no longer needed a gas supply we had the supply capped by a registered engineer.

All was fine until we got our first winter bill, which was massive!! After many phone calls we got the bill reduced (they had been charging us for normal electricity instead of economy 7 - even though they had fitted a new meter for us!), agreed a payment plan and changed electricity supplier to Scottish Power. All sorted, or so we thought!

Last week we received a statement from Eon detailing the payments made to date and outstanding amount (only 1 more payment left). When we checked the bill we noticed they had added a £12.00 standing charge for the gas meter. My husband phoned to query this on Saturday and was told they would call back as they needed to check with the disconnection team.

Outcome of tonights phone call is that they say we are liable for the standing charge as they installed the gas meter and it belongs to them. Apparently, the only way we can stop the charge is to have the meter taken out at a charge of £50.

Is this right or is there a way out of it?

chanz4 · 11 March 2013 at 11:11PM

They are actually correct, by having the meter unless you are on a zero standing charge tariff they can charge you. The capping by a gas safe engineer has no effect as the supplier is paying a rental to the mam for the meter.

lemontart · 11 March 2013 at 11:16PM

capped by a gas safe registered engineer I take it, the meter is the property of the supplier. It reads as if you forgot to tell eon that you did not want a supply anymore hence the charge,

SeaBee · 11 March 2013 at 11:20PM

Thanks for the quick reply. Husband has told them to come and take it out and to send us one final bill. One company we will never deal with again.

edwink · 12 March 2013 at 1:17AM

We are in the same position as we do not cosume any gas so have had the meter switched off. We have informed them of this fact. So we have had zero bills from Eon. Now they have introduced a standing charge as others will, they are now charging us a standing charge for just having a meter at our property.

I e-mailed e-on and was told for them to take the meter away would cost £51.06. But, in a phone call from them they said that moving a meter in your property is £51.06 and the cost of actually capping the meter off and taking it away was £80.00 something as they did not know the exact amount. I am still waiting to hear from them with the correct removal price.

Just to let others know that all utility companies have been told to make billing for customers easier to understand. So this is the reason all utility companies are going to introduce the standing charge. This will happen over the next year or two.

Just thought I would let others know. Does anyone know the exact cost for the removal of the meter?

Edwink

Fire_Fox · 12 March 2013 at 2:43AM

Why are you only discovering after two years you are on a tariff with standing charge on the gas supply?? Have they failed to bill you for this before now or have you not bothered checking your bills? Have they not been and read the meter in the last two years? If the issue is their failure to bill you write a letter to the Complaints Team.
https://www.eonenergy.com/~/media/ED96F94C8C14468DBD99304E45F867FE.pdf

Battybird · 12 March 2013 at 4:38AM

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Why are you only discovering after two years you are on a tariff with standing charge on the gas supply?? Have they failed to bill you for this before now or have you not bothered checking your bills? Have they not been and read the meter in the last two years? If the issue is their failure to bill you write a letter to the Complaints Team.
https://www.eonenergy.com/~/media/ED96F94C8C14468DBD99304E45F867FE.pdf

Eon have only recently started charging a standing charge, for gas and electric. Looking at my recent bill, it seems to have been charged from the 18th of January.

(isn't it supposed to simplify bills? I think all the companies could simplify it much better by charging so much per unit (number) on the meter. Obviously it would be different prices, depending on whether you had a metric or foot meter.)

Fire_Fox · 12 March 2013 at 5:16AM

Battybird wrote: »

Eon have only recently started charging a standing charge, for gas and electric. Looking at my recent bill, it seems to have been charged from the 18th of January.

(isn't it supposed to simplify bills? I think all the companies could simplify it much better by charging so much per unit (number) on the meter. Obviously it would be different prices, depending on whether you had a metric or foot meter.)

Are you Seabee or a different poster? Were you not informed of the change? Have you come off a fixed price fixed term tariff?

Isn't what supposed to simplify bills? Market forces and overheads dictate prices, few businesses want a clear pricing structure we'd spend less. Imagine if supermarkets sold one type of tomatoes, one type of chicken and one type of milk chocolate. Instead many are the same thing all packaged up and branded differently.

Charging a fixed price per unit with no separate standing charge just means the standing charge is built into the unit price, that penalises some households and benefits others. It's all very complex because houses with gas and electric are paying two standing charges BUT all electric houses pay far more per unit for heating. Some are frugal some are wasteful, some people live alone some live in a family so share the bills. I don't know how you make it 'fair' for everyone.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc · 12 March 2013 at 10:58AM

Morning all

Just thought I'd pop on and confirm some details about our standing charges.

As Battybird says, we replaced the previous two tier pricing structure with a standing charge on all our tariffs on 18 January 2013.

Before this, we had a combination of standing charge and two tier priced tariffs. These were introduced on 27 September 2012.

Previously to this, most of our tariffs were two tier priced. This is where the first portion of kWh used were charged at a higher rate.

These changes came about as part of our Reset review. This was launched in November 2011 and looked at all our relationships with customers.

Following this review, many of our customers and consumer groups told us they preferred simpler pricing with a single unit rate. We listened to this and replaced two tier pricing with standing charges.

Whilst we understand this won't please all our customers, feed back tells us the majority prefer this method of charging.

We've written to all affected customers to let them know about this change.

As others have said, whilst there's a meter at the property, we'll apply the standing charge even if there's no usage. This is to cover things like maintenance, rental and making sure the meter is safe.

For those not using gas, meters can be removed and the supply capped. Charges for this vary depending on the type of meter and whether it's owned by the National Grid or an Independent Gas Transporter. Best to contact our Gas Disconnections team for a quote.

Hope this explains the changes made recently. Give me a shout if anyone needs any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc

Wywth · 12 March 2013 at 12:17PM

SeaBee wrote: »

Thanks for the quick reply. Husband has told them to come and take it out and to send us one final bill. One company we will never deal with again.

Any gas supplier would have acted exactly the same.

But as you don't want any gas supply, you won't need to deal with any other gas supplier again

edwink · 12 March 2013 at 12:19PM

Hello

I have just contacted e-on our utility company and arranged to have the meter romoved. The cost is £81.78.

I asked them how much it would be to have the meter reinstalled should we decided many many years down the line that we would like to have a gas supply again. I was concerned that this would be a very expensive job. However, I have been informed that there is no cost because at the end of the day the companies will want your custom so the meter is reinstalled for free. However there must be a few checks made on your supply and original pipes by the National Grid which would cost around £50.00 at the moment. Obviously in many years this cost would go up.

Hope this is of some help to others

Edwink

EON standing charge but no supply to property

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