Huge Gas Bill

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hello Johnnyboy5 and welcome to the Forums. Already some excellent advice on here. Thanks all.

I can well understand the shock at receiving such a large bill after the lower ones you've had in the past. I suspect, as your bills are based on actual meter readings, we've put your complaint to deadlock as our Resolution Manager will have judged the charges to be right. A proven faulty meter will mean the complaint needs to go back to the area that set it to deadlock for a further review.

We'll be happy to arrange for the gas meter to be tested particularly if you've ruled out other factors like a gas leak or dodgy boiler. These tests are done by an independent party who carry out an OFMAT (Ofgem Meter Accuracy Test) test. As you know, there's a charge to do this which is payable in advance but will be fully refunded should the meter turn out to be faulty. OFMAT tests cost between £59.32 and £205.03 (including VAT) depending on the size of the gas meter and which company looks after the meter.

Once the meter has been tested, you'll receive a copy of the results directly from the company that do the OFMAT test. This can take up to six weeks. If it is faulty, we'll be in touch to arrange for any adjustments that are needed and to refund the charge of the test.

Before arranging a test, we’ll go through your usage with you to see if we can find any evidence to suggest your meter is faulty or if we can reassure you that it's working as it should. Previous tests have shown, only approximately 1 in 200 meter checks come back as faulty and we don't want you to pay unnecessarily.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction Johnnyboy5.

Malc

Hi Malc, thanks for voluntarily providing input to my situation, however it doesn't provide any help. All it does is reaffirm that your company will not pay for a meter test (the meter which you own).

What would be of help is if your company recognised that some cases may have justifiable grounds for you to bear the cost of a meter test and provide it's staff with the ability to assess on a case by case basis, rather than adhere to a blanket refusal to pay for the test. I would have thought it reasonable for the Resolution Manager to be given the autonomy to assess individual cases like mine and make a judgement call to determine if a meter test is warranted. My usage has gone from 700 units in 2016 to 5000 in 8 months of 2017 (no I haven't had a swimming pool installed as one of your colleagues asked). I'm sure you'll agree this points to an extreme case, which in my view warrants a meter test.

What you're asking is for me to :

1) Foot the bill for a gas leak check
2) And for a boiler inspection
3) Pay £170 for the meter test (which again, your company owns)

Should the problem turn out to be the meter, will you also refund the needless cost of 1) and 2), not to mention my time and phone calls to your resolution dept? No I didn't think so.

I can understand a refusal to pay the meter test for disputed minor increases in usage, given the likelihood of a meter fault but my case is far from minor.

This post may come across as confrontational or angry but I've been a customer of Eon for many years so I would expect your company to help more than it has. The first time I called your customer service team I was told it was a billing error which would be fixed and a new bill created, the next letter I received was a notification of DD increase to over £500 a month.

Rather than assist with finding the problem all you have done is put my account in deadlock and advise that my only route is now via the Ombudsman, putting all the onus on me to find the cause, hence why I've had to post on this forum seeking advice.

stewie_griffin wrote: »

Check the serial number on your meter. If it starts E6 then these meters are prone to incrementing i.e. continuing to advance when no gas is being used.

If you're confident that all your gas appliances have been switched off and the reading continues to advance then you can be confident it's a faulty meter. I'm surprised E.ON haven't offered to test it free of charge but if it's incrementing then it's definitely faulty so you'll get the £170 back.

Have you thought about contacting the CEO directly. From experience with other companies this more often than not works.

Thanks Stewie, I'll check the serial number.

There's no reason Eon can't make a call on which cases warrant a meter test and which don't. Basically they're shifting the cost of ensuring accurate metering from themselves to the customer. This is why I declined to pay the £170 for a meter test and was left with only the Ombudsman route, in the hope that they have a similar view to me and instruct Eon to bear the cost.