[Hobbes1218]

Hi, I've just seen the E.ON bill for a 97 year old lady that lives near me. Her DD is £80 a month but her electricity use is £25 a month. She is living in poverty but has a £550 credit with E.ON that she is unaware of. How can E.ON not be aware or care of people in these circumstances?

[Anasa_EONNext]

@Hobbes1218 I can see that @Han_EONNext has sent you a private message as we need a bit more information to see why the credit has not been automatically refunded. At EON next we regularly review your Direct Debit payments at least twice a year and if your payments are not enough to cover your usage we'll let you know, the credit is automatically refunded at your annual review, at your annual review we aim for your account to be at 0 and then we reset your payments for the next 12 months.

The Which article that you're referring to I think this is linked to the Ofgem consultation but nothing has been agreed or put in place yet. https://www.which.co.uk/news/article...n-aS1OA3H0z8uv.

With your neighbour it looks like something has gone wrong, it could be because we're waiting for reads, or she's not had a bill for some time or another account issue stopping the annual review process, hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it for her and she can ask for the credit to be refunded back and her account to be reviewed @Han_EONNext has sent you some information for deaf customers to be able to contact us and perhaps get you named on the account so that you're able to discuss this account in future with you 🙂

[meldrewreborn]

get in touch with eon next customer services with the customer. Get them to refund the excess credit and reset the DD to a more realistic figure. And instigate a complaint on her behalf.

There is also something called the priority service. I think this lady might benefit from it.

[Hobbes1218]

I assumed as I am not the account holder they would not speak to me. That is normally the case these days.

Thanks,
Chris

[Han_EONNext]

@Hobbes1218 Afternoon Chris,

First of all, I am sorry that this situation has risen! E.ON Next do run payment checks twice a year - of which she should have had credit returned but thank you for bringing it to our attention and I will feed that back.

I would follow the advice from @meldrewreborn and I would help your neighbour get in touch with us. We do have a Priority Services Register which sounds beneficial to them. Please follow our advice found on the contact us thread to help guide your neighbour into getting in touch with us.

Love to yourself and them,

Hannah 🌍

[Hobbes1218]

Thanks Hannah. I have managed to put her on the Priority Services Register and reduce her bill by £7 a month. The website will only allow me to reduce her bill by 10% even though she now has over £600 of credit. She is 97 and very deaf so there is no way she would be able to get in touch with e-on herself. I will see if she has any credit returned in the next few months. In the meantime I help her out. I'm very surprised a company like e-on is allowed to hold so much credit for a person of that age.

Chris

[Han_EONNext]

@Hobbes1218 What a lovely neighbour you are 💚

Thank you for helping her all you can. I have sent you a private message to just get a lil more info and see what we can do to help her!

Hannah

[meldrewreborn]

@Hobbes1218

Well done so far. We're still here to assist if needed in the future.

[Hobbes1218]

According to Which? Magazine e-on should automatically refund customers who have over £75 of credit automatically on an annual basis. My neighbour has had over £75 of credit for over 14 months now. Is it still the case that e-on should refund this money automatically? She now has well over £600 of credit. There must be a legal limit of how much credit a company like e-on can keep? A moral limit as well one would hope?

[meldrewreborn]

@Hobbes1218
the credit should have been detected and refunded. But she can ask for the credit back and her DD reset.