[andromeda]

Hi
I moved into a property which already had gas & electricty EON NEXT prepayment meters. Every time I call up I've been told that "smart meters are currently unavailable" with no ETA on when I could sign up. It's causing an issue as (1) there is £40 worth of debt on the gas prepayment card from the previous owner, and (2) EON NEXT have sent me 4 gas cards that would wipe the debt but none of them work in the meter... all with a "card fail" error; they refuse to send an engineer round and I've had no gas for weeks.

I would like the following:
(1) A (free!) engineer to fix the card fail error and get the gas working
(2) The debt cleared on the account - it's not mine!
(3) Some ETA on when I could switch to smart meters for both gas & electricity

Thanks

[Andy65]

There's a similar post here about moving from prepayment to credit meters, the reason given for eon-next not being able to do it is that they don't have credit checking facilities.

I was moved to eon-next in October 2021, so to have been operating for at least 20 months and claim to not be able to run credit checks seems laughable to me. You can only draw your own conclusions as to why they don't want to move customers away from prepayment meters.

[meldrewreborn]

@andromeda

The cheapest tariffs are for paying by Direct Debit on a monthly basis. By not changing your meter they are denying yo access to the best rates. Unless they have a good reason (and unavailability of smart meters sounds like an outright lie to me) They are in breach of their licence conditions.

[andromeda]

Thanks guys! How infuriating. Do you think that's also the reason why Eon NEXT have left me without gas since I moved in? How can I escalate this as I have gotten nowhere on calls... For now I'd settle with a working gas prepayment card with no debt on it, instead of using camping equipment to make dinners.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

[Andy65]

If you're getting nowhere then I'd suggest raising a complaint if you haven't already done so. For anything like this I always make notes, when I called, what I asked for, what they said they would do etc, then if you have to raise a complaint you can just list the facts, who said what etc.
It's also worth reading their Complaints Procedure and make sure they stick to it.

[meldrewreborn]

It is important to make complaints and to escalate them ASAP to the appropriate ombudsman. Neither availability of smart meters, or lack of credit checking facilities hold water as valid excuses to me.

How many customers does eon next have now?

After transferring more than two million former npower home and business customers to E.ON Next, the newest face of E.ON, we've confirmed our place as the country's largest electricity supplier.
Michael Lewis, E.ON UK Chief Executive, shared this update on Sky News' Ian King Live:

For customers:
"We’ve moved 2.3m customers on to a new platform to create a new business under E.ON Next and it's been a remarkable transformation that’s taken place under lockdown. Probably the most successful migration of customers in the history of the industry. It was an enormous effort of colleagues across E.ON, npower and our partner Kraken. We’ve created a new business, the largest electricity supplier in the UK.”

Clearly not so successful because they don't have any credit checking facilities!!!

[andromeda]

@meldrewreborn This has been validating, thank you. Learning as I go (first time property owner, and never had to deal with EON/pre-payment when I was renting) so this is super helpful!! Researching into formal complaints & escalations now!

[andromeda]

An update: I still don’t have working gas. After being sent ~8 prepayment cards saying “Card Not Accepted” in my meter, I managed to get a National Grid engineer - who stated that the problem is not the meter, but the cards that Eon Next are sending me! I haven’t had a working account since March; IT IS NOW WINTER and I don’t have gas. I really need someone in Eon to help me.
I have a complaint raised against my account since mid-August. Today I was told that only the advisor who raised the complaint can deal with my account… a one person dependency. That advisor can’t call me until tomorrow, so now I’m working on their schedule.

[theunknowntech]

I think at this point @andromeda you might want to consider voting with your feet and switching away. Obviously, that's totally your choice and I won't influence you as to which supplier to move to next, but it may be worth considering.

[andromeda]

@theunknowntech Unfortunately it seems like none of the major companies are taking new customers because of the market volatility (according to their websites!). I can't even generate a quote despite having excellent credit...
So I'm stuck with EON!