[Pippin89]

Ok so the title may be a little dramatic but here is there story...
After owing a debt to NPower (relating back to faulty smart meter, long story) we have been paying it off on prepayment meters over the last couple of years. And obviously when we got transferred to Eon we carried on in the same way.

Cut to last month when it occurred to me that it must be paid off by now, I checked the online statements and nothing since 2020. So I checked the meters and the Gas says debt is 0 and electric said debt was about £100.

So I contacted Eon to pay off the last bit of electric debt and get normal meters installed. Shocked to discover they "don't do that" but that's another discussion.

So I topped up my gas meter at the end of last week and it took debt off. But according the the meter there is no debt. So I am talking to Eon and asking when the debt was paid off and they have just said it shows as zero but they don't have a record of when it was paid off. So now we are in a position where we know the meter has been taking our money after the debt was paid off but have no idea how long it has been doing that for and how much of our money they have taken.

So Eon owe us some money, and neither they, nor I, know how much. And they seem to have zero concern over the matter and no indication of how they might find out the answer!

Any suggestions?

[Lee_EONNext]

@Pippin89 Hi

Did you manage to get this sorted by speaking to customer service?

Every time you use your key, we receive key transaction details off all the information, tops ups and readings so we should be able to see this information.

I'm interested in how you got on.

Thanks

[meldrewreborn]

@Pippin89

I've never had a prepayment meter so that means my knowledge is limited for a start. But surely you still have an account that shows your consumption and the charges for your energy over time. I cannot imagine that you pop in your payment, your consumption gets subtracted and there is no record of exactly what you've use and what you have paid. Anything above your current consumption charges will go to paying off your debt. If you get no joy out of Eon Next customer services, Eon Next staff here might be able to look into this if your registered email address here is the same as for your online account.

You can always raise a complaint and then the matter will be looked at by staff with perhaps a greater degree of knowledge and expertise than those who deal with simpler issues. But they take time.

[Anasa_EONNext]

@Pippin89 Hi there Anasa here 👋 Sorry to hear that you have some concerns about your bill, @meldrewreborn is correct I can't image that there would be no record of your payments on your previous account with EON, we might not be able to see it over here at EON Next as we have different systems but there will be a record of it and your final amount before being transferred over.

All our Digi Specialist have the skills to deal with your query and raise a complaint if need be so please get in touch and we'll be happy to look into this further for you 🙂

[Pippin89]

So it gets worse.... The meter, which was saying zero, is now showing a debt which is about equivalent to what it was when we were transitioned from NPower. So somehow, Eon think we have not paid anything off of the debt.
I have passed all of this straight to the ombudsman.

[wizzo227]

I suggest that you regard your meter as "potentially hostile" until proven otherwise, (it shouldn't be; EoN are not scammers, but this costs nothing and double-checks until the right people have told you how to look up your payments, usage, and £).
Try a routine of writing down the kWh in whatever form those meters show them, and do so quite often; at least once per week for one month, preferably at about the same time of the week every week. For example at home from work time on Thursdays, and also do anything online to look up what £ those convert to. I don't get out much.

By comparison to this time last year, you don't get £66 per month of free help from the government, so your usual bill at the October 1st price is perhaps going to look "wrong" by comparison to previous years.

The UK "average" electricity usage of 2900 (kWh/year), divided by 12(months/year), times 0.30(£/kWh) electricity unit price, plus £15 a month standing charge is already over £87 per month, adding the gas standing charge takes you over £100 per month. It sounds like you got to £100 showed owed in just one week, which might be wrong but it is already possible to use more than that in an average month in an average house, and if you hadn't keyed your meter for a few weeks, your online account owed might get worse by that much. Your paper notebook is your only friend here. If you can tell hi@eonnext.com your gas and electric "average" or "typical" kWh per day then it is a much cleaner decision process than their guessing that you could have used so much more than you've been accustomed to paying that your present debt has crept up to as much as you once owed to Npower.

Last trick: photographing the meters with the number showing and todays' dated newspaper in the picture should be enough to protect you from any possible new mistakes after the date of the first photographed meter read.

[retrotecchie]

Originally Posted by LeeDQ_EONNext

Every time you use your key in the meter, the meter sends us details off all the information, tops ups and readings so we should be able to see this information.

Thanks

That's not actually correct. If it's a key meter then the Payzone or Paypoint terminal records meter data from the key along with the transactions. When the key is inserted into the meter, the credit is transferred. Next time you top up, the updated meter data is then recorded.

BUT...this ONLY works correctly if the key for the meter is indeed an EON.Next issued key. If the account has been ported over from another company, but the key is from a legacy supplier or the RTI code has not been correctly applied to an old key, then there will be a 'disconnect' between the payment system and EON.Next.

[Lee_EONNext]

@retrotecchie Shame i'm unable to share what i'm looking at here, we receive a flow called 'key transaction details' every time its used. The information on flow is as follows,

• Information about the key/supplier terminal number and date.
• Payment amount
• Meter ID (Serial number)
• Standing charge cost (total since last top up)
• Any debt or active credit on the key
• Reading date & time
• Credit balance
• MPAN
• Then meter read details

It's one of the resources we would use to locate missing credits or if the meter wouldn't apply the credit to the account, when we check this flow we can see pretty much everything to do with key/meter.

Each key has an identifying number so it doesn't matter what 'brand' it is, although we only accept certain keys. If there was an issue with an RTI code, we can also see what RTI codes are matched to what MPAN on another system.

The teams have gone under some intense training around this so that we are more than ready for this winter.

[retrotecchie]

@LeeDQ_EONNext

Well, it certainly sounds like you have the ducks in a row then. I'm sure there could still be a few issues such as we encountered last winter where we had a lot of problems with debts from previous occupants, the wrong keys in meters, etc.

Certainly back in the day (2000-2005) where I lived in a succession of rented flats (all in the same building with the same landlord, fortunately), I had no Scooby about key meters having previously owned my own house and had a credit account. I didn't have any clue about different suppliers or electricity accounts when it came to prepay and just assumed you took the key to the shop, paid your fiver (happy days), stuck the key in the meter and off you went for another fortnight! I had no clue about outstanding debit balances from previous tenants or the need to register with the supplier. No-one told us these things!! Fortunately, key meters were only a temporary thing because I'd just phone up Southern Electric and they came out within a couple of days and changed the meter and I was back to my usual credit account again. But I'm sure for the intervening time I spend a fair chunk of money paying off a bit of someone else's debt as well as buying a bit of credit!

Each time I moved to a different flat, I'd find a key meter and have to go through the same process again, but at least the meter chappy could just turn up, take the credit meter out of my previous flat, install it in the new one and fit the key meter from the new flat back in the old one!! And whoever moved into the flat after me could at least start off with a couple of quid credit to get them settled in.😎

[Lee_EONNext]

@retrotecchie I believe the training that's been put in place should help with the things we had last year. We've looked at making our colleagues 'the masters of pre payment' the more people who specialise in this the better. The knowledge they have will help massively.

With the change of suppliers it should be straight forward, there shouldn't be any hassle or messing around at all, we should be able to clear balances etc, the steps we've taken will help.