[Emily]

I've received two bills this month and have no idea why. The first one looks normal. The second one contains 'reversed account charge' entries for every bill since March, and new charges for January to date. So it looks like I might be being charged for Jan-Feb twice. No explanation as to why the changes. Both bills go up to the same date and both are estimates. Called E.ON Next this afternoon but didn't get an answer.

Any ideas what could have happened? Has anyone had a similar problem?

[Bennie_R97]

Hi @Emily, no usually it is not a common error. I believe that the best option is to get in touch with our Whatsapp team if you can. They are great and they will be able to have a conversation with you without waiting for emails to go there and then. If the second bill is less accurate we need to get at the bottom of this situation. Let me know how you get along with the Whatsapp team.

Bennie 😀

[meldrewreborn]

@Colette67

I suspect that this is all to do with allocating the energy used to the right prices at the time. Prices went up sharply in October 2021, April 2022, October 2022 (when the EPG also came in). Prices changed slightly in January 2023 (supplier prices up, EPG up too, to largely counter balance).

Therefore the only real issue is whether the revised charges are accurate (the prices are a matter of record) and whether the readings on the first of the month in which price changes happened are accurate. After that its a matter of calculation. The new charges reflect the periods of steady prices Oct 21 -apr 22, apr 22 to oct 22, oct 22 to jan 23. In essence this is the simplest way to get the charges correct, and if i were working for E.On Next (i don't, never have, never will) this is how i would do it. The presentation isn't helpful but not something the employees will have control over.

The other way to address the matter is to check the total of the withdrawn charges against the new charges to see what the total effect is. There is also one £67 credit for December (what happened to October's and November's). Excluding that £67 and the difference appears to be just over £5 in your favour. Relax.

[Bennie_R97]

Hi @Emily, have you been in touch with our team querying if the billing was correct ? Usually, when you get a second bill with 'reverse charges' is because the first one may not have been accurate based on meter readings for example. You can always query both bills through our social media platforms or Whatsapp for privacy reasons of course and gave you a better explanation on what the overlap with the months are.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask :)

Bennie 🌈

[Emily]

Hi @Bennie_EONNext, thanks for your reply.

Yes I contacted the team by telephone and email, but there's still no clear explanation as to what's happened. The second bill was also based on a (less accurate) estimate so there's no reason I can see why the whole year's charges would be reversed and rebilled on the basis of that (and even if it had been based on a reading, there's no reason why previous bills would need to be reversed to get the account up to date). I've tried asking again for clarification but haven't had a reply so far. It's worrying, and it looks like I'll be charged twice this month as well. The person I was in touch by email wasn't even aware of the second charge. Is this a common problem?

[Emily]

Thanks @Bennie_EONNext, I don't have WhatsApp but I've had a reply to an email now so hopefully it's in hand. I appreciate your replies.

[Bennie_R97]

@Emily glad to hear that. Here to help when and where we can :)

[Emily]

Just thought I'd post an update on this in case anyone else has had a similar unexplained bill..

My email query didn't produce an explanation, and the person handling it opened and closed a complaint (not at my request, btw) without solving the problem, so I did then make a complaint about the situation. This was acknowledged but no action has since been taken.

Last week I spent several hours going through all of my bills from this year to try and work out what has happened. It looks like the estimated gas usage for the winter months from Jan to end March was adjusted up, and estimated usage from spring/summer months therefore adjusted down, which resulted in a net lower charge for gas over the whole period.

I've no idea why or what prompted the adjustment, or why it was dated from January and not before or after, or if this is even the right explanation - that's just how it appears from what I can see. Have asked E.ON Next to confirm but no reply so far. And they still took the direct debit on the initial (higher) bill anyway, which put my account in credit.

This is really confusing, and what concerns me the most is that no-one I've been in touch with at E.ON Next has been able to explain what's happened on my account or why (or even confirm whether what I worked out is correct or not). With the huge increase in the energy price cap - and more on the way - errors like this could cause massive problems for people over the winter and into next year. I was lucky that my bill seems to have been adjusted down this time, but it could just as easily have gone the other way for all the explanation I've had.

So I guess my question is this - if there are any E.ON Next staff around - what can be done to make billing clearer and get errors and/or adjustments explained and corrected quickly, so that people aren't left wondering what their charges relate to? Random changes like this - with no explanation - are stressful and unacceptable, especially now.

[Emily]

Another update on this, just in case anyone else finds themselves with unexplained reversed account charges on a bill...

I couldn't get an explanation from contacting customer services so ended up submitting a complaint in the hope that would help to clarify what had happened. No such luck. The complaints team just sent a 'sorry for any inconvenience' message any time I sent a prompt but didn't actually investigate or answer my queries. Eight weeks later I've just got an email saying that they're sorry if they fell short of my expectations in any way! It's ridiculous.

The only source of any information has been here, so if you're trying to resolve a problem you're probably in the right place. I've found the forum community managers much more helpful and responsive than the customer services team.

Anyway, rant over.

The billing issue appears to have been that some sort of error was made in E.ON Next's estimate of energy use during the months prior to the strange bill. In case anyone ever needs to know, it's called an Annual Quantity (AQ) estimate and takes into account not only total usage over the year but also the seasonal distribution of that usage. I still don't know any details so it's not clear exactly what happened or why, but it's some sort of explanation. If only the reason for reversed account charges (or any unexpected account adjustments) were explained on the statements...

[Colette67]

I've just received a statement like this too. It's dated 7 December 2020, but has only been added in last couple of days.

I don't understand how they can have got bills wrong when I've been sending monthly readings?

I was moved to EON Next after my previous supplier went bust. I have not had any previous issues with them, however I emailed them on 10th January with regards to not receiving any statements/bills for past 2 months. I've received no response to that email, which is what led me to login to my account today and I found the 2 statements - they automatically receive my Gas readings on or around the 19th of the month and I send my Electricity readings on the last day of the month.

This "Reversed Account Charges" statement is so confusing, which is why I did a Google search, which led me to this query.

To be honest I am still non the wiser and it doesn't appear to be worth my time contacting the customer service team as (from Emily's questions) they don't seem to understand what it means either!