[Gavlar]

After finding my bank account empty a few days after payday, I discovered that I am being charged a direct debit of over £1500 a month for my one bed flat and that I am in credit with Eon by over £12,600.

I called the helpline today and spoke to an adviser, who said the whole thing was a bit of a muddle, previous readings may have been taken incorrectly and the account would need to be re-billed.

He told me this could take some time.

I was asked to email photos of my meter, and I have sent screenshots of all 5 of the different tarrifs it appears to record.

Which is great and all but, I am experiencing a real cash flow issue as a result of this. Direct debits to other creditors have bounced and I am being chased for Council Tax. I mentioned on the phone that I could really do with having at least £800 or so refunded immediately, so i can settle my council tax and survive to next payday. However the agent said any refunds or changes to the direct debit amount will have to wait until the meter readings have been properly analysed.

Surely with such an obviously excessive credit balance it does not take a lengthy investigation to authorise refund of a single digit percentage of it ?

I have contacted my Bank and cancelled the Direct Debit for EoN as the next DD payment is due on the 15th. There simply isn't £1500 in there so the payment would not have gone through anyway, but if you did try to take a lesser amount then there is a risk of my next Rent payment failing.

Please can you advise so i can start planning a crisis strategy. Thankyou

[JoeSoap]

@Gavlar

I can see why you cancelled your DD but, in addition to what @meldrewreborn said, my past experience of doing that meant the refund of my credit balance took longer as my then energy provider had to issue a cheque.

Have you checked the history of your meter readings up to and including what it is now?

How real is that enormous credit balance? Even if you used no energy you would have to have paid that £1500 every month for the last eight months or more to get to £12000.

If you get no luck after contacting your bank as suggested previously, then to expedite things I would look back at your meter readings and payment history to try and work out yourself where things have gone wrong before pursuing this with Eon Next.

Good luck and please let us know how you get on if no official help is forthcoming here.

[meldrewreborn]

Under the direct debit guarantee you can get a debit instantly (yes) reversed by contacting your bank, providing it was in error. Take control.

[Gavlar]

Originally Posted by JoeSoap

@Gavlar


How real is that enormous credit balance? Even if you used no energy you would have to have paid that £1500 every month for the last eight months or more to get to £12000.

Noted, I will avoid thoughts of what i could spend that money on !

Clicking back through the website, i can see that the Direct Debit of £1598 has been coming out of my account since January 15th, and that I carried a balance of 3 grand over from Eon to Eon Next so that's as far as i can easily check. Work early in the morning, not gonna dig out old statements now.

Obviously the situation would have been easier if i'd been keeping tabs on the comings and goings of my current account and had been sending them more meter readings. Had some personal issues that kept me from such things. Just surprised there isn't some sanity check in place to stop a balance getting so crazy.

[JoeSoap]

@Gavlar

Wow!!

I can’t imagine almost £1600 leaving my account every month for eight months without me noticing. That enormous credit balance could well be real.

If your energy usage is as low as it should be then you are entitled to your credit balance being refunded. I guess it’s the sums involved that are making them think there’s some metering or some other error involved.

You need to keep digging at this.

[Josie58]

Originally Posted by Gavlar

After finding my bank account empty a few days after payday, I discovered that I am being charged a direct debit of over £1500 a month for my one bed flat and that I am in credit with Eon by over £12,600.

I called the helpline today and spoke to an adviser, who said the whole thing was a bit of a muddle, previous readings may have been taken incorrectly and the account would need to be re-billed.

He told me this could take some time.

I was asked to email photos of my meter, and I have sent screenshots of all 5 of the different tarrifs it appears to record.

Which is great and all but, I am experiencing a real cash flow issue as a result of this. Direct debits to other creditors have bounced and I am being chased for Council Tax. I mentioned on the phone that I could really do with having at least £800 or so refunded immediately, so i can settle my council tax and survive to next payday. However the agent said any refunds or changes to the direct debit amount will have to wait until the meter readings have been properly analysed.

Surely with such an obviously excessive credit balance it does not take a lengthy investigation to authorise refund of a single digit percentage of it ?

I have contacted my Bank and cancelled the Direct Debit for EoN as the next DD payment is due on the 15th. There simply isn't £1500 in there so the payment would not have gone through anyway, but if you did try to take a lesser amount then there is a risk of my next Rent payment failing.

Please can you advise so i can start planning a crisis strategy. Thankyou

Hi, in the past we have had a similar problem with BT taking wrong amount out on wrong date which caused us to go overdrawn and DD's bounced, so I argued that BT should pay any overdrawn charges (which they did) . I cancelled direct debit which of course they were not pleased with, I now pay them by standing order each week towards a monthly bill, strangely enough not had high bills from them since I did it that way...at the end of the day, it's your money and if they are keeping it then it's theft and fraud...not sure why it should take time after giving them a meter reading though...hope it works out for you, its difficult when you have personal stuff to deal with as well

[meldrewreborn]

@Gavlar

This really shouldn't take that long to resolve.

Get them to send somebody to read the meter(s) as a matter of urgence. That will establish the correct reading to the supplier's satisfaction. They should then be able to make a preliminary assessment of how much you've been over billed. They can then make an interim repayment to you of the majority of the overpayment while they sort out the fine detail. I'd raise an immediate complaint, and start spelling out to them the very serious financial problems that this is causing you.

You have though to acknowledge that you have been given information by the supplier relating to all this which you have not acted upon, so some of the fault lies with you. Can you actually give us some (correct) readings from the dim and distant past and those of today so we can assess you actual usage and thus what your bills really should have been.

Is your meter a smart meter? can you post images of the meter any boxes with flashing lights on?