[SteveInCumbria]

Thanks John, but as it currently says £111, it won't let me reduce it to the £78 I'd like to keep it level at.

Apparently I can increase it, but not decrease. I guess I'll just have to keep watching, and see how it pans out.

I'm not a stupid person, but I find all these different figures being given, to be very confusing 🤔

[JoeSoap]

@SteveInCumbria

I think I can see what is happening here. Firstly you can ignore your online account as there is a message (on mine at least) saying the emails will be correct but the online account will take time to update to the correct amount.

Secondly, the new email is reflecting the £67 reduction in your current DD from 1/10/22 but also shows that same reduction as pertaining to your updated £111 as of 6/10/11. In the latter one I would imagine the £111 is reflecting the increase in tariff rates to the EPG and it is the 6/10/22 DD figure that I would expect to be the correct one.

I think it's different algorithms getting in the way of each other.

I could be wrong of course. There's still a few days to go for them to sort it out. I have yet to receive any email and have only had my current fixed rate reduced by £67 in my online account. No mention yet of my rates being reduced towards the EPG. I remain patient.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by SteveInCumbria

I received an email from Eon Next today, saying prices were going up etc. Then saying I was eligible for the £400 grant, so monthly bill would actually go down from the current £78 to the new £44. However, when I log in to my Eon account, it tells me my October payment will increase to £111. Which is correct? I'm confused.

Both things are correct. Eon are trying to grapple with 3 different things happening at the same time:

1. The general increase in unit prices for both gas and electric of circa 27% over the April rates (would have been alot worse without the massive additional help to lower what would have been an eye-watering increase withoutt it)
2. Eon are now having to adjust the DD that people need to be paying so as not to fall into massive debt (or even massive credit for that matter). Again if the current DD is correct and you are an 'average user' one might expect a general increase of 27% or thereabouts from October 1st onwards
3. Eon Next need to apply the EBIS £400 DD reduction over the next 6 months.

What we seem to be seeing is all of these things happening but without much in the way of a clear explanation to its customers.

What you need to do is work out what your annual usage is (or is likely to be) over the next 12 months (or 6 months) and work out what you your total bill might be (taking off any credit you have built up) and then just divide by 12/6. This is what Eon Next may well have done i.e. they think that your account needs to have £111 paid into it for the next 12 (possibly 6 months) months for you not to go into debt. Assume then your account needs £111 pcm to zeroise it by the end of March 2023. You will only pay £44.53 pcm via your DD into your account and the government will effectively pay £66/£67 in these 6 months. In total though your Eon Next energy account will receive an average of £111pcm of funds into it over the next 6 months (total £666).

Ignore the £11.31 figure as they clearly have not done the account review whereas they do appear to have done it for the £44.53 figure and this is the recalculated amount you should expect to see going out your bank account for the next 6 months. Don't amend this 'nominal figure' of £111 until you are sure of how your account is shaping up as this autumn progresses or you are absolutely sure of your calculations and can justify any decrease. Of course nothing to stop you building up even more credit if that is what you wish to do.

[SteveInCumbria]

Thanks Mailman - that pretty much confirms what I thought was happening ;-)

I did the 12 month calculation, based on the £111 figure, and removing the £400 discount, and balancing it over the 12 months, it works out to almost exactly the £78 I'm currently paying.

Yes, my plan is indeed to keep my payments at that level, and build up a "reserve" over the first 6 months, to offset the increase over the second 6 months. 🤞

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by SteveInCumbria

Thanks Mailman - that pretty much confirms what I thought was happening ;-)

I did the 12 month calculation, based on the £111 figure, and removing the £400 discount, and balancing it over the 12 months, it works out to almost exactly the £78 I'm currently paying.

Yes, my plan is indeed to keep my payments at that level, and build up a "reserve" over the first 6 months, to offset the increase over the second 6 months. 🤞

Just to be crystal clear, during the next 6 months, your energy account will see £666 (£111 x 6) of funds going into it (£400 from HMG and £266 from yourself) if you keep the nominal DD set @ £111. If you decided to keep it at the original £78 you will see a lesser amount being credited of £468 (£78 x 6). Depending on how much credit you currently have and your usage over the next 6 months either figure might be correct for your circumstances.

Just to give you an idea of my circumstances, I expect in the next 6 months that my energy account will use approx £1490 of gas/elec combined so if I was on monthly DD, I would be expecting to set my nominal DD in the region of £1490/6 = £248 pcm DD (but actual would be £66/67 less each month) and over the whole year this would work out to £1785/12 (equivalent to £149 pcm DD). These are with a present account balance of £0 and assumes annual usage of 2500kWh (E) and 6800 kWh (G) and the announced rates for October remaining unchanged.

I don't have this issue of wrangling with Eon Next as to what my DD should be as I pay Variable Direct Debit each month so expect to see actual statements vary between £160 and £230 from Oct-March with actual DD amounts taken adjusted by £66/£67 for this period so actually expect to pay between £93 - £161 actual DD.

[CustomerOfLastResort]

Unsurprisingly, I've got the same 'information' on my account page. Thinking about it, having the older/previous figure does normally flag up the magnitude of a price change but it being superseded could be more clearly expressed by saying "until [date]" like they use "from [date]".

However, quoting one amount for the date of my next DD, then another 'taking effect' days later clearly suggests that that will be the amount of the ones after that. It's sloppy.

Sure, both amounts are below the current monthly payment taken from my account but that will not be the case for everyone and utterly ignores the situation of people that need to budget carefully and shouldn't have to factor-in an unclear/uncertain automatic deduction that could 'bounce'. In short, as you said, it fails to deliver exactly what Eon promote as an advantage of the DD system... stable predictability.

Originally Posted by SteveInCumbria

This is getting ridiculous!

Why is there no option to say "No thanks, I'd rather keep payments as they are"? All this decrease/increase plays havoc with financial planning.

I understand that this would help a lot of people, short term, but as I can weather these increases, I just want stability, not all these see-sawing payments.

I've pointed out problems with Eon's automatic DD 'calculation' system previously. Basically, it ignores existing credit-balances and if the website won't accept your self-adjustment (via the 'Edit payment amount' feature you get to from 'Change amount', after selecting 'Manage my payments') you have to contact customer services. The obvious conclusion is that Eon prefers its customers having to use their own time/effort, and add to the support staff's workload rather than carry out simple, one-time fixes to their automated billing... as a matter of policy, that Ofgem tolerates.

Hope you can use the website to raise the actual amount taken back up to your usual figure, but expect more hassle readjusting it downwards in the Spring even if so.

[CustomerOfLastResort]

Originally Posted by Mailman

Both things are correct. Eon are trying to grapple with 3 different things happening at the same time:

1. The general increase in unit prices for both gas and electric of circa 27% over the April rates (would have been alot worse without the massive additional help to lower what would have been an eye-watering increase withoutt it)
2. Eon are now having to adjust the DD that people need to be paying so as not to fall into massive debt (or even massive credit for that matter). Again if the current DD is correct and you are an 'average user' one might expect a general increase of 27% or thereabouts from October 1st onwards
3. Eon Next need to apply the EBIS £400 DD reduction over the next 6 months.

Point 1: The computed calculation adjusting 'projected' amount according to changed prices will not have been affected by the magnitude of the change. The 'sums' are the same, so there's no need or reason to modify the software beyond a normal/routine update of the actual numbers used.

Point 2: Ditto. The automated DD-setting even ignores 'personal circumstances' like having an existing credit-balance deducted from the 'projected next 12 months total' it uses. From my experience, the only debt-prevention 'feature' it might have is a trigger to recalculate in the case of marked/sustained increase in usage (not cost). ALL consideration of hardship is performed via customer services staff, and again there's no change there.

Point 3: This is the only additional factor affecting the DD process that Eon has had to 'grapple' with. Hopefully, the actual amounts taken will be correct and it's only the information that the website/billing system communicates that's still messy, confusing and/or anxiety-provoking.

I'd say that each customer can decide for themselves if that's OK, but personally I'm not impressed by the level of organisational 'customer care' it demonstrates. Having customer services be the fix for issues management could proactively address is standard for this sector, and one of the reasons I think the whole privatised system they operate in needs to go back to the drawing board ASAP.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by CustomerOfLastResort

Point 1: The computed calculation adjusting 'projected' amount according to changed prices will not have been affected by the magnitude of the change. The 'sums' are the same, so there's no need or reason to modify the software beyond a normal/routine update of the actual numbers used.

Point 2: Ditto. The automated DD-setting even ignores 'personal circumstances' like having an existing credit-balance deducted from the 'projected next 12 months total' it uses. From my experience, the only debt-prevention 'feature' it might have is a trigger to recalculate in the case of marked/sustained increase in usage (not cost). ALL consideration of hardship is performed via customer services staff, and again there's no change there.

Point 3: This is the only additional factor affecting the DD process that Eon has had to 'grapple' with. Hopefully, the actual amounts taken will be correct and it's only the information that the website/billing system communicates that's still messy, confusing and/or anxiety-provoking.

I'd say that each customer can decide for themselves if that's OK, but personally I'm not impressed by the level of organisational 'customer care' it demonstrates. Having customer services be the fix for issues management could proactively address is standard for this sector, and one of the reasons I think the whole privatised system they operate in needs to go back to the drawing board ASAP.

I'm sure that all the things you state are correct as I've no reason to contradict any your points. However because all these things are happening/should have happened with incomplete/confusing information dished out so far it must be clogging their phone lines and social media to the extent that their CS efficiency is somewhat lacking because they don't know what to tell customers who do ring.

If I may give you an example from another company that have managed the process admirably - Shell energy. Looking after my in-laws energy account for them I can clearly see that they have included their credit level and used the same monthly usage figures for their utilities from 12 months ago in their calculation for what funds their account needs for the next 6 months commencing 1st October. They even detail the flex rates for their region from October 1st correctly. Very clear, easy to understand and accurate although being on the flexible SVT is a little easier than fixed. Apart from manually changing the nominal DD amount (which was required) nothing else needed doing (so far).

[FPX]

Originally Posted by SteveInCumbria

BTW, I'm quite happy to leave my payments as is, ie at £78, and let a bit of a buffer build up for March... no problem doing this, is there?

I got into an almighty mess with them trying to sort my DD out - mine was reflecting the new amount not deducting £67.

Call 1 Friday: Account updated to show 2 DDs - one for 1/10 for old payment and other for 5/10 for new increased payment, both with £67 deducted.

Call 2 Monday AM: They deleted the 5/10 DD for me and only showed the lower price one for 1/10 as my usage has gone down - thought everything was sorted.

Call 3 Monday PM: DD disappeared from account - agent reinstated it, but this time from 6/10 - and for a price slightly higher than the previous higher one, as that's what system recommended! - although online it still recommends amount in original email.

My account is £200 in credit, and I should have asked for a lower DD as in original call, but I feared the system would just replace it with a higher one and I'd be in the same position as after call 1 - and enter the loop-of-doom again.

Surely, it's not that hard for the online system to just reflect what email said payment would be.

[JoeSoap]

@FPX
Personally I couldn’t be doing with all the phone calls and introducing more changes that will add to the confusion. I believe it will all be sorted and we will see exactly where we are soon.