[JoeSoap]

I’ve read this entire thread four times to try and get my head around it. This transitional charge is clearly upsetting people. I’ve never seen it before although that’s not to say it hasn’t been on my bills. Let me see if I’m getting it…

Something complicated makes it difficult sometimes to work out the exact cost of gas consumed when an accurate meter reading is given to correct an estimate.

The transitional charge is applied initially until the real cost is worked out but it is likely to be only pennies out when the real cost is realised.

It doesn’t matter if you pay by monthly DD or are on a fixed tariff as this is merely billing for the amount of gas actually used and doesn’t necessarily mean your monthly payments will change.

When the actual cost is worked out the provisional transaction is either changed to actual or there is a further credit or debit applied to your account to make it correct.

That all sounds fairly straightforward to me.

How am I doing so far?

I now need to understand the issue here. Is it that the provisional charge is staying on the bill when the actual charge has been applied so that you effectively pay for the same gas usage twice?

That’s the only potential problem I can see here but I’d genuinely like to be enlightened.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by JoeSoap

I’ve read this entire thread four times to try and get my head around it. This transitional charge is clearly upsetting people. I’ve never seen it before although that’s not to say it hasn’t been on my bills. Let me see if I’m getting it…

Something complicated makes it difficult sometimes to work out the exact cost of gas consumed when an accurate meter reading is given to correct an estimate.

The transitional charge is applied initially until the real cost is worked out but it is likely to be only pennies out when the real cost is realised.

It doesn’t matter if you pay by monthly DD or are on a fixed tariff as this is merely billing for the amount of gas actually used and doesn’t necessarily mean your monthly payments will change.

When the actual cost is worked out the provisional transaction is either changed to actual or there is a further credit or debit applied to your account to make it correct.

That all sounds fairly straightforward to me.

How am I doing so far?

I now need to understand the issue here. Is it that the provisional charge is staying on the bill when the actual charge has been applied so that you effectively pay for the same gas usage twice?

That’s the only potential problem I can see here but I’d genuinely like to be enlightened.

Just to state that this provisional amount is not upsetting me in the slightest. You understand it as well as I do The value of the CV used in the calculation has varied between 40.1 and 40.2 in the last 4 months for my region (Earlier in the year it was as high as 40.6).

To answer your final point, I've only ever seen one £ amount shown on my account for each monthly gas calculation. You are not having your account debited with more than one amount for the gas. As I see it, when the provisional amount gets debited to your account it becomes the actual amount that now affects your account balance (the provisional amount does not affect your account balance). Think of it like online banking where you get informed of pending transactions - they make no difference to the balance at that time. To be honest I have never noticed if the provisional amount has ever been different to the actual amount. What I do check is that the calculations on the bill tallies with my reads (end of previous bill and end of new bill) and I can then see what CV was used on the actual gas portion bill.

As far as I can see there is no real issue here but I do think that Eon Next should be able to calculate the gas portion of bills faster than they currently do. I shall be looking to see if my current pending amount of £8.91 gas translates to the same amount in the account when it becomes actual.

[JoeSoap]

@Mailman

Thanks for that. It’s all legitimate then, but this provisional charge is perhaps getting mistaken for an additional unexplained charge over and above what is due.

Seems to me that this could be solved with ‘See Note 1’ next to ‘Provisional Charge’ and an explanation for it at the bottom of the page.

[Mailman]

Ironically this is the first month where the gas £ provisional amount has taken more than 2 days to become actual - no statement produced either as a result of it being 'stuck' as provisional.