[Tiberius]

Hello everyone!

A couple of dilemmas.

1/ I have my gas and electricity accounts on Eon Next, both of which are prepayment meters. I can log in with no problems whatsoever. It shows both accounts but it says my "accounts are not available" with no explanations. For the life of me I can't find any solution so I'm hoping someone here can help?

2/ I have tried online to arrange a booking to have a Smart Meter fitted but I keep getting sent back to my log-in page.

What should be a couple of simple tasks are proving to be difficult to complete. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong and point me in the right direction?

[Bennie_R97]

Hi @Tiberius I believe that with prepayment meters, the accounts are dealt in a different way. You should be able to see all the details like for example your usage on the meter itself. Although if you are still concerned you can get in touch with our customer service team and see if they can help you with a specific query. When it comes to smart meters, I believe that if it sends you back to the dashboard it is potentially because we have checks that we have to do from our end in order to book that appointment. For example, we will need to see if there's the connectivity in the area from the DCC. This is also something that our team can help with. Here's the link that can help show you the different ways on how to get in touch with us.

[Tiberius]

@Bennie_EONNext

Thank you for letting me know. I never realised that by being on prepayment you were treated differently. Is that why I'm paying for the prepayment meters that costs me just as much as I pay for my weekly gas and electricity costs? And yes, I have drastically cut down on my usage. Living on sandwiches 3 days a week helps. Don't you think it's about time that energy suppliers stopped charging people for prepayment meters seeing as they are obviously struggling to survive?

[Bennie_R97]

@Tiberius I totally understand your frustration and nobody should be put in such a situation. Have you been in touch with us to see if you could be moved to a smart meter or perhaps put on the list if that's what you would like to do?

We are working really hard to give these options to our customers (i.e. switch to a smart meter). Hopefully this is something that can be implemented soon. We are aware that customers sometimes have no choice to prepayment meters.

Watch this space, when this will go live, we will be announcing it on the community too. In the mean time you would like to discuss your personal account, please do reach out, if we can help in any way, we will.

Benedetta.

[Tiberius]

@Bennie_EONNext
Thank you so very much for your reply.
I was in no way apportioning blame or fault on you or Eon, or any other energy supplier for that matter. I was just venting my frustration and I shouldn't have. After all, everyone is struggling with the current situation we find ourselves in and, unfortunately, things will only get worse before it gets better. It is what it is.

Maybe you could have a word with the powers that be and put an end to charging its customers for being in the predicament of having to have a prepayment meter because they are struggling? It's like being fined! Smart meters are also meters but customers don't get charged for them.

[meldrewreborn]

@Bennie_EONNext

while there is a group of customers whose circumstances mean that a prepayment meter is appropriate, others inherit such a meter when they move in.

By not having a simple means of switching to a credit meter for those who require them, Eon Next is not treating them fairly.

[Bennie_R97]

Hi @Tiberius, I didn't want to imply you were blaming us. I just wanted to let you know that it is ok that you feel that way. Yes, it is not fair that you have to vent your frustration, but we are here to have these conversations.

As a community team, we have been working behind the scene to highlight this and once we have updates or news about prepayment in general, we will definitely be in touch. In the mean time, please do reach out if you have any questions specific to your account.

Benedetta.

[Bennie_R97]

@meldrewreborn Thank you so much for your comment. I totally agree with this and I promise we are working towards this and making sure we can change the process. With guidelines and system processing there are a lot of steps that need to be taken but we are working towards this issue and making sure this won't be the case in the future.

[Andy65]

To be fair @Bennie_EONNext eon-next say that it's possible if a customer needs the use of medical equipment, therefore it is clearly possible one way or another.
There have been 3 official reasons offered on here as to why customers can't be moved from pre-payment to credit meters. Only one of those reasons was plausible and that was because it was "company policy not to".
The other two reasons were, well put it this way, my cat would have laughed herself silly at them if she was still around.

For the life of me I've never understood why customers who buy their energy in advance, have to pay significantly more than those on a credit meter who can drift into debit by £000's.

[meldrewreborn]

Just to say that DD is the cheapest way to pay, followed by prepayment, with paying after the event being the most expensive, even though it’s a credit system.