I have been having trouble with eon/powergen for the last 4 months.
I was living in a rented 1 bed flat with storage heaters for a year. It was the first time that I had lived on my own and been responsible for utility bills so I had no idea how much electricity would cost. I didn't want to get in to debt so I started paying £40 a month online so when I did recieve my electric bill I would not owe a lot. I had paid £120 before I had recieved my first bill. When I recieved my first bill I still owed £164.49 which I paid. I decided to set up a direct debit in march 2007. The minimum monthly payment was £77.50. I paid this for 3 months at which point the eon website advised me that I could lower my payments to £31.50 each month as my account was always in credit. I paid at this rate until January 2008 and my account was still in credit.
I moved house In January and sent eon my meter reading for my final bill just incase I owed them anything. I recieved my final bill via email about 3 days later. I almost passed out when I looked at it, the final bill was for £1068.38.
I had submitted a meter reading in june 2007 so this huge bill was from a period of around 6 months. I immediatley rang eon to find out how my final electric bill for my 1 bed flat could be so high as I had never missed a payment and I was paying the ammount that their website recommended and they said they would look into it. I heard nothing for a while so I contacted them again to see if they had found anything out to be told they were still looking into it. I eventually recieved a phone call about 2 weeks later they had still not discovered why the bill is so high. The lady assured me that a bill this size for a 1 bed flat must be incorrect which gave me some relief. The lady said she needed to speak to someone else in her department and she would be back in contact with me. I heard nothing for a couple of weeks then a call to tell me they were still looking into it. Another couple of weeks later I recieved a call from eon's debt recovery agency demanding the money. I explained that this was being looked into by eon and I was waiting for a reply from them. I rang eon immediatley and they said they would put my account on hold and assured me that I would not recieve another call from the debt collectors. A week later I recieved a threatening letter from the debt collectors so I rang eon again and they told me to ignore it as they were still looking into it. I recieved a few more calls from eon telling me they still hadn't got to the bottom of this yet.
I know the person that moved into the flat after I moved out and I had made him aware of my problem so he has been closely monitoring the electric meter. In the first 5 days of my friend moving into the flat the meter reading had gone up by around 1000 units which works out at around £90. I contacted eon again and they said they would send an engineer out to investigate which they never did.
Eon rang me after another couple of weeks and told me that the reason my bill was so high is because the storage heaters in the flat are not on economy 7 and are heating up at standard rate. They also told me that this is not their problem it is between me and the landlord of the flat and that the landlord didnt inform them that he was putting storage heaters in. There are 4 storage heaters in the flat of which only 2 work and they look as though they have been there for many years.
I called the landlord and informed him of my situation and that eon were saying that the problem is because the heaters are not on economy 7 and he told me that this is nonsense if there was a problem he would have known by now. I thought the same thing myself, the heaters have been there for years surely if someone who lived there before me recieved bills like this they would have something to say about it.
I have made countless phone calls to eon regarding this matter and they keep telling me the same thing over and over. To this point no engineer has been round to the flat to investigate so how they can tell me that the problem is due to the wrong meter being fitted without even looking is beyond me. For all I know the meter could not be working properly or I could have read the wrong meter as there are 3 meters in the electric cupboard. 1 meter has dials on (the one I took my readings from) and 2 digital meters one with high and one with low written on them (economy 7 meters) which eon think belong to the flat upstairs but are not entirely sure. The flat upstairs has central heating so it is a totally different set up to mine.
Eon told me that an engineer had been round last week and investigated but when I spoke to my friend who lives there he told me that this was untrue and there had been no such visit.
I contacted energy watch to make a complaint only to be passed over to eons complaint department and told the same thing "The flat has the wrong type of electric meter it is a single rate not economy 7". After getting off the phone to eon complaints department I recieved another call from the debt collectors. I informed them that I had reported my problem to energy watch and they asked me for my energy watch reference number which I gave them and they left it at that.
The next day the debt collectors rang me again demanding the money. I told them that I had given them my energy watch reference the day before to which they replied eon have updated my account and instructed them to chase me for the money. I rang eon again and told them that the debt collectors are hassling me and I demanded that this problem be resolved immediatly only to be told the same again, "wrong meter".
They have still not sent an engineer to the flat and they have still not lifted a finger to help me, all they have done is fobbed me off and gave my details to debt collectors.
If I felt that this bill was correct and I believed that it was possible to use over 11000kwh in a 1 bed flat in 6 months then I would sort a way to repay without hesitation, however I do not believe this bill to be anywhere near correct so I dont feel it fair that I be put through this stress and worry through something that is no fault of my own.
Eon have told me that they have put a hold on my account for a month so the debt collectors wont bother me until then.
THEN WHAT????????????????