Hi nutstool

I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience in the short time you were with us. It certainly does sound like a nightmare.

I would make sure the agent dealing with your account has opened a complaint for you. This will prevent the debt follow up brewerdave referred to earlier.

We certainly prefer to use actual meter readings wherever possible. However, in the absence of actual readings we are allowed to use estimates. We try and base these on as much info as possible like any past usage history or details of the property. We're also happy to replace estimates with actual readings at any time.

As maxstream says, it's always advisable to take readings when moving in/out of properties.

When changing supplier, it's the responsibility of the gaining supplier to tell the losing supplier the readings they will use to open the new account. The losing supplier uses the same readings to close the old account. This is to make sure the customer is not charged twice for the same energy.

I don't want to worry you but were the readings we used to open our account back in January the right way round?

This might take a bit of time to sort. You can help speed up the process by taking readings at the same time each day. See which register is moving and tell Scottish Power. This will confirm whether or not the readings they first gave us were, in fact, correct and our original opening readings were the wrong way round. They will pass the details on to us.

Once we've established the correct order, we can re-bill your account the right way round.

Some of this is just pure speculation, though, and I could be wrong. What has resulted is clearly a mess. This is another reason I mentioned opening a complaint. An individual agent needs to take ownership of the problem and escalate through our management structure. This will also speed things up.

I fully understand why you're claiming the money back. There's no way you should be paying an incorrect bill.

Again, I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience. Give me a shout if you need any info as will be happy to help.

Malc

Hopefully you'll get the direct debit reversed and a suitable final bill.

However, in an ideal world, you would have received notice that £588 was going to be taken and then you would have had time to cancel the payment.

It is sensible to take meter readings whenever you move into a new property. This is not something that needs a letter. Without taking a reading, all you can do is use a few current readings to estimate what the opening reading would have been. If you are not happy with the supplier's estimate, you can ask for and review details of their calculations. They will need some actual readings to make a more accurate estimate.

E.On are an absolute nightmare to deal with, avoid them like the plague!

Firstly, when I signed up with them, they opened my account with estimated readings. They claim that they sent me an email in January asking for readings, I didn't receive this email and I have all my emails dating back to September. They also claim that they sent me a letter asking for the readings, again not received. So they decided, rather than phone me and leave me an answerphone message, they would simply pluck readings out of thin air and use these as my opening readings. Surely this cannot be legal? The sensible thing to do would be to refuse to open the account until opening readings are received, would it not?

I was only with E.On from 25th Jan to 20th Feb as I got a better deal with Scottish Power. Unfortunately Scottish Power got my day-time and night-time readings around the wrong way and these were submitted to E.On and voila! I get £588.14 debited from my bank account by E.On.

Granted, part of this problem was caused by Scottish Power having the meter readings round the wrong way however, the E.On fiasco didn't end there. I got the opening reading amended by Scottish Power which they then sent to E.On, so it should have been a simple matter of E.On reversing the closing readings and sending me an amended bill along with a cheque for whatever they had overcharged me, yes? Did this happen? Noooooooo! Instead, E.On reversed their opening readings as well as their closing readings and send me yet another incorrect bill where they have said I'm in credit but by nowhere near what I should be.

At this point the fiasco had been ongoing for some 3 weeks. I contacted E.On and am now told that it is with their Disputes department who have up to 28 days to resolve it. At this point I said NO! I've had enough! They have already admitted that the original bill is wrong by sending me an amended bill and I don't have any confidence that they'll get the next one right either so I've been to my bank to claim the money back through the direct debit agreement. Once E.On get their heads out of their proverbials and send me a correct bill, I will call them an pay the amount owed by debit card. Surprisingly, the girl on the phone agreed that this is what I should do as, and I quote, "It's the only way I'm going to get my money back any quicker"!

E.On = Idiocy. Avoid them at all costs!