Good evening, any assistance gratefully received.

Last Saturday I telephoned my current Electricity provider (E.ON) as we were concerned about the high electricity usage in our home (typically the meter is saying we use about 18KW per day in the summer). We are an all electric household, with no gas or oil and only electric water heating etc but this still seems very high.

Anyway, during the conversation, the helpful (to be fair) E.ON call desk agent asked me to take two of meter readings, before and after clicking on the kettle. It became obvious that what they thought was the economy 7 night reading was in fact the day reading and day reading was the night…

I probably should have spotted that the day/night reading on previous bills looked wrong before as the night usage was about 3 times as much as they day, but as we were paying about £230 per month (direct debit), we (my wife and I) thought that it was probably correct and I did not look at the detail on the day night rates… I would have also expected E.on to have also spotted that something was not quite right several years ago.

With hindsight as I work from home a lot I would expect more electricity to be used in the day so this pattern of day/night usage would make sense (although I still question the actual KW totals)

Anyway they have gone away and done some sums (I’m told this is not final) and our hard saved £461 credit has suddenly become a whopping £1,686 debt… It also looks like they have backdated these charges to my first E.ON bill back in April 2006…

A few other facts for you:

· The meter is outside the property (in a white meter box and can be accessed by their representatives at any time)

· When I spoke to them on Saturday they accepted this was their mistake, and had only found out about this issue as I had questioned the overall usage figures

· They or their representatives installed the meter and did the initial day/night readings

· E.on (or their meter reading partner) have read the meter on most occasions, obviously with the readings being transposed or recorded incorrectly on their computer system each time

· On those occasions when I’ve received an estimated bill, I’ve quickly gone back with the p1 and p2 actual readings (not knowing which is which)

· To date we have been on Economy 7, as we believed it was beneficial to us (ie we thought that we used more units at night than in the day), however had we known this was wrong we would have immediately changed tariff, to something that more favours day usage. Their revised bill is based upon Economy 7 figures, and is not at their cheapest day rate

I believe I’ve read that the electricity providers can only backdate 12 months (not back till April 2006) if they are at fault with regards to billing, is this correct? I assume that I can easily argue that this is would be the case?

I think a letter may be imminent from E.ON and I’d be very interested in anyone’s thoughts on this subject before I respond in writing to them.

Henry

Henry Wright:

Well done for at last bringing the group a definite utility scr*w-up.

It seems there has been an admitted mistake but you are particularly interested in knowing about the 12 months backdating issue. You need to search for something called "Code of Practice for Accurate Billing" and read paragraph 10. My take is that this strictly does not trigger Paragraph 10 because you having been receiving bills, albeit incorrect bills. Nevertheless you should insist on being happy with their proposed solution on pain of Complaint and potentially a reference to the energy ombudsman as described.

Unfortunately your post has too many words not enough numbers for me to make much of it at this time of day. Maybe tomorrow.

One suggestion if you haven't done it yet. Take a photograph of the meter close enough to capture all the numbers just in case the meter gets changed.

Thanks Jalexa for the quick response, I’ve done a quick Google and found a document on the energy retail association web site:

It’s a link under the code of practice for actuate bills entitled FAQ’s

http://www.energy-retail.org.uk/documents/BillingCodeFAQs15Oct08.pdf

If I’ve read the section correctly on the bottom of page 3 and top of page 4

As I’ve :

a) Been paying all my bills on time,

b) Not been avoiding payment

c) Cooperated to obtain meter readings

Then they should not be able to back bill me more than 12 months because of clauses e or f (either clause should do):

e) Failed to set up or maintain accurate meter and metering data or

f) Failed to use valid readings provided by the Customer or data collectors

Do you agree, or am I just reading too much into this?

Henry

Henry Wright:

I completely agree that it appears (assuming transposition is proved) that E.ON have failed both (e) & (f) (the FAQ which I haven't read before goes much further than Paragraph 10 of the Code document).

You will need to agree 12 months prior readings for both rates.

If transpositiion is is proven and they first attempted to back bill to April 2006 that would be a further breach of process which I would expect to be compensated.

As an aside a faulty timeswitch can also affect how the rates are metered. Again not your responsibility. As a further aside £230/month is a lot of power so I'm not totally sure what has been happenning. Only heating uses big numbers and only you know how much heating you use and a what times.

Hello Henry,

I am sorry to hear of the problems that you have had with the billing of your account.

As Jalexa says it does sound like the billing code of practice could apply, from the information you have posted.

But E.ON do still need to bill the account correctly from when the transposed reading issue started, if this is not done the account will be incorrect.

Once the account has been billed correctly from the start up to date, the balance that can not be claimed under the billing code will be manually removed from the debt, you will see this as a credit or adjustment on your bill.

You can then agree a payment arrangement for the remaining balance to be paid.

Hope this helps

Helena

Hi Helena, thank you for your post and for keeping a watch out for such matters.

I must say that despite this billing issue, which I feel is just an unfortunate mistake, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by all the E.ON representatives that I’ve spoken to and how helpful everyone has been.

I’ve been told today that someone should be calling me back next week with the “finial” bill and so I’ll reserve any judgment until I’ve seen it.

Also the E.ON consumption department has run some numbers for me based on my current usage and has recommended that I switch from Economy 7 to a standard day rate tariff due to my high daily usage. Once the billing issue has been sorted I will definitely be doing this.

I’ll update you all again, once I get the final bill,

Thanks again,

Henry

Hi Henry,

These things can happen, but as you know it can be sorted for you.

Remember to ask for a payment arrangement to pay the rest of the balance, if this is what you would like to do.

If you do need any further info, just let me know and I will do my best to help you.

Helena