Hi,

some weeks ago a letter from Eon reached my address addressed to a person who does not live there and liver lived there in the last 5 years, and wasn't the person who lived here before we moved in.

Thank you for switching to EON, please send us your meter reading so we can complete the switch.

Thinking nothing of it, I binned the letter.

After that more letters from eon arrived, addressed to the occupier.

Most I binned some I opened. They seemed very genuine, in the line of You won 1 million pounds please send us your personal details and some money so we can complete the transaction.

More recently they were actual bills, reminding me to send my meter reading to my supplier which is not EON.

It didn't work online. I tried it by phone and it didn't work. I called them on there service phone and the lady accepted my meter reading.

A week later and I still didn't get a bill. Checked online and my meter reading wasn't there.

Now I sent an e-mail to my supplier who confirmed that EON had falsely grabbed my account and switched it to them. (They still had all the data like meter point number and meter serial number because they were the supplier years ago before we switched to the new supplier).

I checked the old bills, and the previous account number was different to the account number used for the new bills.

I called EON and was put on hold most of the time for more than 10 minutes. Once I talked to someone, but I remember only because I didn't input the account number as asked. As soon as I gave him the account number I was put on hold.

A mail from my current supplier confirmed they are working on the issue to solve it and it can take 6 months.

Now letters from EON contain the bill for some time (£37), a threat of debt collectors, and threats of court orders, magistrates, warrants, etc.

I'm afraid one morning a whole terror group of the police will smash in windows and doors, killing my orchid, only to have a look at my meter.

When I checked the Internet, I found this practice of threatening The Occupier by utility companies is going on at least since 2004.

Is there any party or MP or court or judge willing to put a stop to this fraudulent behaviour? Put the CEO and her whole board of directors into prison and throw away the key, something along this line.

We had a similar issue with British Gas.

After moving in to a new property, someone knocked, asked for the meter reading, and a week later I got a letter from British gas congratulating me to switch to them.

Somehow I got the matter resolved in a very short time, probably involving trading standards, or calling BG and pulling the guy through the phone line. Can't remember.

But this seems to me endemic considering all the links found here and other forums, and the Internet at large.

Another question: If I go to court to stop the harassment by EON, how much would I need to pay to a lawyer?

Yes this is a common problem and it causes a huge amount of difficulty and distress for innocent customers who become involved in the middle of a tug-of-war all brought about by somebody who picks up commission on the deal.

I'm not sure that there is any easy solution but we could try a few things if you wanted. Particularly as you say that you have had previous experience of this and you sorted out before. Maybe you have the motivation to be persistent and to cause a bit of trouble.

I will certainly start off by sending both parties and SAR under the GDPR regime. Hopefully this will uncover a lot more of the story. You may will find that the disclosures are incomplete but you will have to try and decide what should be there in distant and then complain and also complain to the ICO. It will take 30 days for the SAR to be satisfied.

You haven't told us who your existing supplier is. Clearly all the suppliers are aware that this is a particular problem and yet we don't have any indication that any of them do anything to stop it. However it seems to me that one might start to rattle some cages if one looked at the possibility of saying that they have a contractual duty to preserve your data and to look after your contract and not allow amendments to be made without your express permission. I expect that they would come back and say that it is "industry practice". However if it were to be "industry practice" then I don't see why that should affect you or bind you if they have some internal industry arrangements which aren't properly implemented and go wrong.

Who is the existing supplier? I notice also that you seem to have been on the telephone to them but of course you haven't read our customer services guide and implemented the advice there. I suggest you do so and then start having further conversations and get them to make admissions including the fact that they are trying to sort it out and that they agree there is a problem. All of this kind of thing would be useful.

I think a lot depends on what you think you're prepared to do about it.

Hello White Paper and sorry for the late reply.

This sounds like what's known as an Erroneous Transfer (ET). This is when a customer is transferred to or from a company without their knowledge or agreement. It sometimes happens when meter reference numbers and addresses are mixed up on the National Databases. These databases hold details of all the electricity and gas meters in the country. All suppliers use them when handling a change of supply and sometimes apply for the wrong account, particularly when two addresses are similar. Not saying this happened to you, it's just something that can happen Usually, the supplier taking over will contact the customer affected to introduce themselves and send a welcome pack. Did you receive anything like this?

We've a specialist ET team who deal with this type of thing and these are the best people at E.ON to talk to. Once it's been established that this is an ET, we have a duty to put it right as quickly as possible. We'll contact the other supplier and ask them to take back the account. It'll go back as though it had never left. The supply period and billing will be continuous and carry on as though it hadn't been away. This is usually done within 6-8 weeks of the ET being acknowledged. Where we've taken over by mistake, you won't have to pay us anything. We might send a couple of bills whilst this is sorted but, in the end, only the original supplier needs to be paid for energy used. We'll cancel all bills and charges.

If you haven't already, raise a complaint. A Complaint Manager will investigate, make sure things are put right and offer a resolution/explanation. If you're not happy with this, a second area of the business will take another look. They'll either uphold the original resolution or offer an alternative. If this still isn't satisfactory, we'll let you have a Final Offer Resolution letter you can use to go to the Energy Ombudsman for an independent review. There's more about how we look after complaints on our website.

Should you want an SAR as BankFodder suggests, please ask for a Customer Rights request. Recent legislation has changed the way we look after these requests. To comply with the new rules, we need to be back in touch about this within 30 days of the request being raised. There's no charge for a Customer Rights request.

Sorry again for the late reply White Paper and hope this points you in the right direction.

Malc

how about you publish a contact name and phone number for this dedicated team? save a lot of hassle for the OP

Its also particularly ironic on how long its taken eon to reply......

how about you publish a contact name and phone number for this dedicated team? save a lot of hassle for the OP

Hello ericsbrother and happy to give the OP contact details if they would like to PM me. I won't, though, put them on a public forum. This is because our numbers and teams change periodically whilst these posts stay around. People often do internet searches many months later, pull up a particular post and use any contact details included. This can lead to disconnected numbers being phoned or going through to the completely wrong area. Both of which cause frustration.

Contact details are also included on our bills and website. We've a Live Chat service on our website, too; and Social Media channels (twitter and Facebook) with private messaging facilities to protect sensitive information. Advisors are available on all these channels from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and between 8am and 6pm Saturdays.

Hope this explains.

Malc

Its also particularly ironic on how long its taken eon to reply......

I agree sgtbush. Far longer than we would like. Regrettably, due to the lack of demand for us on this Forum, we don't monitor it regularly and tend to rely on the Mods or someone else giving us an 'heads up' when a new question or issue is posted. This could change if there were more E.ON issues raised.

PMs and replies to existing threads we're subscribed to do, though, come directly to Helena and myself and we can respond to these much quicker.

As I say, I agree, far from ideal at the moment and sorry for anyone who has had to wait for a reply.

Malc

you miss the poinjt, the OP HAS tried all of the various methods and got nowhere. Why dont you just send him a private message and pass on the message that he is going to be in touch so whoever answers the phone knows what it is all about.

Hello ericsbrother and happy to give the OP contact details if they would like to PM me. I won't, though, put them on a public forum. This is because our numbers and teams change periodically whilst these posts stay around. People often do internet searches many months later, pull up a particular post and use any contact details included. This can lead to disconnected numbers being phoned or going through to the completely wrong area. Both of which cause frustration.

 

Contact details are also included on our bills and website. We've a Live Chat service on our website, too; and Social Media channels (twitter and Facebook) with private messaging facilities to protect sensitive information. Advisors are available on all these channels from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and between 8am and 6pm Saturdays.

 

Hope this explains.

 

Malc