Energy bill

EON robbed me of £3500 over 10+ years, it took threatening them with the police fraud squad to get it back. They have a whole dept set up to avoid giving back money they steal. Just sayin'. Even with that settlement they probably owed me more.

 

I thought you didn't like dairy?

 

I had an economy 7 meter that didn't trip over. I suppose if I'd ever looked at my bills I'd have noticed. So not only was I not getting Economy rate, all my elec was at a higher rate than std, which is how it worked. A meter reader told me about it. EON's initial response was outrage that the meter reader had told me!
Then we went through a long process of their staff offering me £100, then next person would say" I don't know why they only offered you that, we can offer you £200" etc etc until I had the office head calling me for literally hours on end trying to bamboozle me into accepting yet more offers but at all points the conversations started with the words "I don't know why they told you that" (referring to the last bod in their office who'd tried to fob me off). I just got more and more suspicious TBH and they always claimed they could only see the last couple of years bills and couldn't send me copies.

So, what did it eventually was me pointing out that every person started with "I don't know why (the last thief) ..." so I put it to him that they were all either completely incompetent or deliberately defrauding me. I told him I didn't believe they were ALL including him, the office head, incompetent and that if I didn't get a proper offer and proof (bills) in the next hour I'd be calling the fraud squad and hoped they had (as legally obliged) recorded all the conversations.

40 minutes later I got an email offering with 10 years bills attached, apologies that they didn't keep earlier ones, but had averaged it out to 12 years as an act of good faith (lol) and £3,500 was already in my bank account.

During this they were adamant for several phone calls that the meter worked because once every 3 or 4 months and sometimes just once a year it registered half a unit! They tried EVERYTHING to wriggle out of it. They shot themselves in the foot several times e.g. by telling me that say 5 years ago they could see the meter had ticked over half a unit having told me they could only see two years bills. Lots of stuff like that and I remembered and quoted it back asking them to explain.

The whole process took about 3 months of repeated calls. After the first couple of months it was the boss of the "fraud" dept calling me. I reckon they were on a bonus dependent on how much money that they managed to cheat their customers out of. You know what an obstinate pig headed git I am so you can imagine what was required to wrestle my money back, even I nearly gave up but really it was their tactics of trying to get me to agree bindingly to offers before they'd offer any paperwork that kept me at it.

ha-ha, even after that lot they wanted to keep £1500 I was ahead in DD's because of how much I'd use in the winter. Oh no I wouldn't, the house was sold! So I got all that back too. All in all the probably 12 hours I spent on the phone bumped my bank account up by £5k so it was worth the effort, though it was the principle of the thing that drove me on as I had no idea how much they owed me when I started off.

I know the ombudsman would have been bamboozled so I never even mentioned them and nor did they. Turns out the threat of the fraud squad had a better effect! I reckon as a good citizen I should have notified them even after getting my cash back, but you know how it is - house sale, divorce, it was a stressful enough time already so I drew a line under it.

 

Direct Debits are a scam. Cancel the direct debits right now and go on to a pay as you go system.

I read my meters each month and send the suppliers my actual usage readings, they send or email me a bill for electricity and gas used and I pay them that amount, no more and no less.

As we have said, paying by direct debit, means they can charge you whatever they want and their ridiculously sky high amounts are not at all related to your usage or last years usage, its just a massive and unregulated rip off.

In the past, folks signed up to direct debits as they got a small discount, but not anymore.

 

I feel quite stupid really, I used to work as often as not through the night with a 3KW convector heater on full chat, we ran the flipping washing machine at night etc... but I never even glanced at the bills!
But, there were just no units on the night rate, or maybe about 10 units all in tiny bits over 10 years. Oh they wanted to come and change the meter immediately the first time I called them - get rid of the evidence I reckon, but I wouldn't let them until it was resolved. Quite funny that later they were claiming it must be working - that was another thing I caught them out on.

 

If you know any Skunk growers they will tell you how to connect up to the mains ...but i certainly wouldn't advice doing it

 

You do need to watch it with E7. At our flat, dispensed with the use of E7 heaters, but I've got to get round to changing the tariff (which I suspect is higher than standard peak rate as @Zed said).

 

Oh, and good luck trying to get them on the phone. Trying to talk to Southern Electric these days is like communicating with the dead. They deal with customer queries by simply not answering the phone.

 

There is a worrying possibility that some folk will start using an open fire which has been dormant for years , with dodgy leaking flues possibly going into neighbours flue which may not be sealed properly with crumbling feathering .
And burning anything even tyres .

 

There’s going to be a lot of people with lung problems as they seal up all the draughts to try and stay warm and mould builds up
Especially with drying washing indoors

 

we have adopted the routine of watching the weather forecast and washing overnight when it looks like a good following day. We also open the bedroom windows wide open for a couple of hours in the morning and then close them for the rest of the day it goes the house a chance to breathe.

 

Agreed just pay ours every quarter, then pay with our credit card at beginning of new month so get another 60 days relitavely free. So basically get 5 months nearly before we pay and on top of that receive bonus points on our credit card....

 

So I have been traveling in the van for 4 months now and campsites electric hook up charges have risen from as low as £2 per night up to £6 per night - even at £6 per night I wonder if the campsite is loosing as £180 per month revenue per connection is that enough to cover someone running a fan heater for example 24hrs a day and then the pay back of installation and inspection costs etc for the site - I put an lpg tank in my van that fills from outside the van as a campingaz cylinder is now £40+ to replace and my lpg tank 2.5 times the size is £12 to fill at the petrol station so use gas for fridge heating and cooking.
Don’t get me started on my mortgage costs!

 

Whole ones, or just a bit at a time?…. Surely you are in a smokeless zone ?

 

Folk from the north make excellent compost as well

 

Everyone will be getting back more than the increase in fuel prices by the tax savings from the abolition of the top rate of tax, don’t forget