E.ON cancelled £13,000 bill it sent to my late mother, but still owes £3,360 | Money
When my mother died of cancer, my aunt adopted Me. She too died of cancer in 2024. At 26, I am now alone and struggling to deal with huge, crazy problems. energy bills from E.ON Next.
In 2022, I discovered my aunt had paid massivethe bills for the apartment I shared with her were inflated, so I closed the account and opened a new one facility in my name. A The E.ON agent read the meters, a smart meter was installed and a final bill sent showing the account was credited with more than £6,000. E.ON did not leave me the cash, so the credit was transferred to the new account and used to pay the bills for the next two years.
Fast forward to 2024 and, after my aunt died, he deducted £3,360 from the credit for energy used since the start of 2022. I complained and a month later received a bill for £12,960 in the name of my late mother who was the account holder before she died in 2015. This was for energy dating back to May 2021. I disputed this and sent debt collectors.
The Energy Ombudsman intervened, canceled the £12,960 bill and ordered E.ON to comply with chargeback regulations, but she failed to refund the £3,360.
ITS, London
I have spent hours examining the various bills and I admit to being disconcerted. Fees are waived and reapplied repeatedly. Sales fluctuate wildly. In October 2022, when the £6,000 credit was applied to your new account, E.ON’s opening statement estimated your annual gas and electricity cost at £23,200. This fantastic figure may explain why your aunt was being charged up to £1,000 a month in the years before her death.
Since the smart meter was installed in 2022, you’ll be using around £150 of energy per month, which is roughly the same as a single person living in a three-bedroom flat.
The £3,360 in arrears cited by E.ON in July 2024 also makes no sense. Not only are energy companies prohibited from charging for unbilled consumption dating back more than 12 months, but the smart meter was transmitting readings to the company for 20 of the months they then claimed were due.
E.ON’s responses to my questions, formulated over several weeks, are as mystifying as its invoices. He claims the £6,000 credit to your aunt’s account was based on incorrect estimated readings. This is why, according to the company, you were unable to cash it out – but due to human error it was transferred to your new E.ON account.
Your aunt’s credit balance was, he says, actually £2,633 in 2022. After this mistake, he admits that he then wrongly charged you for an outstanding balance that accrued outside the chargeback period.
Meanwhile, your new smart meter was malfunctioning, he claims, and you were being undercharged. This is apparently how the £3,360 debt came about in 2024, although no one thought to explain it to you.
E.ON apologized for its “failings” and told me it had since “strengthened” its bereavement policy. It states: “We have applied chargeback protection to old and new accounts, cleared all outstanding balances, removed all negative credit reference data, and issued a goodwill payment. »
Given the catalog of errors, it is impossible to know whether the £3,360 deduction is correct. That certainly seems very high. You insist that the money should not have been deducted.
As you have already tried the Energy Ombudsman, I suggest you take the documents to Citizens Advice to see if you have a legal case. What is certain is that E.ON’s mistakes and recklessness would be appalling by any measure, but it is particularly shocking when a young, bereaved customer is the target.
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