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e-on Next

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XFool
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e-on Next

#415833

Postby XFool » May 28th, 2021, 1:24 pm

Does anyone use e-on for their electricity supplier?

I have never liked Direct Debt and have always stuck to the old quarterly bills, paid by (in the past!) Giro Transfer, Cheque and, for years/decades now, electronically by BACS whatever.

I got a letter earlier in the year "welcoming" [ :roll: ] me to "e-on Next", whatever that is. I got a bill in April, and paid on 1 May via online banking transfer, as usual. So... next bill in three months time.

I have now received another bill, for April - May: "due for payment in 7 days". WTF? I have sent a complaint by email to e-on about this as I have neither requested, nor been notified of a transfer to some kind of monthly account. My guess: they want everyone on DD, for their convenience, and are being awkward.

Pending any reply to my email, and as this may mark the beginning of the end of my longtime relationship with my electricity supplier, I wonder if anyone here knows anything more about this. Plus, are there any suppliers left who use quarterly billing (British Gas?), ideally without a standing charge and without requiring payment by DD?

I feel I may be wanting the impossible, the way things are run today.

Breelander
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Re: e-on Next

#415842

Postby Breelander » May 28th, 2021, 1:54 pm

XFool wrote:I got a letter earlier in the year "welcoming" [ :roll: ] me to "e-on Next", whatever that is. I got a bill in April, and paid on 1 May via online banking transfer, as usual. So... next bill in three months time.

I have now received another bill, for April - May: "due for payment in 7 days". WTF?...


I got one of those 'Welcome' letters this week. You may not have spotted it, but it specifically says 'We'll send you a bill each month'. Seems to be the only option available now.....

EON Next - YouTube - Why we bill monthly

XFool
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Re: e-on Next

#415845

Postby XFool » May 28th, 2021, 1:58 pm

Breelander wrote:I got one of those 'Welcome' letters this week. You may not have spotted it, but it specifically says 'We'll send you a bill each month'. Seems to be the only option available now.....

That's what I feared.


Yeah. It's all for OUR 'convenience'. innit? :evil:

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Re: e-on Next

#415852

Postby madhatter » May 28th, 2021, 2:41 pm

Plus, are there any suppliers left who use quarterly billing (British Gas?), ideally without a standing charge and without requiring payment by DD?


I have British Gas for both gas and electricity, and so far they seem quite happy sending me a quarterly bill, and not expecting me to pay a standing charge. There are cheaper options, but probably involving DD.

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Re: e-on Next

#415859

Postby XFool » May 28th, 2021, 3:05 pm

...Thanks for that, madhatter. I will look into that, I am already a British Gas customer - for my gas supply.

I reckon e-on will be glad to see people like me off their books: not only do I not pay by DD, but I also ignore all their letters about "making an appointment" to change my electricity meter - for you know what.

What always irritates me whenever this billing matter is mentioned or discussed online or in the medias, even the BBC, is how it is taken as a given there are only two classes of people: 'Normal', regular, sensible people - who all pay by DD, of course. Or 'irregular' people, people in debt or on benefits - who pay by cash, postal orders, stamps... Nothing else.

The concept of paying electronically via BACS, Faster Payments, online banking etc. which has surely been around now for very much more than a quarter of a century, one way or another, is simply ignored. Never mentioned. It's weird.

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Re: e-on Next

#416077

Postby modellingman » May 29th, 2021, 2:38 pm

XFool wrote:Does anyone use e-on for their electricity supplier?

I have never liked Direct Debt and have always stuck to the old quarterly bills, paid by (in the past!) Giro Transfer, Cheque and, for years/decades now, electronically by BACS whatever.

I got a letter earlier in the year "welcoming" [ :roll: ] me to "e-on Next", whatever that is. I got a bill in April, and paid on 1 May via online banking transfer, as usual. So... next bill in three months time.

I have now received another bill, for April - May: "due for payment in 7 days". WTF? I have sent a complaint by email to e-on about this as I have neither requested, nor been notified of a transfer to some kind of monthly account. My guess: they want everyone on DD, for their convenience, and are being awkward.

Pending any reply to my email, and as this may mark the beginning of the end of my longtime relationship with my electricity supplier, I wonder if anyone here knows anything more about this. Plus, are there any suppliers left who use quarterly billing (British Gas?), ideally without a standing charge and without requiring payment by DD?

I feel I may be wanting the impossible, the way things are run today.


I suspect you are right in your final sentence.

This model of monthly billing by direct debit seems to be one that has been adopted by all the energy suppliers that have emerged over the past few years. I am a landlord and, because of that, I "inherit" suppliers when tenants leave and there is a void period. I inherited Bulb as a supplier a while ago and it uses the same model. I have posted about my interaction with Bulb over on the property investment discussions board. You can see my sad tale here: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28628. I updated the thread earlier today, where I discussed (at some length) how Bulb estimates customer bills when the customer fails to provide them with a meter reading. In Bulb's case, meter readings must be provided within a three day window immediately prior to the monthly billing date to avoid estimates being applied.

I strongly suspect monthly billing by direct debit is not the only aspect of this common model being adopted across pretty much all the new energy suppliers (and some older players like e-on). The other aspects that seem (or I suspect) to be fairly common are:

  • The algorithms used for estimating of customer reads - based on industry processes developed for quite different purposes (see the update to the thread on property investment discussions for much more on this)
  • Requiring the customer to provide monthly meter readings and not taking responsibility for the quality of the estimated bills when the customer fails to do this
  • Passing accounts across to debt collection agencies fairly quickly when they fall into arrears
  • Requiring all transactions (such as receiving bills, providing meter readings, etc) to be done online
  • Branding which adopts a slightly jokey, matey approach - I looked at e-on's video and apart from the colours and name it was very much like the style adopted by Bulb

So much for competitive markets leading to innovation and consumer choice, eh?

In my own case, because I inherited Bulb rather than signing up, I haven't needed to provide a direct debit authority - this is normally required as part of the sign-up process. I did eventually manage to get from Bulb sort code/account number details, so my payment method is BACS. This gives me rather than Bulb the control over what gets paid and that has lead to a quite few reminders that I need to set up my payment method. My view is no way, José - until Bulb demonstrates it can provide realistic estimates of consumption rather than gross over-estimates, I'm not going to trust it with the keys to my bank account.

On the no-standing charges thing, I think they all disappeared some time ago. If I recall correctly, it was Cameron's government that decided that the proliferation of tariffs available was confusing to energy consumers so they restricted each supplier to offering just 4 tariffs. As a result of that, those few suppliers that were offering tariffs without standing charges, promptly withdrew them. Although there has been some relaxation since then on the number of tariffs that can be offered, I'm not aware of any that have re-appeared with no standing charges. As a landlord dealing with the occasional void, I would like to be wrong on this but I suspect I'm not.

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Re: e-on Next

#416094

Postby XFool » May 29th, 2021, 3:55 pm

modellingman wrote:
XFool wrote:I feel I may be wanting the impossible, the way things are run today.

I suspect you are right in your final sentence.

So do I. :(

modellingman wrote:I strongly suspect monthly billing by direct debit is not the only aspect of this common model being adopted across pretty much all the new energy suppliers (and some older players like e-on). The other aspects that seem (or I suspect) to be fairly common are:
  • Passing accounts across to debt collection agencies fairly quickly when they fall into arrears

I may be in a position to confirm this myself, shortly. :(

modellingman wrote:So much for competitive markets leading to innovation and consumer choice, eh?

Well yes! I realised that it was nonsense - just ideologically driven claptrap - eons ago. ;)

Firstly: When introduced I looked into getting a cheaper supplier - impossible to tell! It wasn't priced like cans of baked beans on a supermarket shelf, it was all "If this" and "If that" and "Maybe this" and "Maybe that"...
Secondly: After this French guy kept turning up on my doorstep every few months (now illegal) demanding to see my electricity bill.
Thirdly: I thought about it. How does it work exactly? "Out with your fuddy-duddy old 230V 50Hz AC British legacy leccy, sign up for our trendy new, modern, hygenic, AMERICAN 110V 60Hz AC (DC Option available) electricity!" - I don't think so...

Fact is, these utilities just ARE natural monopolies, as there cannot be different varieties of electricity, gas and water.

modellingman wrote:On the no-standing charges thing, I think they all disappeared some time ago. If I recall correctly, it was Cameron's government that decided that the proliferation of tariffs available was confusing to energy consumers so they restricted each supplier to offering just 4 tariffs. As a result of that, those few suppliers that were offering tariffs without standing charges, promptly withdrew them.

Yeah, I remember that. "Cheaper bills" Gee! Because I used so little gas the standing charge itself was and is about N times my normal gas bill. Thanks a bunch.


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