E.S.B. arrears on amended bill

foggy_lad

i got an estimated E.S.B. bill a few days ago and it was way off the mark so i contacted the company via their online form and submitted a proper reading and today i got the new bill in the post.

the new bill shows the original bill amount as arrears and i am livid! i have never been in arrears with my E.S.B. account! i rang the E.S.B. and could not properly understand the person i got through to but he seemed to think this happened because i submitted my reading to the wrong people?

anyway i have since emailed them to ask that all reference to arrears be removed from my account details! surely this is not allowed under the data protection act as they are recording arrears on my account where there is no arrears?

has anyone else had this happen and would you insist that a company remove a reference to arrears from a bill you received if you were not in arrears?

jor el

When was the original bill due date? Arrears means nothing, it's just any outstanding amount from the previous bill, pay it and you're done. Data Protection doesn't come into it either.

penexpers

I find it impossible to believe that an ESB account will go into arrears a few days after the bill is received. The bill is due 14 days after issue and only then will it go into arrears.

Ste.phen

Sounds like:
they issued a bill on day X
on X + Y you called up with a reading
they send out a bill sometime after that for the correct amount but saying it was in arrears?

I don't see the problem...

foggy_lad

sorry for not making my original post clear enough, my original bill was due to be paid by direct debit on 7th of July and the bill received today is due to be paid the same way on 11th July now i have arrears showing in my account information even though i am not in arrears! the previous bill amount was/is not outstanding as it is not due for payment yet.

the problem is my account is not in arrears yet the E.S.B. are saying there is arrears.

Mr. Presentable

If you owe money you are technically in arrears - that's what it means. It's because they did a reissue. But, in any case, pay what you owe and you'll be grand

Davy

Its not in arrears its just a way of updating the bill. rather then sending a new bill with the 'before' reading to the one you entered, they use arrears because its a totally new bill with a new payment date. You can avoid this by submitting the reading online a day before the bill is issued, count 58 days from the last bill date.

foggy_lad

they should not show arrears on customer bills when there are no arrears regardless of how it happens. when i submitted my reading they should have sent me a completly new bill or amended the previous one without implying that i had defaulted in payment!

Davy

How long was it after the bill was issued? Because they often do not put arrears on the bill, they put a comment below the VAT stating that "This invoice replaces the INV. No. 789456612313 issued on 27 June 08"

LolaDub

Had something like this with bord gais a few years ago, got one bill paid it off then got another bill with 500 euro of 'arrears' on it. Went back through previous bills and had payment receipts that showed we didn't owe anything but they still insisted we owed it. I moved out shortly after but it turned out they had slapped us with the 500 charge from completely different tenants under a different name from before we were there. Don't know what happened in the end to be honest.

antoinolachtnai

I think you are expecting a bit much of ESB staff. They will not admit it on the phone, but they can't really stop the billing system from saying crazy things now and again.

With these systems it's generally very difficult to reprint an existing bill or amend the bill. All you can do is get them to issue some sort of credit.

I would imagine that in their system 'arrears' means money hanging over from previous bills. Just because there 'are arrears', doesn't necessarily mean you are 'in arrears' if you see what I mean.

Strictly speaking, you are right, the outstanding amount is not necessarily arrears, but the subtlety is lost on the system.

jor el

foggy_lad wrote: »

they should not show arrears on customer bills when there are no arrears regardless of how it happens. when i submitted my reading they should have sent me a completly new bill or amended the previous one without implying that i had defaulted in payment!

It doesn't imply that at all. If you were in default, your due date on the updated bill would state "overdue". It doesn't, in fact it has given even more time than was on the estimate. Arrears just means any amount from a previous bill, that has yet to be paid, but isn't detailed on this bill. That's an accurate representation of the situation, you are in possession of two bills, only one of which needs to be paid. There is no issue here.

foggy_lad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrears

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arrears

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrears

according to all of these i owe the E.S.B. money but i don't. it is very easy for them to scrap the original bill and reprint a new bill showing the full amount from the reading i gave. i have asked for this to be done but they seem not to undersyand.

oneweb

foggy_lad wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrears

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arrears

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrears

according to all of these i owe the E.S.B. money but i don't. it is very easy for them to scrap the original bill and reprint a new bill showing the full amount from the reading i gave. i have asked for this to be done but they seem not to undersyand.

Billing systems are very complicated, just ask anyone who's dealt with ntl/esat/eircom/etc. They deal with tens of thousands of bills a week.

As jor el said, unless it actually states "OVERDUE" then you have nothing to worry about. The moment you get a bill - any bill, you are (unless they owe you money) in arrears. This is the amount owing on an account.

You got an incorrect bill. You didn't pay it because so far you haven't had to (7th July). You automatically requested a new bill when you entered the new reading. This new bill arrived in place of the incorrect bill. Because the incorrect bill has not yet (and hasn't yet had to have) been paid, you still owe that amount. That's the arrears part. Once you pay this new bill (in fact, any bill) in full and on time, you will no longer be in arrears.

You have at least 2 options...

1) Spend 2 weeks trying to get a bill issued the way you want it issued, without the bad word, miss the due date and end up in jail
or
2) Pay the bill and live happily ever after...

jor el

foggy_lad wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrears

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arrears

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arrears

according to all of these i owe the E.S.B. money but i don't. it is very easy for them to scrap the original bill and reprint a new bill showing the full amount from the reading i gave. i have asked for this to be done but they seem not to undersyand.

But you do owe them money, that's the bill. Without actually taking back the estimated bill, there would be difficult to account for it on the new bill. The way to do it is to include the old one as arrears. It's not overdue, it's just the amount from any previous bill, not paid yet, which is exactly what this is. They have re-printed your bill, with the correct reading, it just includes the previous estimate too.

foggy_lad

it implies i have missed a payment or not paid by the due time. and the same thing happened with the last bill which they were able to correct in two days! wouldn't it be far easier for them to pay someone to read the meters on a regular basis in larger towns around the country?

jor el

foggy_lad wrote: »

it implies i have missed a payment or not paid by the due time.

It would say Overdue on the due date if it did. In your case, they have allowed more time. I honestly don't see what the issue is here.

craichoe

foggy_lad wrote: »

it implies i have missed a payment or not paid by the due time. and the same thing happened with the last bill which they were able to correct in two days! wouldn't it be far easier for them to pay someone to read the meters on a regular basis in larger towns around the country?

No, because the majority of ESB Meters are not accessible without assistance from the tenant/owners.

It would be a shambles trying to organise that every month.

foggy_lad

craichoe wrote: »

No, because the majority of ESB Meters are not accessible without assistance from the tenant/owners.

It would be a shambles trying to organise that every month.

they only ever ring the bell and if there is no answer they estimate the bill but all newer houses have the meter on the wall outside so that it can be read every two months, surely not such a huge task?

jor el

At the last census, there were almost 1.5M private residencies in the State. To read all of them, just once a year would require reading 4100 a day. To do them 6 times a year (once every two months) means nearly 25,000 readings a day. I think they're doing alright to do one reading every 2 bills. This doesn't include businesses either. Soon enough there'll be wireless meter readings, so no more estimates.

craichoe

foggy_lad wrote: »

they only ever ring the bell and if there is no answer they estimate the bill but all newer houses have the meter on the wall outside so that it can be read every two months, surely not such a huge task?

Its a wagon load of leg work for something the customer can easily do themselves. Common practise all over, i live in the Netherlands and out local power provider is the same.

Davy

oneweb wrote: »

Billing systems are very complicated, just ask anyone who's dealt with ntl/esat/eircom/etc. They deal with tens of thousands of bills a week.

Around 250,000 a week, around 13 million a year.

Also customers will be able to view bills and pay bills, input meter readings (and request a re-bill), sign up for direct debits, amend their bank details, submit queries, view usage/consumption information online from later this year. Should help with the OPs problem.

sunny2004

I have no answer to your arrears problem, but I am in the camp of pay what you own and dont worry about the rest for now ! it will sort itself out !