huge bill

corriefan

Hi, electric ireland have charged €6400 to my bank account for our latest bill which is insane. as a result I have absolutely no money since yesterday morning and after ringing three times and sending a complaint email I am still in the dark to put it lightly.

I have been told three times that the bill is correct, a bill was issued on 22nd june to this effect (which we DID NOT receive as I obviously would have been onto it straight away). Our bills have never been more than €100 every two months, and I have been told in no uncertain terms by your customer service that we have ran up this bill since October 2011 because of we have been getting estimated bills :eek:.

THIS IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE, we have had an electrician out last night (at our expense) who has confirmed that there is nothing wrong with our wiring etc. In fact he has told us he is hearing about this more and more from people. Our house is only four years old, we have all A rated appliances etc, we are very economical with our electricity e.g. not having dryer on etc.

I am writing this now upset and angry, I have essentially been told it is our problem, and I dont know where to go from here. We have five children and my husband, a self-employed builder is not paid for at least another week. Direct debits since yesterday from my account are returning unpaid, which is an automatic bank charge of €10 per unpaid direct debit. We have no money at the moment, in fact I checking my account yesterday to budget for weekly shop which I cannot do now. I also have to go to doctor today and will have to borrow the €60 for that.

This is just not good enough, we need this sorted asap. I hope you can help us because your staff and complaint dept (who have not even responded to my email) certainly wont.

Electric Ireland: David

Hi corriefan,


Can you send your account details to our inbox so that we can investigate this for you? We would require:

• Your full name, account number and address
• Your contact number and date of birth
• Confirmation that you are the named account holder

corriefan wrote:

electric ireland have charged €6400 to my bank account for our latest bill which is insane...Our bills have never been more than €100 every two months, and I have been told in no uncertain terms by your customer service that we have ran up this bill since October 2011 because of we have been getting estimated bills

I can certainly appreciate where you're coming from. We will have to have this looked at.

On a general note, customers who are having difficulty paying are advised to contact us as soon as possible to discuss a suitable payment plan (see here). Estimated readings will always be clearly marked on your bill (see here for a sample).

Thanks,

David.

Squ

Something similar happened to me last year, only bank of ireland refused the higher than normal dd and rang me to give me a heads up.

Nobody has a problem paying a bill, but if the amount you are going to take is going to wipe a family out, ye should have precedures in place to spread it out.

It is esb policy to do estimated billing after all which causes this problem for families.

Electric Ireland: David

Hi Squ,

Squ wrote:

It is esb policy to do estimated billing after all which causes this problem for families.

ESB Networks plan to read your meter 4 times a year (they do this on behalf of all suppliers), so in a 12-month period, customers can expect 2 estimations. We offer a number of ways to submit readings; online, by phone, or via our iPhone/Android App. Bills that have been estimated will be clearly marked as such.

Squ wrote:

ye should have precedures in place to spread it out.

If a customer is hit with a very large bill after consecutive estimates, we can offer to spread these payments out over an agreed period of time. When a bill is received, payment will not be collected until the due date marked on the bill, which should give the customer time to contact us and make a suitable arrangement.

In the above case part of the problem was that corriefan did not receive the bill in question, which is something I would need to investigate.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

David.

corriefan

Electric Ireland: David wrote: »

Hi Squ,



ESB Networks plan to read your meter 4 times a year (they do this on behalf of all suppliers), so in a 12-month period, customers can expect 2 estimations. We offer a number of ways to submit readings; online, by phone, or via our iPhone/Android App. Bills that have been estimated will be clearly marked as such.

This makes no sense to me as we have been hit with a bill because of so called estimated readings since October 2011, surely we should have had at least two official readings since this time?

If a customer is hit with a very large bill after consecutive estimates, we can offer to spread these payments out over an agreed period of time. When a bill is received, payment will not be collected until the due date marked on the bill, which should give the customer time to contact us and make a suitable arrangement.

A 'payment scheme' (which I am sick to the back teeth of hearing from electric ireland since yesterday as if you are doing me a favour) is only relevant if the bill was CORRECT in the first place. I will repeat myself yet again, it is just not possible that a normal household dwelling has run up a bill of €6400 since October 2011.

In the above case part of the problem was that corriefan did not receive the bill in question, which is something I would need to investigate.

I think electric irelands time and effort would be better spent in investigating how we got such a ridiculous bill rather than the fact that we did not receive the bill. Even if we did receive the bill, it would not have been paid in the generous grace period of 14 days that you would have given us as IT IS NOT RIGHT.
In fact leave the letter investigation to me, I was told this morning when I rang that I should chase the matter with my local post office, which is not really top of my priorities at the moment. Top of that list would be the fact that we have NO MONEY since yesterday morning. Our house insurance DD was due today and will now not have been paid. I should be at least thankful it is not mortgage time yet as that wouldnt have been paid either.
I will send you my details by PM now.

Squ

Fair play to you corriefan even replying to that generic answer.

jhegarty

Electric Ireland: David wrote: »

On a general note, customers who are having difficulty paying are advised to contact us as soon as possible to discuss a suitable payment plan (see here). Estimated readings will always be clearly marked on your bill (see here for a sample).

Thanks,

David.

Unless the op forgot to mention the cathedral he is lighting I suspect a mistake from the meter reader is a more lightly cause of the issue.

EI: Una

Hi Corriefan,

David is not in today. If you send me a private message, I will investigate. I am here until 6pm.
I would need the Electric Ireland account number, the name/address in full on the account, and the telephone number.

Due to Data Protection legislation, I can only discuss account particulars with the named account-holder.

Is the meter an older style one with a rotating disk? If so, have you tested whether it might be malfunctioning? If not, the way in which to do this is: switch off all appliances, and if the disk is still rotating after several minutes, it could indicate there is something wrong with the meter.

With regards to such a high number of consecutive estimates: how accessible is the meter?

Regards and thanks,
Una