A 76-year-old widower was forced to ration his electricity for a year and rely on charity food handouts after a clerical error by his supplier left him facing a bill of nearly £13,000.
John*, who has a serious heart condition, has paid in advance for his electricity via a prepayment meter for 10 years. However, his supplier, E.ON, began sending unexplained bills several years ago and subsequently threatened court action if he failed to pay. It also withheld his £400 energy bill support scheme payment from the government to help with last winter’s heating bills.
The retired joiner, who relies on a basic state pension, considered ending his life because of the stress, according to his family. He stopped heating his house or cooking food as the bills escalated, fearing his supply would be cut off, and was referred to a food charity by concerned health workers. Only after the Guardian’s intervention did E.ON discover that it was charging him for readings from an unrelated meter. It has now cancelled the bills.
“My dad became a recluse and stopped answering the door or the phone in case it was debt collectors,” said his son Ian*. “He was too ashamed to tell family of the ‘debt’, and gradually he stopped going out to save money. We couldn’t understand why, in the coldest part of last winter, he refused to turn his heating on, and why he stopped cooking meals, despite having been hospitalised for his heart condition.”
Hundreds of energy customers may have been hit with shock bills because of similar errors by suppliers. If a meter reference number or customer address is wrongly recorded, households can find themselves charged for a stranger’s consumption. One social housing tenant was unable to heat her flat and had to move out after E.ON used her prepayment meter top-ups to service her predecessor’s debt.
“Insane bills for someone else’s supply are worryingly common,” said the consumer rights campaigner Martyn James. “The problem is the abject failure of some businesses to investigate obvious errors promptly and effectively, and a ‘laissez-faire’ attitude to the consequences for those on the receiving end.”
E.ON was repeatedly informed that John was medically vulnerable, according to his son, but the company continued to threaten debt collectors unless the bill was settled.
“Unbeknownst to us, Dad and, before her death, his wife, had been trying to deal with the mystery bills for several years and got nowhere,” said Ian. “Once my sister and I became aware of the problem, we began calling E.ON and explained the circumstances, but they were totally unsympathetic.”
John complained to the energy ombudsman last year, and E.ON was directed to pay him £150 for poor customer service. The family says this was not paid and the meter mix-up not identified.
When the Guardian intervened in April, E.ON promised to suspend the bills while it investigated. Two weeks later, John was informed his account had been passed to a debt collection agency and warned of potential legal action unless he paid £12,864. He was told that the debt had been recorded on his credit record and may prevent him obtaining a loan, mobile phone contract or credit card. E.ON said the letter had been sent in error.
The company initially told the Guardian that the property had a rare hybrid meter that takes prepayments for general electricity use and records readings for separate heating bills. It claimed the huge bills resulted from years of underestimated readings for the heating supply. However, under back-billing rules, suppliers can issue retrospective demands only for the previous 12 months of energy.
After three months of pressure from the Guardian, E.ON finally acknowledged that John owed nothing, and blamed “a wrongly assigned meter”. It refused to explain the error and why it was not identified earlier.
A spokesperson said: “This is an incredibly rare and complex case which has required a thorough investigation. We have replaced [John’s] meter, are sending him a cheque to cover all his energy bill support scheme vouchers, and have agreed a [£150] goodwill payment for the distress this matter has caused.”
Two days after E.ON confirmed the bills had been cancelled, John received another letter stating that he owed the firm £20,537.82. He was informed that a repayment plan of £8 a week had been set up, and that he would finish paying the debt by 2072.
A spokesperson for E.ON apologised and said the matter was resolved, adding: “We are investigating what has gone wrong to ensure this does not happen again.”
The Guardian has contacted the utilities regulator, Ofgem, which said it had referred the case to its compliance team.
* Name changed to protect anonymity
