I was welcomed home today after my trip to Scotland via Manchester and Cambridge (more of that another day) my a final demand notice from a debt collection agency apparently sent on behalf of E-on for a sum of £54.19 for the house in Beeston (Nottingham). Better yet the dates on this were from 26th July til 4th Nov, so the day after I moved out.
My immediate thought was that someone has managed to spin a fine yarn, having managed to change the supplier to the house in Beeston but then kept my name on the account and managed to charge me thus. After 8 minutes of being on hold I noticed that in fact the period in question was actually 2008.
So, I talked to the guy on that end and said I needed to talk to billing about any debt recovery agency. After then kicking up a fuss as I refused to call an 0845 number (0845 059 9905) I got a freephone number for the same office 0800 0151 809.
After explaining the situation to E-on billing they concluded the same as I. The house in Beeston is and was on a prepay meter and thus I needed to call the prepay billing line. After suitable fuss I called the geographical number 0121 663 0960 rather than the 0845 (303 3040) saving myself 10p a minute.
After explaining the situation to E-on prepay billing, the guy on the other end explained back to me thus:
The computer system ignored the fact that I was on a prepay meter, and had thus generated an estimated bill, but because I was on a prepay meter it then hadn’t actually sent a letter out. After a year of non-payment the computer had automatically transferred the file over to a debt recovery agency, hence the letter I received.
Good times eh? Anyway, its been written off now. And the non-0845 numbers have been submitted to sayNOto0870.com for the greater good.
This page previously appeared on morganbye.net[^1][^2]
[^1:] http://morganbye.net/2010/01/e-on-are-useless) [^2:] http://morganbye.net/uncategorized/2010/01/e-on-are-useless
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