I live in the UK and I recently switched suppliers from E.ON to E.ON Next. I didn't even realise this was a switch, I intentionally didn't switch to a new company so that my smart metre would still work. To my horror I found that E.ON and E.ON Next are actually different companies, and after the switch my smart meter no longer works, apparently the software doesn't currently handle switching suppliers. I had to give meter readings when the switch happened, and the smart meter is quite complex and not very intuitive to take readings from, and I didn't take much care to double check what they were telling me because I thought it was a smart meter so it didn't really matter to take a reading directly because it should get sent to them. So I think the readings on the switch over got messed up somewhere.
I now have a £400 final bill through from E.ON covering a 6 week period in the summer when I usually spend around £40-£60 on bills. I've tried ringing E.ON and getting them to explain this to me and they told me they sent my previous bill history through to E.ON Next. E.ON Next tell me they don't have it, and they said why would they get my bill history from E.ON anyway?
I received a £240 refund a few months back from E.ON that I wasn't expecting and I think was probably sent in error. I think that E.ON are probably claiming this back from me, but even the remaining £160 seems to be way too much so I think it's likely that there's a wrong meter reading somewhere.
I'm not happy to send them £400 until they've explained to me where it comes from, and I'm feeling pretty frustrated that the two companies are bouncing me off each other and neither of them wants to take responsibility for this. The payment is due at the end of this week, and I asked E.ON to please extend the payment date until the metre readings are sorted out and they said they can't do that. The person who I spoke to agreed that there must be some mistake with the meter readings.
Am I legally bound to make the payment to this time schedule even though there's been an error? Is there something I can say to get them to extend the date? Also, does anybody have any general advice on how to deal with this situation? Any way to get E.ON or E.ON Next dealing with it rather than me would be great.