More "billing errors" from Electric Ireland (and others)

[mathepac]

More "errors" from the highly-paid staff of an ESB subsidiary. As detailed in various threads and posts by me over the recent past, I am now questioning whether Electric Ireland is fit for purpose, any purpose other than closing itself down.

Billing schedules mysteriously not adhered to and agreed billing billing discounts not applied to customer bills and another common occurrance, complaints not being logged and responded to in a timely manner. All of these have been my own personal experiences with this dinosaur. Doing their usual act of trying to minimize the level of their cock-ups, the energy giant states that "less than 1pc of our electricity customers " have had problems. 1pc of 1.1 million customers is about 11,000 customers. That's a lot of people and families inconvenienced by EI's incompetence.

Bill shock on way for thousands of customers as Electric Ireland and Bord Gáis Energy admit separate billing blunders

Two of the biggest energy providers in the State have admitted billing errors that have affected thousands of their customers.

www.independent.ie

Other energy companies are also playing fast and loose with their customers' accounts. Bord Gais is mentioned in the above article and SSE appears here with massive refunds due to its customers.

Leading energy company to give €8.6m back to 247,000 customers

One of the country’s leading energy suppliers is to give money back to its customers.

www.independent.ie

The bewildering this with all these errors is that pre-teen children can do those calculations correctly and maybe even issue bills in a more timely manner.

 

[joe sod]

They had a hitch to their online login over Christmas but there was nobody on duty over Christmas to resolve it. If you tried to login it bounced you off to change password but then wouldn't accept any new password. It took weeks then to get it resolved. They admitted it was a problem on their side.
I think alot of these problems stems from the WFH culture and the fact that they had few staff (apart from the guys fixing outages) actually working properly during covid. This culture has then extended into the present day. It's a semi state after all

 

[mathepac]

If you're going to bat for EI and its under-performing employees, please remember that:

• It has taken 4 months, or 2 full standard billing cycles, for the "errors" to come to light
• The "guys fixing outages" are not employed by EI. Bills, payments, contracts have nothing to do with the "line-men/ installers" EI's only role is to issue bills and take payments. The hands on installer/repairers are employed by Networks Ireland and their sub-contractors.

I think this is a consumer / home energy problem so why "Letting Off Steam"? Not for the mods to answer of course but other contributors

 

[mathepac]

I also meant to point out that my problems with Electric Ireland date back more than 12 months, but are exactly the same ones outlined in the Indo article and in consumer comments there.

 

[thedaddyman]

I don't agree with the impact WFH had, it's an excuse but not a reason. 99% of the multinational I work for are still WFH, we are more effective and efficient, got rid of a lot of dead wood when it became apparent that they weren't really delivering anything of note once a lot of internal office meetings etc were done away with. We also have far more flexibility and far less sickness and absenteeism then the 9-5 office culture. I worked til 7 last night as I need to nip out and do some lifestyle admin this morning. We can also get more overseas resources at half the cost. We meet up physically once or twice a month and that's it. It can be made work.

Sending out the bills doesn't require people, no one is sitting there with a calculator working out the bills. It will be an automated system, The real questions are

• if that system is up to scratch?
• has it been designed properly?
• does it have effective change management in place?
• does it have capacity issues
• Is the support model for it up to scratch
• Is there a GIGO problem (Garbage in, Garbage Out).

The last point is where I see the issue being, I am yet to be convinced that the Smart meters are as smart as they are supposed to be

 

[lff12]

I had a major billing issue with SSE that took months to resolve, but got it eventually.
Basically, there was some kind of error with a meter reading before or just after I moved in and ALL readings I gave or the ESB reader gave were rejected.
It was exacerbated by the fact that the house has no central heating, only storage heaters downstairs (3 broken ones I should say) and 2x panel heaters upstairs which have broken timers but otherwise work. So calculating actual energy use was challenging, but eventually, after 4 months of to and fro with SSE I got it.
Basically I took photographs and videos of my readings every month from the time I moved in and submitted them anyway.
Then the first time I talked to customer services they asked me to photograph the meter with a copy of the days paper showing date in the background. I did this and the issue wasn't fixed.
So I decided to try again before putting in a formal complaint - they asked me to submit a reading with daily paper showing date again and this time they fixed it after about a week.

All the previously rejected self submitted and ESB Metering readings mysteriously got rectified correctly, and by the time it got resolved I had been overcharged 330 euros before VAT for less than 8 months electricity. So as you can imagine I am very glad to have this sorted!

Either way - take meter readings yourself on a monthly basis, go to customer services at least once, and make a complaint to supplier if they don't fix the issue.
I was going to take complaint to regulator if they didn't work but fortunately the second try with customer services worked out. Important thing is to get regular photos and video evidence of the meter readings with dates.

 

[odyssey06]

I had a major billing issue with SSE that took months to resolve, but got it eventually.
Basically, there was some kind of error with a meter reading before or just after I moved in and ALL readings I gave or the ESB reader gave were rejected.
It was exacerbated by the fact that the house has no central heating, only storage heaters downstairs (3 broken ones I should say) and 2x panel heaters upstairs which have broken timers but otherwise work. So calculating actual energy use was challenging, but eventually, after 4 months of to and fro with SSE I got it.
Basically I took photographs and videos of my readings every month from the time I moved in and submitted them anyway.
Then the first time I talked to customer services they asked me to photograph the meter with a copy of the days paper showing date in the background. I did this and the issue wasn't fixed.
So I decided to try again before putting in a formal complaint - they asked me to submit a reading with daily paper showing date again and this time they fixed it after about a week.

All the previously rejected self submitted and ESB Metering readings mysteriously got rectified correctly, and by the time it got resolved I had been overcharged 330 euros before VAT for less than 8 months electricity. So as you can imagine I am very glad to have this sorted!

Either way - take meter readings yourself on a monthly basis, go to customer services at least once, and make a complaint to supplier if they don't fix the issue.
I was going to take complaint to regulator if they didn't work but fortunately the second try with customer services worked out. Important thing is to get regular photos and video evidence of the meter readings with dates.

I had the same issue with Bord Gais / Gas Networks ... they rejected the readings as they were so out of whack with previous readings \ estimations. Possibly with covid meter wasn't read and usage increased. I think Bord Gais were left significantly out of pocket as the previous owner had passed away.

Like yourself, had to do the photo with today's paper thing.

 

[mathepac]

This nonsense with the daily paper in the photo proves how backward EI etc are technology-wise. This paper-in-picture might have been state-of-the-art around the time of the Lindbergh kidnapping, 1930, almost a century ago!!

Today, take a digital photograph and the image itself contains the date and time the image was taken, the ID of the device used to take the picture, lens setting and shutter-speed of the taking device, the location and whether the image has been altered/manipulated since the creation date, etc. This is the basic EXIF information that trumps the potentially "photoshopped" newspaper headline the utilities insist on in their ignorance.

 

[lff12]

This nonsense with the daily paper in the photo proves how backward EI etc are technology-wise. This paper-in-picture might have been state-of-the-art around the time of the Lindbergh kidnapping, 1930, almost a century ago!!

Today, take a digital photograph and the image itself contains the date and time the image was taken, the ID of the device used to take the picture, lens setting and shutter-speed of the taking device, the location and whether the image has been altered/manipulated since the creation date, etc. This is the basic EXIF information that trumps the potentially "photoshopped" newspaper headline the utilities insist on in their ignorance.

Absolutely - it could be yesterdays paper, and if you take a video, the electronic meters cycle through phases where the date and time actually shows! But they won't accept that - its entirely backward, fully agreed.

 

[lff12]

I had the same issue with Bord Gais / Gas Networks ... they rejected the readings as they were so out of whack with previous readings \ estimations. Possibly with covid meter wasn't read and usage increased. I think Bord Gais were left significantly out of pocket as the previous owner had passed away.

Like yourself, had to do the photo with today's paper thing.

Yeah, the house I bought had been rented, and as last tenants were evicted may well have been some issues. All sorted now anyway. Got a wood burning stove installed downstairs and that further slashed my usage, so usage is significantly down on and no more wildly inaccurate estimated bills.

 

[Leo]

Today, take a digital photograph and the image itself contains the date and time the image was taken, the ID of the device used to take the picture, lens setting and shutter-speed of the taking device, the location and whether the image has been altered/manipulated since the creation date, etc. This is the basic EXIF information that trumps the potentially "photoshopped" newspaper headline the utilities insist on in their ignorance.

Many phone cameras don't capture much of that data, but it is is all user-editable so can't be relied upon. Right-click on an image in Widows Explorer, select properties, double-click the date and set any value you want, even far into the future.

 

[mathepac]

That action will also set the "date edited" and "edited bit" so the recipient can see it's been altered. Decent phones and other cameras can capture the information unless like EI verification techniques and staff they rely on century-old technology.

 

[Leo]

That action will also set the "date edited" and "edited bit" so the recipient can see it's been altered.

The edited date comes from the file attributes and not the image metadata. Someone viewing a file downloaded from an external email will see the edited date as the timestamp the local copy was created on their system. EI won't have access to your file system, so won't see the file attributes as you see them.

 

[odyssey06]

Seems like there should be an app for that - that utility providers could partner with \ licence, so the photo has to be taken within the app.

But I guess most of the time they just accept the meter readings without verification, so it is an exception case.