Engineer Inspection Details

Mr. Incognito

Reps,

I have just emailed your customer care team but I would believe that I would have more chance of getting a response here in a public Forum.

Please find enclosed text of the Email sent.


Dear Sirs,

I live in a small two bedroom Apartment in Rathmines where there are two occupants who both work in the city during the day and as a result the apartment is empty.

We have been getting consistently high bills and as a result ran into arrears while we were students.

I arranged to pay €110 a month in December 2014 in relation to the arrears and discharge the bills as they fell due.

I faithfully paid €110 on 1 December 2014, 1 January 2015, 2 February 2015, and 3 March 2015 in respect of the arrears.

I paid the Bill for December as it fell due.

A bill issued on 20 February 2015 for the astronomical sum of €420. Combined with the arrears this is more than my rent!!

I paid €220 of this bill and will pay the balance of €200 on 1 April before the next bill issues on 20 April or so.

I have come home to find a letter from your Payment and Control Team dated 19 March 2015 stating that my account of €310.59 is seriously overdue and remains unpaid despite a number of reminders and my connection is due to be disconnected. It states further this may be followed by legal action to recover the total amount due.

This letter is the FIRST demand on foot of the bill dated 20 February 2015.

It is compounded by the fact that the Individual who fired off the generically worded letter did not even bother to check your own file and system before the final warning letter issued with the incorrect arrears stated.

I am writing to your customer service to formally request in writing

1. A confirmation that the above information is factually correct.

2. A withdrawal of said letter of 19 march 2015 and disconnection threats.

3. I would like to arrange an engineer to call to my premises to ensure that the electric meter is calibrated correctly.

I have no idea how a small two bedroom apartment in Rathmines with energy saving bulbs, A rated appliances and the fact it is empty for 12 hours a day is drawing more power than a large 4 Bedroom House in the same area. I do believe such consumption is possible. I am contacting the Management company in the building to carry out an inspection of the equipment.

I understand that this may incur a call out charge. You might let me know the quantum. I will also be seeking a copy of the report from this engineer. I understand the the meter is the property of the ESB. Accordingly if this is not an available service  I formally seek your consent to have an engineer call out myself and provide you with a copy of his report. If this consent is unreasonably withheld within 30 days of the date of this correspondence I shall arrange to have the engineer attend, and provide you with a copy of the report.

In the meantime you might confirm receipt of this letter and revert on the above points

EI: Aoife

Hi Mr. Incognito,

We are sorry to read that you are unhappy. We can't answer all your questions here as this is a public forum and we would need to request your account details. Our colleagues in the Admin department will be in touch with you in the next few days. If you wish for us to look into the matter here on Boards, we would require you to send us a private message with the name, address, account number and telephone number or date of birth we have on file for the account. We can only deal with the named account holder for data security reasons.

We can of course give you general advice here in relation to some of your questions. It can take a couple of days for any payment to hit the account and the letter may have been issued prior to the payment updating on our system. The letter may be been issued during this period. We do regret any inconvenience caused. Our credit terms are 14 days and anything overdue after that can result in correspondence being issued. We are happy to give customers more time to pay the bill if required. However, we would ask that they contact us to make an agreement on their balance as it stands at that particular time. Any payment plans required on future bills would necessitate further contact from the customer.

The meter is a highly reliable instrument and it is unlikely that it is malfunctioning. We would always recommend that any other faults (such as internal wiring or problems with appliances) be ruled out first. There would be a charge of €187.28 including VAT if there was no fault, but you would not be liable for this fee if there was a fault. ESB Networks (who work for all electricity suppliers) would send us a report and based on these results it would be determined if there was an adjustment required. We would be happy to arrange this for you if you send us a private message.

We would need to look at your account to answer any of your other queries. Do let us know if you wish for us to look into this further.

Regards,
Aoife