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E.ON and Octopus are less than smart over my meter mix-up

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I moved house at the end of March and applied to transfer our new electricity and gas accounts to our old supplier, Octopus.

While the electricity switch was fine, moving the gas account has slowly become a nightmare.

It has emerged that E.ON, the previous provider, has continued to provide the gas to our home, despite us paying Octopus. Our account has seemingly been assigned to the wrong property.

I have had numerous communications with Octopus over the past few months but this remains unresolved, and E.ON is now threatening penalty payments alongside a visit from bailiffs in the coming days.

I’m very frustrated, as we have been recommending the company to many others, as until now it has been great.

HW, Finsbury Park, London

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Octopus Energy has very good customer scores and has been repeatedly named as a Which? recommended provider. However, it has taken a long time to resolve this case.

The company blamed your “incredibly rare” problem on the fact that you had new smart meters installed when you arrived at the property.

It seems that the gas meter that was removed was linked to a slightly different address on the national database. This meant that E.ON kept billing this (now removed) meter, rather than the new one.

Happily, Octopus has “forced’ that old meter point to be switched over, and it has removed its details from the database.

The company has said it will cover E.ON’s charges if it can’t get the company to drop them. That should be the end of the matter as far as you are concerned.

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