Jim* needed our help to understand how his pay on time discount was applied to his accounts.
The issue
Jim didn’t agree with how his energy company calculated the pay on time discounts on his gas and electricity accounts. He could see that he got some discount but thought the company applied less than what it agreed to. When Jim asked his company to explain how it calculated these discounts, it said it would get back to him. His company didn’t do this, so he contacted EWOV.
We gave the energy company a chance to resolve the complaint and show Jim it had correctly calculated his discounts. It showed it had applied pay on time discounts totalling $801.87 to his account. He explained that he still didn’t think this was right, so we opened an Investigation. This means we review all information relevant to the case and work with both sides to reach a fair and reasonable outcome.
The investigation
We asked the energy company for Jim’s billing and payment history. Our Investigation determined that the pay on time discounts applied only to the usage charges, and not to the service to property charges. However, we still found the company had made an error in applying these. To fix this, it adjusted the billing on both accounts. After doing this, there was still a balance owing on Jim’s account, so the energy company gave him a payment extension.
We helped Jim understand that while his company offered a 31% discount, this applied to the usage charges only and not the service to property charges.
The outcome
The energy company applied a credit of more than $309 to Jim’s gas and electricity accounts. This made up for the pay on time discounts he had missed over the past two years. After this, the balance on Jim’s electricity and gas accounts were, respectively, $484.13 and $654.73. Jim agreed to make extra payments to bring these balances to zero over the next three months.
Case number: 2017/23667 and 2017/23668
*Names have been changed