Fobbed off for 2 years: 90-year-old stung by £4 , 000 energy bill

As experts warn elderly are failed by power giants...

WHEN 90-year-old Fred Birkett was told by his energy provider that the meter in his modest bungalow needed changing he thought little of it.

Like most in the Lincolnshire area where they live, Fred and wife Dorothy – who is 88 and suffers from bone marrow cancer – were paying between £1,000 and £1,200 a year for gas and electricity but were told their meter needed to be changed.

But, to the Birketts’ alarm, their bills began to skyrocket after the new device had been installed.

The following year, they paid more than £3,000 to E.On. Then last year their combined gas and electricity bill hit an astonishing £4,000 – quadruple the price they were paying before.

Nothing about the Birketts’ energy usage has changed since before the meter was replaced. Fred says no lights are left on when not in use and the TV is never left on standby. By comparison, the annual bill for average energy use in the East Midlands last year was £1,284 and £1,318 for Britain as a whole.

Fred says: ‘I have a long list of names of people I have spoken to at E.On about this but no one has ever dealt with it. It seems as if the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. I have had two years of worry and sleepless nights. And I have been trying to shield the issues from my wife as she has enough to deal with. It really is getting me down.’

With E.On refusing to budge, Fred arranged for a boiler engineer and his electrician to review the supply of energy into his house – only to be reassured all was fine. Neither could understand the cause of such high energy bills, yet E.On kept insisting the bills were correct.

Finally at his wits’ end, Fred contacted The Mail on Sunday. We asked E.On to investigate properly to find out why Mr Birkett’s bills are so much higher than average. It has now replaced the meter once again.

Fred says: ‘It feels as if no one cares about anything except getting the day over with. Even if this is somehow my fault, I think E.On should have made the problems clear to me at some point within the last two years.’ A spokeswoman for

E.On says: ‘We have being working to resolve Mr Birkett’s concerns and have spoken to Mr Birkett’s granddaughter at length.

‘We have explained that the amount of energy used is in keeping with Mr Birkett’s past usage, however due to price changes in 2018 and 2019, costs have unfortunately increased. We have offered to both test the meter as well as make a home energy efficiency visit and await to hear back.’

Experts say the poor service that Fred and Dorothy experienced at the hands of an energy giant is mirrored across the country – and the problem is particularly acute for the elderly and those in poor health.

Energy regulator Ofgem will this month publish its annual vulnerable consumers report. A recent vulnerability report commissioned by Energy UK – the trade body that represents energy suppliers – warned that the industry is ‘inadequate and inconsistent’ in its dealings with such customers who are more likely to suffer problems than their neighbours.

The problem has spiralled to the point that consumer group Citizens Advice has been forced to double the number of caseworkers on its extra help unit – the specialist team that investigates complaints linked to vulnerability – to cope with a rising number of cases in the past five years.

Consumers raised 186,057 energy problems with Citizens Advice in the 12 months to May this year, with 13,452 vulnerable cases dealt with by its special unit.

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, warns that customers in need often don’t contact their suppliers for help. And when they do, they don’t always receive the right support. She says: ‘The costs of getting this wrong can be far more than just financial.’

Guy cites an example of a woman with physical and mental health problems who was rescued by the extra help unit.

She owed money to her supplier, which wanted repayments of £260 a month to clear the debt. The woman couldn’t afford such high monthly sums but could not get through to anyone at the company to discuss this, and it failed to contact her in return.

Then she received text messages threatening disconnection, aggravating her mental health conditions. Guy says the unit was able to contact her supplier on her behalf to agree a more manageable payment plan.

Other examples of bad practice raised in the vulnerability report include a pensioner with arthritis and poor eyesight who was asked to take meter readings – even though it required her to stand on a chair. And that is despite the fact she was listed on the supplier’s system as a vulnerable customer.

Anyone on a supplier’s priority service register should get help with meter readings.

It is a free service available to people who are of pensionable age, chronically sick, have a long-term medical condition, have a hearing or visual disability or are vulnerable in another way.