10421 Enel and Electronic meters

What a wonderful company Enel is, I don't think!!!
They give you a meter to be read remotely , and then send an estimated bill. The bill arrived today, at just under E600 with an estimated reading. Checked their super electronic meter which told me I had only used a third of their calculation at the billing time.
Now its back to trying to get them to correct everything so that we don't pay 3 times as much as they are due. Perhaps they are trying to bail out Alitalia as well!!!
This is the second time this has happened with them, so better to check the meter reading as soon as you get the bill to make sure it tallies.

Category
Cost of living - Utility Services

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 18:26

My bill was also estimated this time. For me though not a problem, I don't consume much. I'm out most of the time. However my last house had the old style meter which was never read. I always found Enel very efficient when I'd used their free phone number to correct bills.
Incidentally, I was talking to some folk in Sarnano about the new open market for energy. The consensus was that "Enel is the ONLY Italian business that works. Why change?"

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 18:32

They are doing the same with us with their Gas bills. They sent us a bill from Feb until May, that estimated the usage so high that even in September, we still haven't reached the figure they quoted.

What is really great, is when you ring up to complain about it, they expect you to pay the bill first, then complain about it afterwards.

Which again is really funny, because when you complain on the phone they always hang up on you, same when you ask for a manager. Sometimes they will ask you to write in with your complaint... don't waste you time/money, as they never, ever write back (and i don't just include ENEL in this), although that is partly because half the time, your letter has got lost by the inept Postal service.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/19/2008 - 10:13

Further to my first post on this subject, it seems that Enel still cannot get things right. For the second time they have again sent in an estimated reading. We did get the last one corrected and were given about 5 days to pay, for their incompetence.
Checking our account on the website, it appears they read the meter and updated it on 3rd Nov, estimated it on the 8th at approx E160 extra. So from my calculation we had used E240, they decided it should be E 404.
Only yesterday, I was reading an article by the CEO of Enel, saying how great this new system was and how customers could easily monitor their usage and make savings. Seems like he forgot to tell the "jobsworths" who sort out the accounts.
[url]http://www.greey.ca/RelatedFiles/1/ENEL%20Telegestore%20Project%20IS%20ON%20TRACK.pdf[/url]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 08:25

[quote=DavidUno;97047]My bill was also estimated this time. For me though not a problem, I don't consume much. I'm out most of the time. However my last house had the old style meter which was never read. I always found Enel very efficient when I'd used their free phone number to correct bills.
Incidentally, I was talking to some folk in Sarnano about the new open market for energy. The consensus was that "Enel is the ONLY Italian business that works. Why change?"[/quote]

I noted your comments and wondered as to whether those stating that "ENEL is the only business that works....." have tried using alternative suppliers? We await the forms from Edison and I will report back once they are our electricity suppliers.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 10:15

Hmm, locally our supplier is DeVal -(or was) I think it has changed its name. I had an electronic meter put in and then wasn't billed for about 9 months. They still haven't caught up, and the funny thing is that the bills are still estimated. The new meter is useful though as I know what I'm due to pay when they eventually catch up!

On the matter of paying before complaining - I had a similar assumption when they billed me €380 for work at another person's address. Fortunately my Italian is up to complaining and the office is in town and I managed to get there when it was actually open. What people do who work FT I have no idea.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 11/26/2008 - 06:19

Having just restructured an old house we had an electricity supply from ENEL for the builders use. We were billed for this by ENEL at a special "non domestic" rate. When we moved in to the house in April the meter was changed and the appropriate paperwork returned to ENEL to change to D3 domestic tariff. Since then we have been getting estimated bills for both!! A workman turned up 2 weeks ago to take away the old "builders" meter which had long since been removed. This prompted them to finally acknowledge we should only be getting one bill and we were sent a bill advising a cheque would be sent for amount overcharged on the double billing - and yes you've guessed it.........no cheque has yet turned up but another bill has for the long gone meter. Can't make my mind up at the moment who is more incompetent - ENEL or Telecom Italia who still can't even give us a quote for a land line after 9 months. Still love living here though:)