Case Study: I have never liked direct debits but my mother pays her ESB and other bills by direct debit and there was never any problem - until October, when an ESB statement arrived claiming she owed them almost €900, and raising her monthly direct debit from €23 to €471. It was based on a supposed meter reading showing she had used almost 8,000 units of electricity in the previous four weeks.
My mother's electricity consumption is in the region of 500 units a month. Even if every appliance in the house were running non-stop, she could never get near 8,000 units.
It turned out that the alleged meter reading was wrong. It bore no resemblance to the actual reading, which showed she had used her normal 500/600 units.
I phoned the ESB, spoke to a very helpful lady, gave her the correct meter reading, and asked her to ensure that the stratospheric direct debit was readjusted quickly.
I pointed out that it would empty my mother's bank account, would endanger other debits and could affect my mother's credit standing. She told me the debit would be adjusted and a correct account would issue in a few days.
No corrected account arrived and a week later I sent a letter to the ESB's customer service manager. I explained the problem, appended a copy of the incorrect bill, and stressed the consequences if the inflated direct debit were to go through.
I received no written reply (I have since learned that the ESB does not have a customer service manager).
In mid-November, I had a phone call from another very helpful lady. She said ESB records showed the incorrect meter reading had been phoned in by someone who gave my mother's account number. It was ESB practice, she said, not to query meter readings phoned in by customers.
She was surprised that we had not received a revised account but assured me that everything was all right and there was no question of the inflated direct debit going through.
Matters rested there until Christmas Eve, when a ESB statement arrived showing that it had removed €471 from my mother's bank account on November 22nd and a further €471 on December 20th. Consequently my mother's ESB account was €930 in credit but her bank account was seriously overdrawn.
The statement includes a correct meter reading for December. It shows that my mother owed nothing at all in November and a maximum of €2 for the entire billing period in which she was debited €942.
With almost two million accounts, one can understand that incorrect meter readings sometimes enter the system, but that is all the more reason to have fail-safe procedures to implement corrections. In this case, the ESB was given three separate opportunities to correct the debit and failed to do so on each occasion.
I wrote again to the ESB: this time to the chief executive and chairman. Within a week we received a written apology and a full refund. There followed two further apologies by telephone from different ESB executives, a detailed letter of explanation and apology from chief executive Pádraig MacManus, an assurance that measures had been taken to prevent any recurrence and a generous cheque in compensation for the inconvenience caused.
We may conclude that the ESB is genuinely penitent and that a serious investigation has taken place but it is uncertain whether they have really got to the bottom of the matter.
The company now says the problem originated with a misreading by their own meter reader, not a phoned-in report.
This story suggests a level of persistent carelessness and a degree of administrative incoherence, which is disturbing in a State company whose efficient performance is vital to the entire community. Just as well the ESB never got its hands on a nuclear power station.
Cian Ó hÉigeartaigh is a freelance writer
