Complaints to Belgium’s energy ombudsman about supplier Eneco have more than doubled this year, with over 1,500 cases in the first nine months compared with fewer than 700 in the same period last year.
Figures published by Het Laatste Nieuws on Sunday show that the number of complaints about Eneco has almost tripled since March.
According to energy ombudsman Eric Houtman, about a third of the complaints concern late or missing bills, including annual statements, advance invoices and final bills after a house move or switch of supplier.
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Incorrect bills are also a frequent source of complaints.
The ombudsman has also received reports from customers disputing outstanding balances because advance payments they had already made were not taken into account.
Other disputes concern direct debits, administrative fees, instalment plans and cases that have been referred to debt collection agencies.
Eneco has 650,000 customers. Chief executive Bert Clinckers acknowledged the company’s IT problems and said just under 1% of customers, or about 6,500 people, are still affected.
He said Eneco had to upgrade its IT systems because digitalisation and the roll-out of digital meters meant it had to process much larger volumes of data.
Clinckers said the company had spent two years preparing the transition and had deployed dozens of additional staff, but still ran into problems during the data migration.
He said not every issue was caused by the IT migration, adding that some bills were also being blocked because of incorrect meter readings.
The chief executive could not say when all problems would be resolved.
He said the remaining cases mainly involved more complex files that had to be checked and handled manually, with timing depending on the details of each case.
