ESB account numbers Big National screwup ...read on.

OK .

I have had an ESB account number for ages. I linked it into my AIB online and used to pay it that way. All went well for years.

This month I got my ESB bill as usual, logged into the AIB and scanned the Bill very quickly .

THE ACCOUNT NUMBER WAS DIFFERENT ON THE BILL !

I try ringing the ESB. They have dumped the humans and gotten one of those crappy voice recognition systems. It is a nightmare. If you speak linke a retarded robot you may get it to understand but it has not been trained on Irish accents.

After scrabbling around for ages I finally got a humand and asked.

WHY IS MY ACCOUNT NUMBER DIFFERENT

They answered as follows.

1. EVERY ESB customer will be/has been issued with a second account number.
2. You will keep the first account number for buying goods on credit from their shops EVEN IF YOU NEVER DID .
3. The second account number will be used to pay for electricity ......DUH !
4. They neglected to tell anyone about this, it should have been advertised nationally in all media for Gods sake.
5. If you have stored the account number in your online banking system it is now probably wrong and you will end up paying off a washing machine (if you have one) instead of paying off your electricity as you intended.

CHECK THOSE BILLS NOW and enter the new account number or both account numbers if you buy on credit from them) in the Online Banking system you use or in Billpay .

They are turning into another Eircom I am very sorry to say. Good luck finding a human behind that thing.

Has anyone else come across this recently? Or did you make the same assumption I very nearly made .

A Bit more detail.

See

[broken link removed]

and

[broken link removed]

The only explanation of any sort that I can see is

<strong>Deferred Payment (i.e. Hire Purchase) bills will be issued separately to the electricity bills from 1st January 2005.</strong>

I never never had a never never account with the ESB in my life Muppets

Reasoning

Presumably its all to do with the deregulation of domestic electricity market this month.

You would possibly have an account with their shops, and get your electricity supply from someone else.

Nice way for them to have a "subscriber" base for their shops.

I suppose we could ask for them to close down the account that they're using for their shops.

You can't have an account (or have someone hold your details) if you don't want them to.

This month I got my ESB bill as usual, logged into the AIB and scanned the Bill very quickly .

THE ACCOUNT NUMBER WAS DIFFERENT ON THE BILL !

I encountered the same thing and had to change my stored account number on www.billpay.ie.

However, I think that payments made to the old account number will still get through, although I was not brave enough to try it..

they told me that ....

If you paid into the old account number then it has already gone to some finance company whom you must contact personally .

ESB Retail staff cannot transfer the money to where it should be as they do not work for this finance company or whatever it is and have no access to the computer 'over there'

Joe Duffy will have a field day with them the sleeveens

Talked to AIB...

Just talked to AIB and they said that the update is being handled by them and ESB and thus (AIB) customers do not need to do anything...

I encountered the same thing and had to change my stored account number on www.billpay.ie.

However, I think that payments made to the old account number will still get through, although I was not brave enough to try it..

An Post tell me that ESB do the switching on their end - you can just pay using the number you have currently setup...

Re: Talked to AIB...

Tonka, thanks for the warning.

Re: ESB Automated System

This is probably linked to a big billing system upgrade that is going on at the moment. There were a few glitches at the start, but it should be all ironed out by now.

On the automated query system, it should be used if it is able to direct you to the area you want. However, if you need to circumvent the system (e.g. if you have a query that is not covered under one of their automated categories), do the following:
When you ring in and get the first message and are prompted to press a button or say something, DON'T press any button, and DON'T say a word. The system will then bypass all the automated stuff, and put you straight to a human (although I've had to hold for up to 30 mins in the past before actually getting through ...)