I don’t know if this affects anyone on here but I post it for information.
I look after and monitor my elderly mothers accounts, bank, gas, insurance electric etc. she is unable to do any of this as she does not have online access and basically most of these things confuse the hell out of her, she is 99yr by the way, she is in receipt of pension credit and therefore entitled to receive the Warm Home discount payment from her energy supplier. I noticed that her electric bill was falling into debt and questioned why the WHD had not been paid
Her previous supplier “Npower” have been paying this for years now, and she has never had to re-apply, but recently they merged/taken over by Eon Next.
For weeks and weeks emails have been arriving “we’re moving you to Eon Next, your account will be moved over, you don’t need to do anything, it will be seamless”
Suffice to say it was not, they changed the direct debit without notification, they wiped out my passwords and made me re-apply for online access and after I asked why the WHD payment had not been made they inform me that she needs to re-apply every year. And after investigation this seems to be correct, the rules have changed.
Anyway the point I want to inform about is that if you have elderly relatives in the UK and they receive this payment you need to get them to re-apply ASAP as I doubt that they have been informed that the system has changed, much as my mother was not told.
Applications need to be in before end March 2021 otherwise they will not receive it.
Maybe I am just untrusting but I think re-applying every year is just a way of saving money for the energy companies. I don't think this is just Eon Next as a quick google check seems to give similar info for most suppliers
