MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
OK, maybe a bit boring...
My brother has recently been contacted by nPower to say they need to carry out a meter exchange. This is because he has, according to the meter, not used any electricity in the day since 2013... Now, he has said (and I believe him, he's not a moron...) that he's told customer service a few times about this and also submits meter reads regularly so nPower definitely know about it, but it appears to have taken them 5 years to do anything about it.
So the question he mused to me is that, assuming they find the meter is faulty, are they entitled to backdate the bills? Or is it their fault for not doing anything about it for so long and therefore not his problem. I did suggest moving supplier quick smart but this is not an option at the moment apparently.
https://www.ombudsman-services.org/sectors/energy/who-can-we-help
Regardless of the advice this may be a good place to head
They can only legally backdate for a limited period IIRC a year but check. they often try to backdate further
How do they know he has not used any electricity during the day? Is it a "smart meter"
Get a copy of the meter reading before they exchange it and afterwards and photograph it both times
Has he got solar panels...?
rockhopper = why this forum can be great
Might be time to visit uswitch?
Check to see if the other register is increasing during the day as well as the night
Is he actually on an economy 7 tariff?
AFAIK they will reasonably be able to back bill for the last 12 months once they have a reasonable estimate of the consumption. However, I would have thought if you stand your ground you will not have to pay for any of the unmetered consumption
This rings a bell. A mate lived in a new build house for 3 years without being charged for leccy and walked away without paying a penny. Leave every light on in the house type of guy, too.
I've been through this but in Belgium. Even though we had been telling them for years once they cottoned on they just sent us a bill for 10,000 eur 🙂 . It's a bit stressful as they like to throw lawyers around but it all got sorted at the correct rate in the end. I'm not sure how it works in the UK but here you first had to go through the appeals process with the company before the ombudsman would get involved. The rate billed was for a typical house with our number of occupants iirc
You can try and go down the not paying if not billed line if you want but if the deal is one year and that's what they come back with then that is the one to go for unless you like giving money to lawyers. One year out of three would be a good result
Make a data request to your energy supplier, they must provide a copy of all record of your contacts, written , verbal and by email , they cant chrge more than a tenner for the info, and must provide it by law, this will show youve made contact repeatedly, and what was entered on your account.
We had a faulty digital meter that kept switching night and day readings up, and after they tried to charge an extortionate amount, we reminded them it was still faulty. All charges were cancelled from the date we told them about it as they couldn't be sure what we'd used. British Gas FWIW.
Hmm, thanks all, Ill pass this on to him.