Warggh!! In lieu of the Citizens Advice Bureau opening I thought I'd ask here for some advice.
I pay my electric bill by direct debit each month and then I either owe them or they owe me when my 6 monthly bill comes in.
Normally they send me an estimated bill and I do an accurate reading and let them know what it is.
Those are normally the only 2 bits of the bill I pay attention to (do they owe me cash - are the estimates close). And happily enough for me (or so I thought) they nearly always owe me money.
A few weeks ago, for the first time in a loooong time, someone came and did a reading and I got the bill for it yesterday. I'm on Economy 7 and for once had a slightly closer look at my bill. The night units rate seems fine (I assume) BUT my day units says 0! I looked at my meter and sure enough the day units value still matches that shown on the bill 🙁
I then dug out my last bill and sure enough, my handwritten correction to their estimate shows the same value too AND so does the previous bill! My last 'correct' bill is November 2007!
I've no desire to scam the leccy co. so no need for suggestions along those lines, but does anyone have any idea what happens next?
Obviously they're unlikely to write off that period so I assume that they'll up my monthly payments to cover the unpaid-for amounts rather than ask for a lump sum. But how will they calculate the number of units used for the unpaid-for period?
Presumably they'll want to fit a new meter too?
Anyone experienced anything similar/got any tips/know my rights in relation to getting the amount reduced/paid off steadily rather than in one go?
Cheers,
Ian
best of luck Ian,
Utility companies are the bain of my life!
My old house was unoccupied for 6 months and got hit by the Gloucestershire floods in July 07, consequently the gas meter stopped working, but gas was still being supplied and it wasn't for another month until i found it had stopped. Basically i spent 6 months arguing with Npower about my gas usage and because no-one was living there it couldn't be estimated on the basis of previous use. The customer services were no help; the energy advise group were no help; it was only when i refered the case to Ofgem did it get resolved within 7 days.
My advise is to speak to an Ofgem adviser to assist.
i did have a client in a new house that the gas supplier had no record of the connection and they came to a mutual agreement of payment for 12 months of un-invoiced supply.
We had the same problem when we moved in this house about 8 years ago. The meter must have been broken for some time and the previous owners must have saved a mint from it, but it wasn't noticed by the electricity supplier, nPower, even when the final reading was taken before their departure.
We told nPower after we got our first quaterly bill as it was obvious there was a problem.
We told them again after our second bill and our third bill but they still did nothing.
Eventually, after a year and a fourth bill they woke up. Too late! We had arranged to move to a dual fuel deal with edf. Edf read the meter and passed the reading to the nPower. Edf were informed of the problem and fitted a new meter within 2 days.
nPower squealed an awful lot but we pointed out that we had been informing them for a year about the problem and they had done nothing about it. They sent us a humungous bill for 'estimated' usage with a demand for immediate payment which we told them to stuff and offered to pay them 4 quarters at our next metered usage rate, which just happened to be July to September and requested that we pay it in 2 installments which they ultimately agreed to.
Thanks for the comments; I'll ring them tonight and prepare myself for an argument then 🙁
I can't believe that no alarm bells ring on their systems when a bill has a significant amount of night units used but 0 day units!
take a note of the time and the person you spoke to; even if you don't confirm anything in writing you build up documentry evidence if you have to go to Ofgem.
i believe that the power company have to reasonably prove your consumption so don't automatically agree to anything (unless the offer to wipe the slate clean).
I had a similar (ish) issue in that the company hadn't registered the meter for the landlords supply. I told them what the reading now is but that I couldn't tell them what I'd used. Said arguement was accepted and I paid no arrears.
In my view (which doesn't count for that much) it's up to them to provide a working meter not you and they can not, with the meter they have provided, show that you have used any daytime units. They might be in shtook for providing a dodgy meter anyway.
Iain
PS from other posts some may know that I work in the electricity industry, but I work for a distributor not a supplier - we don't buy, sell or bill you; we just transport it.
Utility suppliers are pretty rubbish - I was renting a place in Dorking, and it turned out that we didn't actually have a gas supplier, even though we were using gas. Being terribly disorganised I didn't start trying to sort this out until pretty soon before we were moving out, after reaching the conclusion that no particular supplier wanted any money from us, but that Transco weren't happy.
Failed to reach any satisfactory conclusion with anyone, so handed the matter over to my landlord to continue with. The meter had never been properly registered, even though it had been in the past, and we got away with 1 years worth of gas FOC 😀
Cheers, Rich
I had the same issue with a gas meter. Moved into a new house; had a letter from Transco saying that they wanted to change the meter. Arranged an appointment, Transco didn't turn up. Transco said they'd contact me and never did.
I told my supplier I was waiting for Transco to contact me, and even suggested they might like to follow it up, as it was probably more in their interests than mine 😉
The supplier got really shirty because it wasn't done (I was away during the week on business and Transco wouldn't come at weekends), including sending me a threatening letter saying that they would force entry to change the meter.
Took some time to resolve, but ultimately the supplier did a lot of grovelling, Transco changed the meter on a Saturday morning, I paid for an 'agreed' amount of gas (which I believe was a rather 'favourable' estimate...), then I changed supplier...
We had endless trouble with mis-matched meters/property numbers with an elderly relatives sheltered accom. In the end my father had to take control of his billing as he was getting conflicting bills and meter numbers every month despite them being told every month. After a few months of the same my father went mental at them and demanded written correspondence from the most senior manager dealing with the team, it was soon sorted.
Seem that underlings have little in the way of common sense or freedom in these situatiosn.
Ah yes - coffeeking has a point. Escalation is a great way of dealing with energy suppliers - everytime they fail to satisfy you ask for their bosses name and write to them. Tedious but generally effective.