Help! To cut a long story short we changed energy providers a couple of years back to Scottish Power and have now decided to leave due to a catalogue of errors on their part. They’ve now presented us with a fairly hefty bill as a result of one of their mistakes after they used a meter reading from a neighbour’s house. (Basically a new neighbour moved into our street at the same time as we switched to SP and they somehow used her details for our account – her meter reading at that time was 4574 and ours was 2239).
Basically, over the period that they have been our provider, they haven’t charged us for a fairly substantial proportion of our usage. We’ve just paid the Direct Debits as originally agreed, in fact they’ve even been ammended along the way at their recommendation.
The first sum they were looking for was about £3k which has now been rounded down to more like £400. So the question is should I have to stump up seeing as we’ve duly paid as advised by the provider and all errors are their fault? They have offered for it to be paid in installments but we’re on a tight budget as it is as my wife’s on maternity leave. I guess the honourable thing to do is pay up but any ither advice?
my final bill with NPOWER was £980 just for the leccy.... a years worth of estimated readings I guess. I now pay more attention
So the question is should I have to stump up seeing as we’ve duly paid as advised by the provider and all errors are their fault?
So you never checked the meter readings were right? partly your fault as well IMHO.
No, I did check the initial meter reading. It matched with mine when I checked the first bill, then the issue with the neighbour kicked in. The "wrong" inital reading was implemented after this. Subsequent bills matched with my readings as they requested them.
Also the weren't any estimates, I provided the readings as requested.
To be honest it would seem a reasonable amount bearing in mind the price hikes over winter if it is for a dual fuel account. If you were taking your own readings and submitting them then surely they were correct and therefore this is the correct amount you owe?
as above - if the readings are now right and you agree with them then all that's happened is they've collected too little since the price increases and you now need to pay the deficit?
My gas bill was £130 last month and leccy £70 - wouldn't take long at those rates to end up with a deficit on the account with an averaged annual direct debit running.
deleted due to stupidity - but you will have to pay I'm afraid.
I don't see how you can avoid paying for gas you accept you've used, no matter how many ****-ups they made.
So is it easy to masquerade as a "business" to get this cheap energy from EDF?
We're also facing a large bill from EON and it appears both parties are at fault. Long story cut short is they now reckon we're using 55kwh/day which equates to £200/month (3 people in 3 bed house)! I've even given them readings (25-35kwh/day) to disprove this but they won't listen. So I'm looking to pay the final outstanding and shift providers.
They even reckon 10 people came round to read the meter in an 18 month period, all of whom logged 'Unable to read meter', i.e. nobody was in etc. Which is bollocks because I work from home most of the time, and having checked the dates I was at home on every occasion. My take is that they couldn't find the house - which is par for the course given where we live - and just carried on their way. Hence estimates got well out of hand and subsequently loads under what we were really using.
The whole utility price spiral is getting so out of hand now. We're over a barrel so what can you do ...
Pay up and find a better deal elsewhere.
Ok - so this can be a swindle.
You owe more than you thought cos you used estimated readings. And electricity prices are now quite high. So ALL of your unpaid usage is being paid at todays inflated costs - rather then spread over the term of your usage.
I'd go back and make sure they're adjusting across all price brackets since your last official reading.
one thing to check, and i am currently having this "discussion" with Scottish Power, what units are they using on the bill? cubic metres or cubic feet.
I sent them a photo of the meter is states cubic meters on it, and they insist on billing in cubic feet.
When you get an estimated bill there is always the option to ring up and give your own actual reading then you get a new bill issued a few days later.
Mrmo - you are onto a massive winner there are you not as a cubic foot is a heck of a lot less than a cubic metre.
The first sum they were looking for was about £3k which has now been rounded down to more like £400. So the question is should I have to stump up seeing as we’ve duly paid as advised by the provider and all errors are their fault? They have offered for it to be paid in installments but we’re on a tight budget as it is as my wife’s on maternity leave. I guess the honourable thing to do is pay up but any ither advice?
reasonable figure, paid in instalments, what more can you get? You may get longer to pay if you stay with them.