High Gas Bill - Last chance!

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  • EachPenny
    EachPenny Posts: 12,239
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    Cardew wrote: »
    Whilst the above posts provide good advice, they do not address the OP's problem.

    Unfortunately the advice from matelodave and others is right, there is little the OP can do about the past, all they can change is the future. The OP appears concerned about future costs, possibly a repeat of what has already happened, so based on their experience my advice to them would be to gather evidence of your meter readings so to be in a better position next time. That is possibly the best outcome they can hope for.

    The point about the datestamp of photos being altered applies equally to numbers being written on a piece of paper, or figures entered into a spreadsheet - I could just add figures to a spreadsheet covering the last 25 years. It won't be necessary for everybody, but if you think it is likely you will need evidence to dispute future bills then it is worth making sure that evidence is robust as possible.
    Cardew wrote: »
    You can take civil action in the courts, but what is your evidence? It is not sufficient to simply say my bill is much higher than normal.

    The ombudsman or courts will consider many types of evidence, numbers written on a piece of paper won't necessarily be disbelieved, but are far weaker than evidence which has third-party verification. If a future situation reached the point where civil action was involved, the company's solicitors would be involved. If the customer can tell the company solicitor that their case is supported by photographic evidence of meter readings taken on a weekly/monthly basis then the company's solicitor's advice is likely to be settle, or to drop the case if it was started by the company.

    If the solicitor questions the provenance of the photographic evidence, all the customer needs to do is to politely offer to obtain certified copies of the emails (or a witness statement) from the email service provider to confirm that the emails (with attachments) are stored on the service provider's servers, but the customer will seek to recover the costs of obtaining that further evidence should the need arise. At that point, if they haven't already, you can expect the company to cave in. :)
    glennevis wrote: »
    The procedure outlined involves emailing the photos to yourself. It is the date stamp on the header of an email that provides evidence of the date the photos were emailed. Such 'evidence' is meaningless unless used in conjunction with identical readings submitted to the supplier.

    It would help to have photographs of the submitted meter readings, but the more powerful evidence would actually be a consistent and ongoing record of readings over a period of time. The reading for a specific day could be extrapolated from the readings at the start and end of the week/month. Evidence of a pattern of consumption is more likely to help in a metering dispute than actual readings on a certain day.

    All of this is rather extreme, and I wouldn't suggest people normally take pictures of their meters and email them to themselves - apart perhaps just before and after a meter exchange. But the OP has already had an issue and appears to be concerned this might happen again and they cannot rely on the obmudsman to help. Therefore obtaining the best quality evidence possible would be a sensible precaution. :)
    "In the future, everyone will be rich for 15 minutes"
  • victor2
    victor2 Posts: 7,559
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    Avamandina wrote: »
    Thanks for the response Cardew..
    No all bills were correct and not estimates BUT all with different companies as I keep changing for the best deal - hence I can't prove it as I haven't kept any bills...My main worry is that I know I'm not using that amount of gas - hence what do i do in the future... not use cental heating in winter?! Not realistic... every person I have spoken to has said there is no way that I am using that amount of gas... so wheres it going??
    Also so annoyed about them estimating using old bills as they are obviously the old bills and high bills..
    But yes - dont have 'evidence' to take them to court - just ideally looking for an engineer to help me work out what is wrong...
    Going forward, read your meter daily, at the same time each day for at least a few weeks. Convert it to kWh (the formula for that should be on your bills) and see what you are using. Switch on your heating for an hour and see what is used. That will give you an idea what your actual usage is. Presumably your new meter is metric. If the old one was metric but billed as imperial, your gas bills will be almost 3 times what they should have been.
    With no historic evidence, you are going to find it tough to prove anything, but at least you should be able to sort things out for the future.

    I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the In My Home MoneySaving, Energy and Techie Stuff boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. 

    All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.

  • Thanks to all the responses - it would appear that as I thought I have no case and will need to just pay it - but I am most unhappy at this as I just don't understand it and if I had put my heating on every day all day I could maybe have understood it... but yes I have no evidence so will just need to take it as a valuable life lesson and learn from it...

    Thanks
    Amanda
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