Estimated Bills at highest rate HELP

tba999_2

Can anyone advise.. I joined British gas for electric only as we are unfortuante enough to have oil only in our village in Jun06 paying 8.99p per kwh. They estimated my bills right up until april 08 (thats 7 bills!) and estimated I was using approx 1000 kwh per quarter and the price has risen to 12.4p per kwh. On the 9th april 08 they read my meter and said I had used 3874 kw at a price of 18.47 per kwh. They have obviously taken my previous 7 bills under estimate into account and are charging me their highest rate for 9 bills. To rub salt in the price has gone down to 16.1p per kwh and they are estimating again. Can they legally get away with this? What can I do anybody any ideas? Thanks in advance Tracey

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Either you, or BG, have made a mistake.

The price of 18.47p is for Tier 1 electricity. In June 06 they charged Tier 1 rates for 225 kWh a quarter(900 kWh a year) - it is now 500 a year on most tariffs.

So from Jun 06 to April 08 if you were billed for 7,000 kWh this should mean that approx 1,700 kWh should be billed at Tier 1 and the rest at Tier 2 rates.

If you post full details of the bill on this thread we can help more - even a photo with your name/address deleted.

ex-energywatch_adviser

Suppliers are only statutorily obliged to read meters once every 2 years so this can be the consequence of not providing suppliers with a reading when estimated bills are received.

Standard Licence Condition 12:
This condition states that suppliers should make "reasonable endeavours" to inspect meters at least once every two years it has been the supplier for those premises. As part of the inspection (which is visual and primarily for safety purposes) the meter must be read. A "reasonable endeavour" to obtain a reading might include a visit from a meter reader where no access was obtained and a card left for the consumer to send in their own reading.