any ideas of what may happen

dithedancer

after the death of my hubby in dec 07 i took advice and changed my gas and electric from b/gas to southern electric. i kept the £40 direct debit on knowing that i was paying too much at the time, but thought with price rises i would be covered if a bigger than average bill came through. last month i got 3 calls from s/elec asking me to check my meter and was told that it looked like they had been charging me per sq meter instead of per sq foot and they would write to me within a week. i heard nothing till last week when i got a bill for £2600!!!:eek: i phoned and was told that i was to do nothing and that the repayments were still been sorted out and that i would probably get a demand for large repayments but to phone them if this happened and they would put my d/d back to £40 pound a month.im at my wits end thinking that i will get a large bill just before xmas i know that ive used the gas and it needs to be paid for but can they demand it back in such large amounts.

notbritishgas

dithedancer wrote: »

after the death of my hubby in dec 07 i took advice and changed my gas and electric from b/gas to southern electric. i kept the £40 direct debit on knowing that i was paying too much at the time, but thought with price rises i would be covered if a bigger than average bill came through. last month i got 3 calls from s/elec asking me to check my meter and was told that it looked like they had been charging me per sq meter instead of per sq foot and they would write to me within a week. i heard nothing till last week when i got a bill for £2600!!!:eek: i phoned and was told that i was to do nothing and that the repayments were still been sorted out and that i would probably get a demand for large repayments but to phone them if this happened and they would put my d/d back to £40 pound a month.im at my wits end thinking that i will get a large bill just before xmas i know that ive used the gas and it needs to be paid for but can they demand it back in such large amounts.

The first thing to do is to check what type of meter you actually have, to see if what Southern are saying is true.
If you have an Imperial meter which measures 100's of cubic feet it will say cu ft somewhere on it, if you have a metric meter which measures cubic metres it will have m3 on it.
If you have an imperial meter and they have been billing you as a metric one then your bills should have been 2.83 times bigger than what they billed you for.
Also check your bill to see how they convert the units used into kwh, if they multiply the units by approx 11 then they are billing as a metric meter, if they multiply by approx 31.5 then they are billing as an imperial meter.

SwanJon

The only thing I'd add to notBG is to double check the read they used when you switched in December. See if you still have the final bill from BG and compare the last reading on that with the first reading on Southern's first bill.
If you've been payign £40 for 10 months and they've hit you with a bill for £2600 that suggests you've used £3000 of gas in 10 months.
Unless you've been heating your swimming pool with gas, or some other such extremity I'd assume there's a mistake somewhere.

brysiewysie

dithedancer wrote: »

........last month i got 3 calls from s/elec asking me to check my meter and was told that it looked like they had been charging me per sq meter instead of per sq foot and they would write to me within a week. i heard nothing till last week when i got a bill for £2600!!!

A cubic metre is 2.83 times larger than a cubic foot. A cubic foot meter (Imperial) is usually a meter with 4 dials with a couple of red digits too. A metric meter usually has 5 dials and red digits or decimal points too.

I guess you've got the info round the wrong way after your conversation with SE because if you were being billed for metres not feet then you would have already been overcharged (a cubic metre is 2.83 times more than a cubic foot).* Note Cardews response below

You may be able to get them to write off some of the debt and you should certainly expect them to set up an extended repayment plan for at least as long as they've been billing you incorrectly.

I'd certainly agree with Swanjon, £3000 of gas in under 12 months seems excessive unless they have over-charged you and this is the over-charge? Could the £3000 be the metric equivilent of a £1060 imperial bill (£3k divided by 2.83?).

Cardew

brysiewysie wrote: »

A cubic metre is 2.83 times larger than a cubic foot.
(a cubic metre is 2.83 times more than a cubic foot).

A cubic metre is WHAT?;)

A cubic metre is approx 35 times bigger than a cubic foot!!

A gas unit on an Imperial gas meter is 100 cubic feet and is 2.83 times larger than a cubic metre which is a gas unit on a metric meter.

notbritishgas

brysiewysie wrote: »

A cubic metre is 2.83 times larger than a cubic foot. A cubic foot meter (Imperial) is usually a meter with 4 dials with a couple of red digits too. A metric meter usually has 5 dials and red digits or decimal points too.

I guess you've got the info round the wrong way after your conversation with SE because if you were being billed for metres not feet then you would have already been overcharged (a cubic metre is 2.83 times more than a cubic foot).

You may be able to get them to write off some of the debt and you should certainly expect them to set up an extended repayment plan for at least as long as they've been billing you incorrectly.

I'd certainly agree with Swanjon, £3000 of gas in under 12 months seems excessive unless they have over-charged you and this is the over-charge? Could the £3000 be the metric equivilent of a £1060 imperial bill (£3k divided by 2.83?).

I think you are confusing the OP with this reply as well as giving them undue optimism!

brysiewysie

Cardew wrote: »

A cubic metre is WHAT?;)

A cubic metre is approx 35 times bigger than a cubic foot!!

A gas unit on an Imperial gas meter is 100 cubic feet and is 2.83 times larger than a cubic metre which is a gas unit on a metric meter.

Good spot, getting carried away there, sorry.:o