Watchdog expose gas scandal

littletommytucker

It was made quite clear on watchdog that this problem is caused by the Meter Asset Manager, if they had tried to imply anything else then im sure they would undoubtedly being sued for slander, as anyone with any knowledge of how the gas networks work know that this is the case.

In relation to the systmes picking up on the fact that the readings are higher than expected, this does happen, and would show as "out of tolerance" however if recieved from a meter reading, it would be presumed as correct.

I speak to many customers that say something along the lines of "my bill is £300 and my neighbours is only £100 and lives in exactly the same house", and its just a combination of customer A) having an older boiler, B)possibly draughty windows/poor insulation C) Central heating on an extra few hours. So I can quite easily see how it doesnt get picked up on for so long.

Maybe the energy firms could send an information leaflet out showing customers how to check the serial number on the meter etc, but no doubt this would just confuse the majority of people and cause a fuss.

auntynet

littletommytucker wrote: »

It was made quite clear on watchdog that this problem is caused by the Meter Asset Manager, if they had tried to imply anything else then im sure they would undoubtedly being sued for slander, as anyone with any knowledge of how the gas networks work know that this is the case.

In relation to the systmes picking up on the fact that the readings are higher than expected, this does happen, and would show as "out of tolerance" however if recieved from a meter reading, it would be presumed as correct.

Just to correct you on a few of your points.

It was myself and my husband that was the second couple featured on Watchdog (not the couple where the husband was suffering from pnuemonia) .

I can definitey state that it was the gas supplier that was at fault in our case and not the Meter Asset Manager.

We had a new metric meter fitted at the begining of Jan 2005 when we were with British Gas. They updated the national data base with all the relevant details within days of the meter being changed - this was confirmed by Meterfit Northwest who own the meter. We were paying by DD and were sent quarterly statements for our gas supply. We still have the actual statements from April and October 2005 which both clearly have the new meter number printed on, just above the calculation that changes imperial to metric. The october statement itemises all gas usage from January!

One point to note is that Npower were adding a zero the the begining of all our own and the actual meter readings, making the metric 4-digit reading look like an imperial 5-digit reading!

We were blatently overcharged for almost 3 years, allowed to get into debt (our fault as we should have monitored our usage and the insufficient payments we were making) and when we finally paid off our debt in Dec 07 and switched to another supplier, NPower provided the new supplier with the old imperial meter details which meant that our new supplier was also overcharging us.

For almost 3 years, dozens of phone calls to NPower querying our large bills failed to get past the first hurdle - usually someone in a call centre that has no idea what you are talking about. We decided to cut our loses and switch suppliers.

When we discovered what the problem was we contacted our current supplier - this was a few days before christmas and within 3 weeks we received a cheque for all the money we had overpaid them during the last year.

We contacted NPower the same day and they said they would "get back to us". They have contacted us once - the day they received notification that we had contacted Watchdog. It was one of the Chief Executives of the Complaints Department that rang and he stated that "it was our fault for not telling them that we had a metric meter". Neither myself nor my husband were aware that it was our job to inform them. :mad:

At no point have NPower ever asked us for our meter number - they didn't need to as it was clearly printed on all our bills dating back to January 2005. Meterfit North West informed us that the first 3 letters of the meter number indicate that it is a metric meter yet they still charged us 2.83 times more than we should have been paying, as if it was imperial.

Incidently, the bills from 05/06 do not show how the bill is calculated - we worked out what they had been doing by using the formula printed on our current supplier's statements.

One final comment - NPower have been in touch with our current supplier about this matter and they have requested all our details as "the customer wishes to switch back". !!!!!!!!!!!! :mad: :eek:

NOT ON YOUR LIFE - NOT EVEN IF THEY OFFERED US FREE GAS & ELECTRICTY FOR 5 YEARS!!!!!!

And we are still waiting for our money to be refunded!

Vestra

auntynet wrote: »

Just to correct you on a few of your points.

It was myself and my husband that was the second couple featured on Watchdog (not the couple where the husband was suffering from pnuemonia) .

I can definitey state that it was the gas supplier that was at fault in our case and not the Meter Asset Manager.

We had a new imperial meter fitted at the begining of Jan 2005 when we were with British Gas. They updated the national data base with all the relevant details within days of the meter being changed - this was confirmed by Meterfit Northwest who own the meter. We were paying by DD and were sent quarterly statements for our gas supply. We still have the actual statements from April and October 2005 which both clearly have the new meter number printed on, just above the calculation that changes imperial to metric. The october statement itemises all gas usage from January!

One point to note is that Npower were adding a zero the the begining of all our own and the actual meter readings, making the metric 4-digit reading look like an imperial 5-digit reading!

We were blatently overcharged for almost 3 years, allowed to get into debt (our fault as we should have monitored our usage and the insufficient payments we were making) and when we finally paid off our debt in Dec 07 and switched to another supplier, NPower provided the new supplier with the old imperial meter details which meant that our new supplier was also overcharging us.

For almost 3 years, dozens of phone calls to NPower querying our large bills failed to get past the first hurdle - usually someone in a call centre that has no idea what you are talking about. We decided to cut our loses and switch suppliers.

When we discovered what the problem was we contacted our current supplier - this was a few days before christmas and within 3 weeks we received a cheque for all the money we had overpaid them during the last year.

We contacted NPower the same day and they said they would "get back to us". They have contacted us once - the day they received notification that we had contacted Watchdog. It was one of the Chief Executives of the Complaints Department that rang and he stated that "it was our fault for not telling them that we had a metric meter". Neither myself nor my husband were aware that it was our job to inform them. :mad:

At no point have NPower ever asked us for our meter number - they didn't need to as it was clearly printed on all our bills dating back to January 2005. Meterfit North West informed us that the first 3 letters of the meter number indicate that it is a metric meter yet they still charged us 2.83 times more than we should have been paying, as if it was imperial.

Incidently, the bills from 05/06 do not show how the bill is calculated - we worked out what they had been doing by using the formula printed on our current supplier's statements.

One final comment - NPower have been in touch with our current supplier about this matter and they have requested all our details as "the customer wishes to switch back". !!!!!!!!!!!! :mad: :eek:

NOT ON YOUR LIFE - NOT EVEN IF THEY OFFERED US FREE GAS & ELECTRICTY FOR 5 YEARS!!!!!!

And we are still waiting for our money to be refunded!

Sorry but some that is not true, if they were adding o's to make it look like a 5 dial meter then the sytem would think it was 5 dial, or it wouldn't accept the 0 in front. The other thing is your old supplier didn't supply the new supplier with the meter details again the new supplier will pick up that info from the national database. Did you actually see the national database yourself? How do you know that was updated?

filmnoir

The new meter installed by BGAS was metric (All domestic meters from about 2000 2002 onwards are) If you then switched to Npower who then invoiced you Imperially they would have done two things. Got the details from Xoserve most likely, which was BGAS's fault for not updating the meter exchange and secondly been receiving incorrect 4 dial reads on 5 dial imperial meter.

There is a possibility though if you changes supplier directly after the meter exchange that the BGAS update was sent to Xoserve after the change of supplier therefore wouldnt have updated Xoserves systems.

So instead of sorting it, they have mannually adjusted the reads. And when you swicthed npower didn't update it either.

To me whos worked Meter Asset Queries for three years, actually both suppliers are at fault, but more importantly the file flow sytem of data management in the Gas Supply world is not as robust as electric.

Sirbendy

heh, yes I shall be watching both meters like I do with my prepay ones now..I don't trust credit meters at all, not since the first flat with NPower, ridiculous bills, and estimated readings etc that resulted in me buying the plug in meter monitor.

I was staggered when I looked at the prehistoric gas meter...it was that dirty it can't have been read in years...I had to scrub the window a lot to see the dials! Explains why all the bills for this new place I've seen are "E" marked. Also hopelessly optimistic as to gas readings..about 700 over at the moment.

It'll be getting a good scrubbing ASAP, and then be monitored daily for the first week, and weekly after that if not more often.

I'm guessing the last tenant didn't do a final reading..if he did, he had XRay eyes..

auntynet

IN reply to filmnoir & Rian;

I would not be posting details on the forum of a case that has media attention and is as yet, unresolved, if they were not true.

Meterfit North West (who own the meter) confirmed that the database was updated on 11 Jan by BGas. We switched to NPower on 27 Jan.

Regardless of who is at fault - our bills from that time clearly have our correct meter number printed on them yet they were still calculated wrongly despite numerous calls querying the amounts they were asking.

In this day of modern technology, why is there no provision in their software programmes that calculates and prints the bills, to pick up on the fact that the calculation used does not correspond with the meter number, considering that the first 3 digits of the meter number identifies whether it is metric or imperial? Such a simple step could have avoided the misery we have suffered all these years.

In the defence of our current supplier - they inherited the problem from our previous supplier and had no reason to doubt any details. Why would they? The system is supposed to work! They acted immediately when we contacted them and the first thing they asked us was "What is your meter number?" Within 3 weeks they have provided a full refund of all overpayments, this 3 weeks actually included the Christmas and New Year period. I call that excellent service - not something I could say about our previous supplier who just seem to want to lay blame to anyone but themselves.

Its not about blame - its about getting our money back. And if our previous supplier had listened to us when we complained, looked into the situation and realised we were right, then refunded us our overpayments, there would have been no need to involve the media.

elektra

To Auntynet

Glad you got quick action from your current supplier and good luck with refund from current supplier.

How long did it take Watchdog to pick up and run with your story ?

I agree that they don't have enough checks in the computer systems to check for anomalies - too large bills, too small bills ( especially against previous usage), and meter serial number checks. These things would be quite simple to program.

auntynet

We contacted Watchdog the week before xmas - after the lack of response and appauling attitude from the first supplier. :rolleyes: They rang us back a few days into the new year.

Cardew

auntynet,

You need to edit post #13

You wrote:

We had a new imperial meter fitted at the begining of Jan 2005 when we were with British Gas.

You mean Metric!

auntynet

Cardew wrote: »

auntynet,

You need to edit post #13

You wrote:



You mean Metric!

Ooooops - its now corrected. Thank you.