Huge Gas Bill

obprestige

Im in a bit of a bad situation

I have recently had a gas inspection from my landlord who gave me the meter reading for the gas. I entered this figure online with my provider and now its telling me I owe £1750

I live in a one bedroom flat and have done for two years paying about £30 a quarter for gas. My questions are...

Could I have been underpaying for 2 year(the time in the flat) and this is it catching up with me.

Will they offer a payment plan?

I need some advice as I have absoultly no way of paying this amount

PLEASE HELP

woohoo_postingid

Sounds like the meter reading is wrong - Have you checked it yourself?

£1750 over 2 years is £72 per month - I don't pay that for a 2 bedroom house with 3 of us living there.

Did you read the meter when you moved in?

obprestige

No I never have before. I have never had my own place before and didnt know that the bills were estimates until the landlord mentioned it.

If I dont know what the starting figure was when I moved in how can I correct the figure.

HELP

Magentasue

obprestige wrote: »

I live in a one bedroom flat and have done for two years paying about £30 a quarter for gas. My questions are...

Could I have been underpaying for 2 year(the time in the flat) and this is it catching up with me.

Will they offer a payment plan?

I need some advice as I have absoultly no way of paying this amount

PLEASE HELP

£30 a quarter isn't very much so it's quite possible you've been underpaying, and by quite a bit. Do you have gas heating and have you used it much over the period being charged? £72 a month, as mentioned above seems high - when you moved in, who did you give meter readings to, and when was the last time you had a statement with an actual (A) reading on it?

I'm sure they'd offer you a payment plan. You need to make sure it's for the correct amount, though.

obprestige

I have never given a meter reading to anyone since I moved in 2 years ago. There were bills from the provious tennat that when I called Scottish Power and told them the date I moved in the did not chase me for. So I started with a clean slate but repeat that I have never given a reading to anyone.

Any Sugestions

Magentasue

When you got yoru first statement, did you make sure that the correct meter reading was used?

Have you EVER checked the meter reading against the meter?

On previous statements, how many readings have been actual (A)?

In other words, do you have any evidence that you haven't used this gas?

obprestige

I will have to dig out all my old statements to see if any of them were actual (A) bills.

What a mess. The online bill I have shows the date I moved into the house but they have no way of knowing what the meter reading was on the date i moved in.

I have never checked the reading on the bill again the meter.

Is it worth asking when the last meter reading was done.

Magentasue

Yes, I think it would be useful to know when the meter was read - do you have all of your old statements.

Another thing to check - there are two types of gas meter. Older, imperial meter units have to be multiplied by 31 to give kwh. Newer, metric meter units need to be multiplied by 11. This will give the approx number of kwh which is what is shown on your bill. Now, there are some people who have metric meters but instead of paying about x11, they've been charged x31.

I know it's a pain but you need to dig out everything you can and find out these things - it may work to your advantage.

uberalles

It's been a long time since I had a gas bill, or had to read the meter, but from memory here goes.

Do the meters have a place for a decimal point like my electricty meter does. For example, could your landlord have read to you the meter reading as being, say for example,
123456
instead of
1234.56

Could that have caused the problem.

Probably not, but just a thought.