Huge error with my meter reading

[Deleted User]

Please can anyone advise, I think I have made a big mistake!

I moved into my house April 07 and rang British Gas and gave gas and electric meter readings. I live in a terraced house with average amount of electricals, no turbines or anything!

I have made regular monthly payments of £100 total between the two ever since and rarely been in arrears by much.

Today I spoke to them again and gave them updated ones. My gas reading was as they expected, but my electric was way what they estimated.. by over £5000 worth.

I have worked out that when I gave them original electric reading of 35300 it was , according to the notes on the electric meter i made then, 65300.

So basically they think I owe them over 5 GRAND in electric.

Im about to call them tomorrow but im worried they will think I am lying and charge me 5 grand.. do you think they will logically see there's no way i could have used over £2500 in electric a year? Im hardly generating Sellafield here anyone can see that.

I feel like a total fool but i hope they will see sense, its not as if i am quibbling about a few quid here, i admit i made a mistake (i dont pay much attention to detail in many things).

Has anyone any similar experiences? Will BG listen to me do you think?

Booba

withabix

If it's not a brand new house, they will have access to historic meter readings, so will be able to tell that there was a mistake.

medders2604

I would think that they should be able to look at the final meter reading for the previous resident and work it out from there for you.

[Deleted User]

Thats a very good point withabix, i hadnt thought of that at all.. thanks ! I hope they had records though ...

[Deleted User]

Thanks both of you, I will let you know what happens..

stewie_griffin

Have they not read your meters in the 2+ years they've been supplying you? If they have then it should be fairly obvious if your start reading was wrong.

[Deleted User]

No, nobody has read it since i moved in, the gas is on the outside which has been done but not the electric, inside.. to be honest, im sure when they see the "3" should be a "6" they will see i have made a boob...!

Stingy_Samson

Boobah, i had a query when i swapped suppliers about 4 years ago. I used to have a dual electric meter (Normal and Night on Economy 7), but i have since changed to one now.

When the "official" meter man came to read the last readings before switching, somehow he got the Day & Night readings the wrong way round, so when my final bill came through, i too was said to owe thousands!! It took me a good part of 18 months, several adjusted bills, final reminders and a LOT of phone calls to sort it out. i was not happy and vowed never to go back to N-power again.

Although i swallowed my pride at Xmas and changed back with them, but i dread the day i come to switch again for fear of what !!!! ups they can come up with next.

Premier_2

booobah wrote: »

No, nobody has read it since i moved in, the gas is on the outside which has been done but not the electric, inside.. to be honest, im sure when they see the "3" should be a "6" they will see i have made a boob...!

No meter reading had been taken at any time prior to you moving in? What about any bills having been issued prior to you moving in - even estimated ones?
How old is the property?

Unless it's a brand new property, I really don't believe that no previous bill had been issued. Also it would be quite a coincidence that even if a previous bill had been issued and it was £5k short because of historical continuous underestimated readings, you also happened to have given a start reading that coincided with the underestimated readings the supplier made don't you think?

If its a brand new property then its extremely unlikely that £5k bill would have accrued by the builder/owner in the short time before you moved in.

terryya

I'm pretty sure the way the system works is that the opening reading for one customer is the closing reading of the previous one, so I don't think it will be as simple as getting them to look at the previous closing reading.

[Deleted User]

Premier wrote: »

Unless it's a brand new property, I really don't believe that no previous bill had been issued. Also it would be quite a coincidence that even if a previous bill had been issued and it was £5k short because of historical continuous underestimated readings, you also happened to have given a start reading that coincided with the underestimated readings the supplier made don't you think?

If its a brand new property then its extremely unlikely that £5k bill would have accrued by the builder/owner in the short time before you moved in.

Im assuming there were bills issued before I lived there, the house is about 30 years old so its inevitabl really.
I spoke to them today and yesterday, and explained the single digit error and they laughed and agreed it did look very strange, and are adjusting it and giving me a new bill. Will let you know what happens, thanks for your contributions :T