Incorrect Gas Bill - have been billed for metric when have imperial meter

Muttley41

Hi

I had a phone call on Friday about our gas bill. EDF have been charging us for a metric meter when we have an imperial meter. They are saying we need to pay £448, backdated to 1 Aug 08. They are telling me its been in the news and on watchdog etc, haven't heard a thing about it until they told me, they are saying its not just an EDF problem its other suppliers aswell, and its a system error. I have spoken to them a couple of times and they are saying we have to pay. My argument is for the past 18 months or so I have phoned every quarter and given them a 4 digit meter reading, if I had a metric meter I would be giving a 5 digit reading, so how come no one there has picked up on this...... I didn't know anything about metric and imperial meters until now!!!! I was just wondering if anyone else has had the same thing? If so, what happened?
I think its there mistake why should we have to pay...:mad:
Thank you

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

The reason why it is not picked up is that everything is inputted to a computer and not 'touched by human hand'.

They can backdate bills for a year even if it is their mistake.

However technically as they have been raising bills(albeit incorrect bills) they are entitled to charge you back to the date when you started receiving gas. In fact where the situation is the other way around(billed as Imperial instead of Metric) they refund back to the time the error started.

So they are only going back 1 year as a goodwill measure.

There is also the argument that you should check your bills and notify them of any mistakes. Although it is appreciated that many people simply would not realise there had been a mistake.

The bottom line is you have received the gas, you have 'got away' with only paying for approx one third of your gas for 6 months(assuming you started 18 months ago)