Incorrectly labelled gas meter

Mainecoon002

Hi,
I'm wondering whether anyone can offer any advice with regard to my current situation.
We moved into our current flat in October 2008, (as tenants). The gas meters are kept in a communal cupboard, with each gas meter being individually labelled with a corresponding flat number. We duly made a note of the gas meter reading at the start of our tenancy, (on the meter labelled as supplying our flat). This reading was given to the utility supplier, (n power), at this time and shown as a customer reading on our final bill.
Time moves forward and we decide to change suppliers. Our first dual fuel bill hits the doormat along with my jaw!!!!! The bill was horrendously high!!! After some extensive detective work, we discover that the gas meters were actually labelled incorrectly according to flat numbers. This is not however, a crossed meter reading issue, as the serial numbers on each gas meter do correspond with the correct supply as indexed by property address.
The problem is the previous tenants were also making the same mistake as us and reading the incorrect meter. This means that the gas usage values which were reported to the original gas supplier, n power, were also incorrect. As n power failed to make any official gas readings on the correct meter, it is unclear how long this issue has been going on for.
I have attempted to try and resolve this issue with eon and n power but have had a limited and useless response. Who is responsible for this situation? Our current usage is very minimal, approximately 15 units a week and we have made these readings available to eon to provide a transparent view of our current gas usage. We hoped that this may have enabled eon to produce a revised and fair bill.
I understand that this situation is partially our fault as we should have checked the serial number of the gas meter, but surely responsibility also lies with n power as they should have officially verified the original end meter reading originating from the previous tenants. There is also the issue of who labelled the gas meters incorrectly in the first place.
Please Help.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Why is it not a 'crossed meter reading issue'? Isn't it just a case of wrong labels?

Surely you(in Flat No 2)are being billed for the consumption of Flat No1 and they in Flat No 1 are being billed for your consumption.

Firstly I don't think that NPower have any duty to have "verified the original end meter reading originating from the previous tenants". You gave them a reading and they accepted that reading.

Secondly, as you left NPower, you ain't going to get much help from them.

If this is your first bill from Eon - covering Summer - then the gas for either flat should be low, UNLESS the bill was based on incorrect estimated readings.

There have been a couple of similar instances reported here. IIRC the line taken was if you have paid too much, then another occupant has paid too little. So go and sort it out with them!! (I appreciate that they might not co-operate!)

Frankly, unless you can get Eon to give you a goodwill payment, I can't see you being able to attribute blame to either Utility company.

Sorry.