Help - they mixed my rates up!

Emma18

Spoke to our gas & electricity supplier today because our tariff is running out soon and the guy noticed that for the year that we have been with them, they have mixed up our day and night rate readings. they have charged us night rate (cheaper) for our day unit use. They say that they are going to take 2 weeks to work out what our bills should have been (backdated) and then it looks like we are going to owe them a whole lot of money.....I'm guessing over £1000!

Does anyone know if we legally have to pay, considering it's been their mistake and not ours? I was assured by our previous supplier which way round the readings were - and up until a few months ago, we did use more energy at night to take advantage of the economy 7 scheme we are on.

Anyone been through this themselves and what happened?!

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

This has been covered lots of times on this forum and yes you have a legal responsibility to pay.

I was assured by our previous supplier which way round the readings were

That sounds like readings were the wrong way around with the previous supplier??

Did you supply the meter readings to the new company? If so, how are they at fault?

The position of the companies is that you have a responsibility to check your meter readings and bills.

If the mistake was in the Company's favour, they would be required to make a refund.

There seems to be a 'urban myth' that if a company makes a mistake they cannot rectify that mistake - unless it means giving a rebate!!

To take a more extreme example, if your Bank credited you with £1million - do you feel it is yours to spend?

That said, in your case, you should get a small reduction as a goodwill gesture, and time to pay.

Premier_2

I doubt you'll owe anything like £1000 extra. (unless you use an extraordinary amount of electricity per year, especially as you also have gas)

Also worth checking whether it's worthwhile you being on E7 if the difference really is that amount.

To put your mind at reast, call your supplier who should be able to give you a good indication of what you might owe whilst on the phone to them. They have all the necessary readings and unit charges on the bills they have produced. It just needs a quick recalculation.
The 2 weeks sounds like the amount of time it'll take to produce a revised bill and have it delivered to you.

spiro

Premier wrote: »

I doubt you'll owe anything like £1000 extra. (unless you use an extraordinary amount of electricity per year, especially as you also have gas)

Also worth checking whether it's worthwhile you being on E7 if the difference really is that amount.

To put your mind at reast, call your supplier who should be able to give you a good indication of what you might owe whilst on the phone to them. They have all the necessary readings and unit charges on the bills they have produced. It just needs a quick recalculation.
The 2 weeks sounds like the amount of time it'll take to produce a revised bill and have it delivered to you.

The two weeks may be because they need the Data Collector (meter reader) to reprocess all the readings the correct way around to feed them into the settlement process (process by which suppliers share of consumption is calculated).

Emma18

Thanks everyone for replying. I've calmed down a little since Friday now, and yes, I can see that if we've used the electricity then fair and square it has to be paid for....it's just really annoying that all figures were given to them upfront a year ago, and it wasn't questioned then. It may well be around £1000 because for a year we've been paying approx £5 for 100 units when they should have been charging us £12. We pay £111 each month DD (which covers gas too though). By my rough calculations, it could well end up reaching at least the high hundreds! Will wait to hear from them. Thanks again!