Faulty meter and estimated bills

bellybabe_2

Hi all,
We left BG in January and switched to London Energy/EDF, which involved a saga of BG switching us back and so on. Anyway, we recently had an estimated bill from EDF for the electricity; it seemed high so we took our own reading and called them. Unfortunately, our reading was apparently lower than the initial reading (or rather, the final reading from BG) so there's been a disputed reading lodged. Some weeks later, still waiting for it to be sorted, we checked again, and discovered the meter hadn't changed at all, and has simply stopped working. Not only that but in all our phonecalls trying to get it sorted, it turns out that the supposedly final reading from BG was an estimate! We're very miffed about that, because their estimate is presumably based on the previous year or something, and we changed our heating system to something much cheaper last summer. EDF are coming to install a new meter in a couple of weeks' time.

The disputed reading people have come back with a different estimated bill but we have no way of knowing if it's reasonable because we don't have a winter's bills on the new heating system; they say they will also estimate future usage based on one weeks' usage from the installation of the new meter. I have no idea if that's reasonable either, although it seems so.

We know we're not liable for costs for the meter, but we're very concerned about our bills for the usage, given there's no way of knowing the actual usage. Also, EDF say the final bill from BG was an estimate - is there anything we can do about that, because they may have overcharged us (they may have undercharged us, too, but that seems highly unlikely, knowing BG!)? But of course we have no way of knowing. And surely they're not in fact allowed to estimate the final bill?

Any thoughts?
Cheers (sorry it's long but it's complicated!)...
Bellybabe