Electric meter billing mistake

dogshome

Hi redstar 1 - This saga get's stranger and stranger.

The companies legal authority to re-visit past bills to correct reading errors, as they now want to do, depends on the term in their T&C's that you have a legal responsibilty to check thier bills - We cocked it up, you should have noticed and told us about it, but you didn't - So Hey Presto, here's the Bill

But we now have the position whereby the supplier has removed the meter, which is the basic datum point from which you are able to check your bills, from your flat and resited it in a locked meter room to which you have no access.
As this would have cost money, it's unlikely this was done at the request of the buldings owners, but either way, this action has has denied you the ability to comply with your legal duties in the suppliers contract.

It's time to escalate this problem to the level of an official complaint
WRITE a letter, (Don't bother with Email or phone) headed Complaint and list the saga you have had, but keep it simple with bullit points to each stage
All the best

redstar1

Premier wrote: »

How did they get in? Hope they had a warrant! :cool:

Recently a contractor wrote to me saying they needed access to each flat as part of rewiring the entire block, and so I allowed them access on two days to do this and was not there to watch what they were doing. It seems that the supplier took this opportunity to move my meter without first asking me or telling me, and I only noticed it had disappeared with this recent bill problem. I asked the contractor if they moved the meter and they said definitely not, they are not allowed to move the meter, only the supplier can do this.

Anyway I have written to the supplier with some questions and am waiting for their reply. Thanks to all for your comments.

redstar1

Gurn wrote: »

Because if all the cut out fuses are in a ryfield cabinet, all the tails may be in trunking, so a fuse finder will only tell you which there cut out fuse is, but it may still be a absolute sod to trace the tails out to the meter!
Putting a quick bit of load on and off and using an ammeter is a quick easy way of identifying the correct meter/tails.

Hi all

An update on my saga...

It seems that I was wrong about the location of my meter. My gas meter is inside the flat and the electric fuse box is in the same place and I thought that the electric meter was in the same place and had been recently moved. It now seems however that I was wrong about this and that the meter has always been outside the flat. I had to ask the council (landlord) to see my meter and a caretaker guy came round with a key. So I have now seen that there are about ten meters in a row kept behind a full sized (unlabelled) locked door on the road and each of these meters has a sticker showing the flat number, and so the supplier says that my meter and that of a neighbouring flat were wrongly labelled. I do not have the key for this door and have never seen these meters before. Presumably the supplier does have the key and someone comes to read the meters each quarter. I think the idea of having the meters outside in this way is that it is easier for the supplier to get readings ie the supplier has access at all times.

I have also learned that the supplier replaced my flat's meter with a digital meter a few years ago but when doing this did not bother to check which flat the meter was supplying.

Going back to the kettle test mentioned previously, can anyone please tell me is this test done on the meter itself or the intake area which I mentioned previously is behind a different locked door with the signs 'danger...keep out'? When the kettle test was done a few months ago I was in the kitchen with one supplier guy who was speaking on his mobile phone to the second supplier guy. I don't know where the second supplier guy was or what he was doing. As a domestic customer I could turn the kettle on and off like the first guy was doing but I would have no idea what to look at downstairs ie what the second guy was doing.

Thanks for any comments...

specialsparky

Hi There are a couple of things that I may be able to help with here. This sounds like a classic crossed meter problem and the supplier is now in unraveling the probs but this may involve several suppliers so could take a long time. With regard to you then if you have a meter spurred off from the supply in the plant room it should show the correct meter number and fall in with your reads now they have sorted the problem. It is important to know this and I would ask your LL to ensure that all these errors have been resolved. If the LL or the buider have been negligent and this is going to cost you a lot of money then you may wish to consider legal action against them for their negligence.
Good news is that they can only back bill you 12 months and they must also set off payments you have made. Additionaly you should ask for the same amount of time it has taken them to send a correct bill, to pay, so ask for 12 months to pay the outstanding debt.

Good luck hope this helps

redstar1

specialsparky wrote: »

Good news is that they can only back bill you 12 months and they must also set off payments you have made.

Good luck hope this helps

Hi thanks for your reply. At the moment they want to backdate my bill for 8 years!! I will check the exact wording but as I recall the billing code says that where the supplier is at fault they can only go back 12 months. The crucial question of course is who is at fault in these circumstances. As I have said previously it seems amazing to me that I as a domestic customer could be held to be at fault here for failing to have done something like the kettle test done by the two professionals when I had never heard of such a thing and would have no idea how to do it.

Premier_2

I suggest you read the earlier posts as to why the 12 month back billing rule probably won't apply in this instance

DVardysShadow

SimonG78 wrote: »

Sorry to resurrect a dead post but I have a similar problem and need some help/advice.

No need to resurrect this thread. Start a new one please. You never know if the OP will come back to this thread, which will mean that your post will cause confusion.

If you start a new thread, please come back and delete your post here. I'll respond if you start a new thread soon.