5 Digit reading or 6 digit, billed for £5000

Lucylou606

Hi
We have a commercial food business, and been there for 19 months.
Paid all Britsh Gas electric bills upto date, and had a metre read man out at least 3 times.
Then we get a bill for £5185.22, and previous bills showing we have paid. (with 5 digit readings). This large bill goes back to march 09, and in May 09 they have added a digit to make it a 6 figure reading.
How can they do this, metre read agents have read it as a 5 digit reading, there own website say ingnore the last digit.
I contacted them and they sent someone out to see what metre it was, and he confirmed it as a 6 digit metre.
I am worried, can they get it wrong and then just bill me.
It states on part of the bill that an agent read the meter on the present read ( done by an agent) 14/05/09 as 26632, then this figure previous read 14/05/09 266326 - it seems they add another digit on the end when ever they fancy.
What can I do any advice much apprc'

KimYeovil

If you are running a commercial business then you really should have the ability to read your meter yourself and determine what the actual use is. Surely you must have known if your useage was ten times lower than it should have been.

Read your meter - it will be perfectly clear where the division between units and fractions of a unit are. Compare the reading (as a whole number ignoring fractions) and compare that with the reading on the bill. Once you know what the actual reading is you know what your bill should be.

And, yes, if an error has been made you can be billed for the difference.

Lucylou606

KimYeovil wrote: »

If you are running a commercial business then you really should have the ability to read your meter yourself

Don't you think the metre read agent should also know, its his job.

we have 5 fridges, 2 freezers, an oven thats on for 2 hours a day, panini grill, its not excessive. I have been paying an average of £160 a quarter, based on the previous bills, which state 5 digit reads.

Are you aware it state on Britsh Gas website to ignore the last digit

spiro

The digit you ignore is clearly labelled 1/10ths as is often in red. Does your meter have dials (like a series of clocks) or digit (like the trip in a car)?

KimYeovil

No, it is not the meter reader's job. I know it seems silly and annoying but there would be far more confusion and many, many more misreads if every meter reader could override the centrally held information.

So how many digits are on your meter? Six (five white and one red) or seven (six white and one red). Does your meter not clearly have a bunch of white digits and a single red digit? It is the red tenths digit that the site (I assume) is asking you to ignore. There may be some confusion if the tens or hundreds of thousands of units is zero but it does not really take that close an inspection to work it out.

It is possible you do not owe the extra money - if there are any leading zeros on the left hand side there still may be confusion. But you just have to take one minute to look at your meter to check what the situation is.

Lucylou606

The last digit is label 1, not 1/10. They have the correct meter I.D on the bill, could they not tell form this which kind of meter it was.
They have been billing me since sept 08 with a 5 digit read. Now they say its 6. Its there error, where do I stand.
I have read similar situations on this site posted in Jan, it would be nice to find out what the outcome was.

Lucylou606

KimYeovil wrote: »

No, it is not the meter reader's job. I know it seems silly and annoying but there would be far more confusion and many, many more misreads if every meter reader could override the centrally held information.

- Well someone seems to have done exactly that

So how many digits are on your meter? Six (five white and one red) or seven (six white and one red). Does your meter not clearly have a bunch of white digits and a single red digit? It is the red tenths digit that the site (I assume) is asking you to ignore. There may be some confusion if the tens or hundreds of thousands of units is zero but it does not really take that close an inspection to work it out.

- 6 with no red numbers, the last digit looks slightly different, it has notches on it

It is possible you do not owe the extra money - if there are any leading zeros on the left hand side there still may be confusion. But you just have to take one minute to look at your meter to check what the situation is.

No I don't have £5000 sitting in the bank. The situation is that it is a 6 digit reading, but they have been billing me since sept 08 for only 5, whos at fault?

KimYeovil

You are at fault.

If I start a business using seven fridges and a couple of ovens (and lots of lights many hours a day, kettles, hot water, whatever) I am going to sit down and estimate how much it will cost me when making a business plan. Once I start operating/taking over I would surely sit down the first week and read the meter to check how much I have spent and continue to do this at least weekly, if not daily, for the first couple of months. I would then know approximately what the bill would be. When the bill subsequently arrived and there was a massive difference I would not sit there thinking 'woo hoo, escaped a bullet' or <shrug>.

You are at fault.

Lucylou606

So the Agents that came to read to meter over the 19 months, and read it as a 5 digit reading hold no responsibilty?

Premier_2

It's not a metter of apportioning blame, but rather you ensuring you are being invoiced correctly and paying what you owe becuase you have consumed that energy.

Welcome to the business world...

spiro

You say you have been being billed since Sept'08, how many times have you checked the meter reading on the bill matches what the meter says? If the answer is not 'every time I got a bill' then thats the wrong answer. Even as a domestic customer you should do that.

A person in a small house could use £160/quarter.

Technically your supplier only has to read the meter every two years and this is more around checking its safety than the reading.

The unfortunate bottom line is that if the end read on your large bill matches what the meter said then you have no option but to pay up.