A success story of sorts - 3 years of leccy bills in one day!

rhowe

Hopefully this will be of use to somebody. I got 7 months of electricity for 65p and a £400 discount on a £1,400 bill just by asking the right questions.

We moved into a new conversion (6 flats) in Oct '07. As soon as we moved in we did an energy comparison and tried to switch.

Unfortunately, when the building was converted someone screwed up. Gas meters were assigned to the wrong flats, and our electricity meter (which appeared to be the original when it was a warehouse - the other flats all had new ones) was apparently "disconnected" meaning we weren't being billed for usage.

Many phone calls and 6 months or more later, this still wasn't resolved.

Eventually we managed to sort out the gas, but we gave up on the electricity. If they say the meter's not connected after I tell them it is, what do they expect me to do??!

We knew we'd get billed in the end, so we had been preparing for the thud on the mat.

When it happened we got 2 bills. One addressed to us for June 2008 to June 2010, £1,400ish and one for about a week prior to that for the princely sum of 65p addressed to "The Occupier".

We checked the meter readings and all seemed in order, although it was of course billed at the standard rates, not a cheap tariff.

I called up (freephone number) and pointed out that had they sorted out the disconnected situation when we moved in, we would've switched to a cheaper tariff and therefore it was at least partly their fault we were being billed on the standard tariff. Also, I said "it's a big bill - can we not have a payment plan?".

(we had been billed for gas on their dual fuel tariff, btw, so we'd been getting a dual fuel discount but no electricity bill - same supplier!).

They said "Hm, possibly. Will speak to my manager. And yes, a payment plan will be fine.". He took my number and said he'd call back in 15 minutes, which he did.

"OK, we can't backdate an online tariff. It's illegal [I didn't believe him, but didn't say anything at this point]. However, we have two options for you. Pay £1,000 now or £1,200 over 24 months."

£200 seemed like quite a lot of interest for a 2 year £1,000 loan (especially one with quarterly repayments!) so I plumped for the £1,000 option and they let me put it on a credit card (didn't have one with a 0% interest period, unfortunately, so it needs paying next month). That gives me time to sort out some cash and collect what's owed from my flatmates.

So, we got October '07 to June '08 for 65p and the next 2 years were charged at £500 a year (about what we'd pay if we were on an online tariff). Result!

So, my advice for anyone who receives a large electricity bill going back a long time:

1) Check the meter readings (this applies to almost all utility queries).
2) Ask if you can be priced on a different tariff. If this doesn't work, say why you don't think you should pay all of it. This works well if the supplier is at least partly to blame.
3) Ask for a payment plan. Unless they have a good reason not to do so, in my experience almost all suppliers will offer you one. Bear in mind that future bills will not go on the plan, so you will have to pay them in addition to the (likely smaller) plan payments. Also, you will be unable to switch from the supplier as long as you owe them money.
4) Ask to pay on a credit card. They don't normally let you do this for regular bills, but if it's long overdue or a large amount they usually seem happy enough to take anything!
5) Don't let them get too pushy - I have to say our supplier was easy to deal with but they did not offer me all these options - I had to ask for each and every one. They would quite happily have let me pay the £1,400 over the phone in cash had I not asked for a deal.

These details are based on my personal experiences rather than any specific industry knowledge - I don't claim to know the legals ins and outs, or very much about the internal workings of the industry. Still, by asking a few standard questions it seems that you can get yourself a sizeable discount and pay it on your terms.

I chose not to name the supplier - they're one of the big ones. I didn't think their service was particularly exemplary - they didn't go out of their way to help me or come forward with a deal without prompting, but neither were they obstructive or unpleasant. Initially of course when we were trying to sort out the meter they proved to be quite inept, but that's just typical Big Company syndrome. Too many departments with divided responsibilities not talking to each other properly.

Oh, and one thing: Freephone numbers look great on paper, but calling them from my mobile (Orange) is not free. I suspect this is the same for many other mobile contracts. I had to wait until I was at a landline before calling them, which was a bit of a pain.

molerat

If you had pushed you could probably have got everything beyond the last 12 months written off so they knew they were on to a good thing offering £1K.

davidgmmafan

They can and do backdate tariffs, particularly in relation to complaints. Its not an easy job as online tariff can change failry often, but it can be done. I don't follow the bit about interest, to the best of my knowledge they are not allowed to charge interest (surely if this was permitted they would all be at it?).

I can only presume the 24 month figure was for balance and consumption but then that doesn't add up either since you would have cleared the balance and have just £200 to cover two years usage. If you are happy with the total and the outcome then its all good, I believe some people have had success in only being back billed for one year as they have tried to find out who supplied etc etc but got no joy.

May not be worth the hassle if you are happy, but worth having a quick hunt around for a thread on this if you feel aggreived.

rhowe

davidgmmafan wrote: »

They can and do backdate tariffs, particularly in relation to complaints. Its not an easy job as online tariff can change failry often, but it can be done. I don't follow the bit about interest, to the best of my knowledge they are not allowed to charge interest (surely if this was permitted they would all be at it?).

I can only presume the 24 month figure was for balance and consumption but then that doesn't add up either since you would have cleared the balance and have just £200 to cover two years usage. If you are happy with the total and the outcome then its all good, I believe some people have had success in only being back billed for one year as they have tried to find out who supplied etc etc but got no joy.

May not be worth the hassle if you are happy, but worth having a quick hunt around for a thread on this if you feel aggreived.

The bit about interest was just me saying that I couldn't earn in interest the £200 extra it would cost to spread the payments over 24 months if I stashed the cash in savings, so paying now was the cheaper option.

I'm not too aggrieved. It's split 3 ways anyhow and I feel we've paid a fair price for the electricity we've used. Now the account's in order we can look at switching tariffs.

davidgmmafan

I still don't understand though the utility companies can't charge interest as far as I am aware. Unless as someone else speculated they were glad to get whatever they can as they were worried about the 12 month rule.

rhowe

davidgmmafan wrote: »

I still don't understand though the utility companies can't charge interest as far as I am aware. Unless as someone else speculated they were glad to get whatever they can as they were worried about the 12 month rule.

Ah no, not interest on the bill.

They gave me two options: Pay £1000 now or £1200 over 24 months.

The £1200 option cost £200 more overall so if I picked that I would only be better off if:

a) I didn't have the cash at the moment so couldn't pay the £1,000 option (or would have to borrow money to pay it and the cost of the borrowing would be >£200)
or b) I could make more than £200 by putting £1000 in a savings account, investment or whatever.

Well, assuming 4% interest over 2 years on a £1,000 savings account you're looking at what, £40 the first year and £41.60 or something the second year - £81.60 is less than £200. Plus, I would have to be drawing out of that savings account each quarter to pay the bills as they came in, reducing the interest still further.

So, I took the £1,000 option. Doesn't lock us in with the supplier for 2 years and is probably the cheaper option in the long run.