Electricity Usage

gareth824

Hi,

I'm looking for a little help with my British Gas electric bill. We've had loads of billing problems over the past 3 months and after what must be over 40 telephone calls we are still at square one.

Our bill used to be around £40 per month on Ecomomy 7/Storage Heaters. Then all of a sudden towards the end of last year we got a bill for over £300 and now they are billing us around £100 per month.

I can't understand how this is happening. We both also work long hours now and only spend a few hours a week at home so there should be practically no usage exept for the overnight heating.

We've tried to dispute the bills with BG but they are having none of it. We've asked how the bill can jump from £40 to £100 when we are at home less but they are not interested.

We also asked for a test to be done on the meter which they have just done and they are saying it's right!

Over the past few days we've been reading the meter daily at the same time to see what we are using and we've noticed a few things which we are not sure about. The first 2 days the night reading used around 40 units then the 3rd day used over 100 units but there was no change in our usage and the 4th day as back down to 40. The day rate seems very consistent.

Does anyone know why the night rate would fluctuate like that and is it right to do that?

Thank you.

patwa_2

OK, to try to answer your Q's in order.

Yes, BG are terrible over the phone, actually 95% are terrible, but there is the odd gem in there. Sadly We're no longer with them, and a girl that was very helpful with us is probably no longer there even if I could remember her name.

Anyway, energy companies routinely (every 6 months or annually) review customers energy usage and billing amounts. this is normally done without their permission or notification. Notification is then sent to the customer to say that they 'advise' customers to increase their monthly charges by x, although in reality this is done automatically.

This could explain your bill increase. Energy companies work on a fixed monthly sum, even if that sum is not enough to cover the energy usage. It's why so many people are caught out when they try to switch to a cheaper supplier, they receive a massive bill that is in fact unpaid energy usage that could be anything up to years old.

Anyway, so assuming you've been underpaying for your energy, BG are simply trying to recover that amount by billing you more now. Chances are your current high monthly charge would continue until that debt is repaid, after which your account would presumably go into credit (assuming low energy use) and you 'may' get a credit back for that overpayment.

As for the meter, no, I do not recall any such surges on our meter. You don't have any automatic timed devices or such that operate every third night? OK, so that was a stupid question but I would doubt the meter to be faulty, but that chance should not be ruled out.

You should write to BG to ask for your energy usage readings for the last 3 years. That should be far enough back to judge whether an underpayment has been taking place. You'll of course need your energy prices for that time.

Upon calculating this, you can work out what your account situation is, probably in debt due to the winters, then think about arranging alternative payment options with GB if your current bill payments are unsustainable.

Tip: Many energy companies will get off your back if you can clear a portion of the debt in one payment - it all goes down to the likelyhood of you being able to cover it in the future.

I got this info from Powergen, Scottish Gas (when we were with them) and more recently EDF Energy.

Hope it helps.

tripled

Don't forget this year alone BG bills have gone up nearly 40%, and there were increases the year before as well. In addition to this, as patwa said, if as a result of the price changes you have accrued more debt on the account then your dd would be increased to more than you are using to recoup it.

Ask for a copy of your statemnts for the last two years, and check not the cost but the figures for the number of kwh you have used, which would soon tell you if your consumption was going up or down. Is it possible you have turned one of the storage heaters up and not noticed, or something similar?

I'm not a storage heating expert, so I'll leave someone else to advise you on that. Meters seldom go wrong though, however if you are certain your meter isn't working you can demand for it to be tested, but if there is not a fault you would be charged for the visit and can be quite pricey.

Backbiter

I'm a BG dual fuel customer and have seen my bills rise steadily in the past few years with pretty constant usage. Electricity is now costing me £84 a month, which is unbelievable. Can anyone tell me what the approximate rise has been in BG's electricity prices in the past two years? Has it been more or less than their competitors? Their recurrent gas price rises were always well publicised, but that's not been the case with electricity.

I've had regular quotes off the comparison sites and none has ever promised much in the way of savings - BG has often come out cheapest. The best offer I've had was 2 months ago, to switch to BG Click Energy. I was very close to switching, went away for a week, and returned to find their prices had rocketed.
Posts on here make me glad i didn't.

tripled

The bbc has a comparison chart for the last three years here.

patwa_2

Yes, I do believe BG's price hikes have been one of the steepest in recent times, or at least they stand out from the crowd as such.

This is of course a major problem when deciding whether to switch energy suppliers. Different amounts of energy are used depending on the time of year, and price hikes occur at different times. Just as an example of this, we could have changed supplier four times in the last year and apparently saved money, but in the long run the debt repayments (see above for an explanation) would have hurt the wallet so we stuck to our current supplier.

Another thing that all members could do with being wary of is this whole Economy 7 business. for ages I did not know that we had an Economy 7 meter. Yes, I knew we had different rates for night and day, but did not tie this up with Economy 7. So each time I did a price comparison, I was doing it for non Econony 7 tariffs, thus getting inaccurate results. We would then make the switch to the supposedly cheaper provider, be billed for an Economy 7 tariff, which in hind sight may not have been the cheapest. Something to bear in mind. I've also had this reaction from a lot of people who I've asked "Do you have Econom 7?". the typical answers range from "No", to "I thought only really old houses had thouse?". When asked "Do you have different rantes for night-time and daytime usage?", the answer would be "Yes". When told "That's Economy 7, as defined by uSwitch", I tended to get rather sheepish looks, embarassed laughs or the all too common "Oh".

Cardew

I echo what has been said above about your increase in DD being almost certainly due to a debit balance being recovered.

I can't understand why your overnight consumption on E7 would have jumped for one night unless there was an alteration in the settings.

However your usage of 'only' 40 units a night on E7 for storage heating, immersion heater and presumably you have a fridge and freezer as well, is extremely low.

You don't say where you live, but even if you are on BG's Standard Tariff(their highest) the majority of areas pay less than 3p/kWh(including VAT) for E7. (All English areas pay under 3p with the cheapest 2.537p)

So 40 units will cost £1 to £1.20 a night. Even 100 units is less than £3.

joshwa

I have been spending a lot of time complaining to BG over the last 4 months now (still with no real reply to my complaints), and here's some helpful people you can contact:

British Gas:
0845 788 8400

If you have written a letter of complaint then you can phone and ask for the Customer Liason Team.

You can phone the Enger Supply Ombudsman if your issues are from July 06 as that's when they were setup:
0845 055 0760 or 01925 530263

You can phone Energywatch:
0845 906 0708

Personally I have written a letter to:

BG Headquarters:
House Contact Centre, PO Box 50, Leeds, LS1 1LE

BG Complaints department at:
British Gas, Admail AA3119, Southampton, SO14 0NU

Energywatch

BBC Watchdog (If they receive enough complaints about a given thing, then they may do a piece on it)

United Utilities (as they were responsible for not replacing our meter 5 times)

I can add the addresses for the other departments later. You can also fax your complaint to the customer liason team if you have ready access to a fax. If you want I can pm you the number.

Josh