Extreme Electricity Charge - Contest It?

colinmk

Hi there,
I have just received a bill for over £1200 to pay on top of my current electricity bill which is now over £200 per month. I moved into the house last year, and switched from a pay as you go meter just before october.

Since October i have only been paying a direct debit of £50 per month for electricity, I always thought this seemed very low but just got on with it anyway, only now they have told me there must have been an error in the meter reading last october and I have been left with this huge bill.

Is it worth writing to the company and contesting this? I accept that it is now owed but the fact that there has been an error and that they haven't told me up until now is pretty shocking and doesn't seem right. Any feedback would be welcome.

rogerblack

First - is it really owed?
1200 is quite a high figure.
Have you had, or taken subsequent readings, in the meantime, that would let you calculate the interim usages?
What are they basing the initial reading on, if they claim it was incorrect.
Is this an economy 7 or other split-rate tariff?
Do you have electric heating?

colinmk

Yeah it's £1200 at least. The house is all electric, I 'm not sure if it is economy7, I have storage heating in the rooms downstairs and electric convector heaters upstairs and the hot water is electric.

The guy on the phone says the initial reading was wrong, it was either taken by me or them he didn't see to know but seemed to think there was a digit missing when it was taken. The new reading is a reading I took in October this year. I thought I had taken a reading earlier this year too however I am not sure about this and I didn't take a note of it If I did, I would of just entered it on their website.

chris1973

£50pm is extremely LOW for an all Electric house, on the threshold of winter especially where multiple convector heaters are likely to be used on peak rate electricity.

That said you are extremely unlikey to have used £1200 worth of Electricity in just over a month.

You mentioned that you had a prepayment meter in place until October, so I assume everything was paid upto to date on the meter or you'd have been living in the dark....

Was the credit meter which was fitted set at zero, or did it already have a reading on it when it was fitted. Who logged the reading?, you or the DNO who fitted the meter.

I would appeal the bill, on the basis that even if the meter reading was incorrectly taken at the time it was fitted, £1200 usage since October is a completely unreasonable estimate for a domestic connection.

What were you shoving into the pre-payment meter this time last year?, Energy has increased twice in the last twelve months, but if you add 30% to your monthly top ups from the October - November period last year, then provided your usage has remained much the same, it should give you an idea of what you would be spending now.

colinmk

Sorry it was LAST October that this bill has amounted from. I can't honestly remember who it was who supplied the reading last october but it seems neither can they from what the guy on the phone was saying.

I have no doubt that I do owe the money but do you think it's worth me contesting that it may have been there error and they have only just told me after over a year that there is an error?

chris1973

I have no doubt that I do owe the money but do you think it's worth me contesting that it may have been there error and they have only just told me after over a year that there is an error?

Eh?. I don't think anybody is going to encourage you to lie in order to gain an advantage or get out of paying / reduce what you owe, if you believe you owe this money and its an accurate figure of your usage pattern, then exactly what is the problem?. Fair exchange is no robbery etc, you used the power, you were clearly underpaying during one of the coldest winters on record in an All Electric property with peak as well as off peak heating and you don't dispute the amount used and now they want what they are owed.

As to meter readings, the meter is located in your property and not the power station or substation, so therefore part of a common sense onus is on you to use it monitor your usage and read it if you believe your current DD payments may not be accurate or a reading is due.

The majority of people will tirelessly read price tags at the supermarket, and compare the till receipt against the shopping, yet those same people will go pale at the mere mention of tracking their own weekly / monthly energy use. The meter is not the Medusa, and you won't turn to stone if you gaze upon its face.

In my experience, if you miss the meter reader they tend to leave a card, you can write the meter reading on this and leave it on the door / sellotaped to an inside window etc, failing that you can ring, text or email it to most suppliers.

Even my elderly mother is capable of reading her own meter and writing it on a card, and she can even do it during the Coronation Street commercial break, so i'm not sure what the big taboo on here is when it comes to people playing catch up for a period of missed readings which they can't be bothered to make, the common feeling on such posts when they appear is that its everybody elses fault but theirs, and that they are owed something because of it.

Even if you live in an area, where meter readers do not venture, I see most utility suppliers now have the facility to log in and submit a reading 24/7 whenever and as often as you wish, even when a bill isn't due, in order to keep up to date and to ensure that your current DD matches your usage patterns.