economy 7 readings

psyjrobe

My mum has just discovered that for the past 3 years it seems that her night and day metre readings have been mixed up. The metre is confusing as it just says R1 or R2. However, having kept an eye on it for the past week, it seems R2 is the night and R1 is the day. (Is this the conventional way around???)

The mix up has gone in her favour as she uses more power during the day. However, now that she is aware of the problem she is unsure what to do and could potentially owe £1000s. It is strange that this problem has gone unoticed as over this time period she has been with 3 differnt suppliers. We think she has been submitting the readings correctly but the companies have switched them so that they make sense with previous bills. (Although recently the metre was read by someone official and he also has recorded them incorrectly).

I have heard that utility companies can only back charge for 1 year but is this true?? She is currently in the process of switching to a new supplier and my advice is to ignore the mix up until after a few months with the new supplier and then try to get things back on track. I'm assuming that the new supplier will not go to the hassle of contacting all the previous ones and it is difficult to identify when this problem started anyway.

HappyMJ

It won't be thousands in arrears. It may be a few hundred depending on exactly what her percentage is used in the day compared to the night. I'd do what you say and ignore it but keep some money aside just in case they click.