BRITISH GAS !!charged economy 7 for years,didnt know itwas wrong? cananyone help!!

bigmouthstrikesagain_2

Hello! This is probably a big mistake on my behalf, which i didnt even have a clue but....Ive been getting the economy 7 rates FOR YEARS,only questioned this today , as he asked me about my storage heaters?? Never had them ever???< he said i must of??
I didnt even know ive got the wrong sort of meter?? , Ive told them time and time again what boiler system ive got when ive asked them about energy saving help they didnt notice and didnt have to notice ( he says) the difference ,
He said today its my fault , and they will change the meter for me , and i will start on my proper rates. Ive asked if they can back date these mistakes, if they is any chance they may owe me a bit of money back , he said no . My bills have been all over the shop ,
Last year they knocked me off the system for 4 months they said a email error on there account and have promised a £100 goodwill gesture , which i can get later this year!!! So i couldnt really leave them , I noticed only when i went on line to see my bills! Has anyone had any thing like this Im soo peeved!! thanks

HappyMJ

The difference is not that large. What were you paying on the day rate and the night rate and what usage did you have at night and during the day. What is the rate that BG charge you for standard electricity? You would have saved more by switching to a better tariff years ago. You would have got 7 hours of cheap night electricity which would have been used by the fridge and a few other things.

Cardew

Lots of people knowingly have Economy 7 without having storage heaters and make it worthwhile.

So you probably haven't lost a lot of money. In any case it is not the job of a utility company to tell you what is the best tariff.

With British gas you don't need to change your Economy 7 meter if you decide to have a single rate tariff(24/7). They just add the two readings and treat as on total. e.g. 1,000kWh on off peak meter and 3,000kWh on daytime meter is treated as 4,000kWh.

bigmouthstrikesagain_2

thanks for replying, on the economy 7 rates its been Tier 1 , 27.221 Tier 2, 14.962 . Night 6.564.
on single rates Tier 1 23.528. Tier 2 ,11.270.
this was cut and pasted from my on line bill.
06 Feb 2012 - estimated

24 Feb 2012 - actual
4857
5033
Estimated
We read your meter
= 176 kWh over 19 days (actual)
25 Feb 2012 - actual
05 Mar 2012 - estimated
5033
5142
£15.90
£34.95
We read your meter
Estimated
First 57 kWh x 27.890p =
Next 228 kWh x 15.330p =
= 109 kWh over 10 days (estimated)
06 Feb 2012 - estimated
24 Feb 2012 - actual
25494
25541
Estimated
We read your meter
= 47 kWh over 19 days (actual)
....its all foreign to me!! they dont tally up the rates the same either from the ones i checked on the web page

withabix

Your night usage is quite low, but that is to be expected if you haven't got NSH.

Many houses built between approx 1985 and 1990 have E7 meters with gas central heating. Seemed like a good idea at the time!

If you have delay timers on washer/drier/dishwasher, then set them to start at 2am (best guess - depends on your DNO region).

If you haven't got timers, switch them on when you go to bed.

bigmouthstrikesagain_2

Thanks again everyone >>>>now breathe !!!:o

Terrylw1

Cardew wrote: »

Lots of people knowingly have Economy 7 without having storage heaters and make it worthwhile.

So you probably haven't lost a lot of money. In any case it is not the job of a utility company to tell you what is the best tariff.

With British gas you don't need to change your Economy 7 meter if you decide to have a single rate tariff(24/7). They just add the two readings and treat as on total. e.g. 1,000kWh on off peak meter and 3,000kWh on daytime meter is treated as 4,000kWh.

Bgas are acting non compliantly in doing this as there a set of values that drive the ability of the meter known as Market Domain Data. Not all e7 meters on here are allowed to switch between 1 rate and 2 rate charging as it won't allow the supplier to update the distributor who would charge them based on the e7 values.

They have taken a commercial decision to do this as another supplier did years ago. It causes problems when you switch to a supplied operater with a correctly hard coded system because they can just swap you back to e7 and when you explain it was added together with Bad, the new supplied can't doo it without invoking the industry change process. Get it added as a e7 meter leaving waiting about 3 months to get it through.

A but if a messy area that Bgas are making words by not acting per the BSC. Hopefully at some point Elexon might decide to look into this and challenge suppliers.

OP - there is a certain amount of personal responsibility here but your supplier is also expected to not disadvantage you. As everyone including Cardew has said, you really need to see if you are worse off. If you are, aim for a compromise perhaps some form of backdated tariff change on the basis they didnt act in our interests if try knew about the situation, its omkething suppliers don't do very well and ofgem don't enforce enough in this area to improve consumption monitoring.

HappyMJ

bigmouthstrikesagain wrote: »

thanks for replying, on the economy 7 rates its been Tier 1 , 27.221 Tier 2, 14.962 . Night 6.564.
on single rates Tier 1 23.528. Tier 2 ,11.270.
this was cut and pasted from my on line bill.
06 Feb 2012 - estimated

24 Feb 2012 - actual
4857
5033
Estimated
We read your meter
= 176 kWh over 19 days (actual)
25 Feb 2012 - actual
05 Mar 2012 - estimated
5033
5142
£15.90
£34.95
We read your meter
Estimated
First 57 kWh x 27.890p =
Next 228 kWh x 15.330p =
= 109 kWh over 10 days (estimated)
06 Feb 2012 - estimated
24 Feb 2012 - actual
25494
25541
Estimated
We read your meter
= 47 kWh over 19 days (actual)
....its all foreign to me!! they dont tally up the rates the same either from the ones i checked on the web page

Right...19 days isn't enough to make a final judgement but over those days you used 21% of your energy at night.

You used about 2kWh per day at the primary rate of 27.89p and about 8kWh at the secondary rate of 15.33p. You also used about 2.5kWh at the night rate of about 6.9p. This is a about 12.5kWh per day which could have been charged at 2kWh at the primary rate of 24.7p and 10.5kWh at the secondary rate of 11.8p. Doing the maths tells me you currently pay £1.96 per day and you could have paid £1.74 per day. You could have saved 22 pence per day by being on a standard rate. Over a year this is about £80 or about 11% of the bill. This is a very rough figure as it is only based on 19 days of usage and not all the details. You need to figure it out over the entire period of charging. With most suppliers the break even point is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent night usage but some suppliers such as ScottishPower are not cheaper at all on standard rate and some are much more expensive.

By my estimates your annual usage is between 4,500kWh and 5,000kWh costing around £700-£750 per year.

spiro

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Bgas are acting non compliantly in doing this as there a set of values that drive the ability of the meter known as Market Domain Data. Not all e7 meters on here are allowed to switch between 1 rate and 2 rate charging as it won't allow the supplier to update the distributor who would charge them based on the e7 values.

They have taken a commercial decision to do this as another supplier did years ago. It causes problems when you switch to a supplied operater with a correctly hard coded system because they can just swap you back to e7 and when you explain it was added together with Bad, the new supplied can't doo it without invoking the industry change process. Get it added as a e7 meter leaving waiting about 3 months to get it through.

A but if a messy area that Bgas are making words by not acting per the BSC. Hopefully at some point Elexon might decide to look into this and challenge suppliers.

OP - there is a certain amount of personal responsibility here but your supplier is also expected to not disadvantage you. As everyone including Cardew has said, you really need to see if you are worse off. If you are, aim for a compromise perhaps some form of backdated tariff change on the basis they didnt act in our interests if try knew about the situation, its omkething suppliers don't do very well and ofgem don't enforce enough in this area to improve consumption monitoring.

Sorry but nearly all of that is wrong. A metering point is allocated to a Profile Class (consumption profile) under the BSC and if a meter system has switched load CAPABILITY NOT CAPACITY it must be set to PC2 (switched load). You as the customer should advise you supplier if you have your switched load (NSHs) removed and wish to switch to a 24/7 tariff. This does not impact the Market Domain Data associated with the metering point as switched load CAPABILITY still exists i.e. the meter can support it. The only was a site can be transferred to PC1 (no switched load) is for the meter to be exchanged which supplioers try not to do before the end of their life because fo the cost involved.

bigmouthstrikesagain_2

Thanks for all the help everyone , just been on the phone to BG .I told them ive been on a forum and the helpful people have looked at my bill, BG done a bit of a u-turn and have now said it may not be my fault now its no ones fault really, but she has said it may be backdated and change my meter, but it might go either way ,e,i , me owing them money?!! and do I fully understand that I may have to pay it all back too if its found to be under. I said Im paying the higher rates though , so how can that be ? she is getting it looked into tommorow,fingers crossed!
Once again!! big thanks to all !:j

Terrylw1

spiro wrote: »

Sorry but nearly all of that is wrong. A metering point is allocated to a Profile Class (consumption profile) under the BSC and if a meter system has switched load CAPABILITY NOT CAPACITY it must be set to PC2 (switched load). You as the customer should advise you supplier if you have your switched load (NSHs) removed and wish to switch to a 24/7 tariff. This does not impact the Market Domain Data associated with the metering point as switched load CAPABILITY still exists i.e. the meter can support it. The only was a site can be transferred to PC1 (no switched load) is for the meter to be exchanged which supplioers try not to do before the end of their life because fo the cost involved.

If you look at elexons market domain data tables you will see that not all sscs are available to pc1 and 2 hence a supplier is non compliant is misrepresenting the pc in mpas.

If you are with bgas on this arrangement and move to a supplier with a hard coded PC/ssc/mtc to taiff system, you will go straight back on e7 pricing. Meanwhile, the pc2 has remained set to 1.

The BSC stated that and I agree but if you check mdd you will see the industry has never been set up for and if you ask elexon, they will tell you to expand the ssc to make it valid.

Without the ability to switch the PC correctly it also effects the LLFC.

Where the customer removes the switched load many sscs will support a switch to pc1 and the supplier has to update the DC and mpas.