Spark Energy

tortytat

In December 2011 I changed from Spark Energy to Scottish Power for my duel fuel supply. I have had many disputes with Spark in the past over the accuracy of their bills and I decided to change supplier. In May last year Spark told me that a monthly direct payment of £100 per month would be sufficient to cover my usage of gas and electricity. In January 2012 I forgot to cancel my direct debit and hence they received an additional payment of £100. I contacted them about this and said they would calculate my final bill and issue a refund if necessary. I received a Final Bill for £251.06. I complained to them and said that I thought it was too high and could they look into it. I then received another Final Bill for an eye-watering £598.51. As you can imagine I was expecting the recalculated bill to be lower than the original one. I complained again and they have now sent me another Final Bill for £467.30 and they are now threatening me with a debt collection agency.
They are trying to charge me for an additional 6 months usage plus the £100 overpayment I made in January. Surely these figures cannot be right when they told me that £100 a month was enough to cover my existing usage. In fact we had the central heating mainly turned off from April to September last year because of the hot summer. Can anyone advise me on what I should do? I have submitted a complaint to Ofgem's Consumer Direct.

macman

Have you checked the bill against your actual consumption during the billing period? This is what matters, not whether your CH was off.
You may have been caught by a series of estimated bills and then a huge catch up bill-did you supply regular meter readings?
You need to go through the figures and work out approx what you do owe, vs what you have been billed.
Ofgem will not be able to do anything until you have reached a deadlock with Spark.

Terrylw1

Is the final bill your change of supply

As Macman says it could be catching up but on a change if supply if you didn't supply a read, they will estimate. Ultimately, you dont get charged twice since this reading is your opening reading with your new supplier but it can mean squeezing more than expected into the old suppliers period.

jalexa

tortytat wrote: »

I received a Final Bill for £251.06. I complained to them and said that I thought it was too high

On what grounds? Only the meter reading is relevant, not the £££s.