under charged on utility bill

Frodo365

Im new on here so if this is the wrong area i do apologise.

I recently had a review on my Gas and electricity bill. After being with the same company for a year and updating some meter reading online over the past year they are now saying i have been paying "night rates" for day time electricity and day prices at nights, I now will owe them over £200.

can they do this, or because its their mistake the should deal with it?

I had no idea i was paying the wrong rates as i set up a direct debit with them when i joined them.

If you have any advice that would be fantastic.

Thank you.

DUTR

Frodo365 wrote: »

Im new on here so if this is the wrong area i do apologise.

I recently had a review on my Gas and electricity bill. After being with the same company for a year and updating some meter reading online over the past year they are now saying i have been paying "night rates" for day time electricity and day prices at nights, I now will owe them over £200.

can they do this, or because its their mistake the should deal with it?

I had no idea i was paying the wrong rates as i set up a direct debit with them when i joined them.

If you have any advice that would be fantastic.

Thank you.

How can you not know you are not paying the correct rates?
If it is a digital meter , it shows meter 1 and meter 2 (or such like) the older meters will also be distignuished from one another.
I suppose your real question is can you spread the under payments?
As expecting not to pay it at all is somewhat immature

NeverInDebt

If you owe the money then yes they can ask for it if its a mistake but it would only be reasonable to ask for it over some time assuming you cant afford to pay it out right

[Deleted User]

this will be the usual meter reader c**k up putting rate 1 ( which will prob be the day) into the low/night field on his handheld computer.that will end up with you getting a cheap bill.Usually people notice this but are quite happy to keep quiet about these mistakes.Eventually the supplier twigs and demands their money back.Its their stupidity for relying on auto billing.,you re lucky only to be £200 down as I ve seen them be thousands out, and walk in and stick a prepay meter in to collect every penny back in debt

Terrylw1

OK, you first need them to explain how this happened. If they were at fault in not correcting this then suggest they correct your billing by creating a bill up to the reading the correct it from which should be recent or one you take for them.

From my experience, its normally backbilled when its in the customers favour and done in the above way when its not, but its a corporate responsibility issue so they can operate how thy choose subject to the back billing code if the debt as aged.

One thing to remember is that in elec they pay for their elec based on the consumption produced by the readers. So, if they were taking them the wrong way round the supplier has also paid the wrong way round. Now, if the supplier chooses to back bill but not correct their own bill, they are acting in a very underhand manner and maximising profit at the cost of you and the distributor.

Transposition is a big industry problem. A large part of this error is nothing to do with customers, its poor practice by suppliers and their agents. Some meters even have to be transposed to get them to bill and these can cause this. You dont have a yellow sticker on your meter telling you rate x equals rate y do you by any chance?

seafarers_wife

Is a 2 rate meter the best value for you? If your reads have been transposed like that, I'm assuming your using more in the day then at night which is why your getting told you owe money. It may be more beneficial to change to a 1 rate meter depending on your heating set up.

jalexa

DUTR wrote: »

How can you not know you are not paying the correct rates?
If it is a digital meter , it shows meter 1 and meter 2 (or such like)

If you look at posts in other threads from the meter reader regular posters you will find the answer to that question. Then you will find your own post answers your own question.:D

DUTR

jalexa wrote: »

If you look at posts in other threads from the meter reader regular posters you will find the answer to that question. Then you will find your own post answers your own question.:D

The pattern I see from some posters here is that it appears they 'try it on' and if it gets picked up then they are all moans and groans, it is only £200 hardly re-mortgage rate. If the company owed them the £200 they would not be so willing to let it go

jalexa

DUTR wrote: »

The pattern I see from some posters here is that it appears they 'try it on'

Too bad you didn't research posts from the regular meter readers. You would have found there is endemic confusion with the identity of the registers.

DUTR

jalexa wrote: »

Too bad you didn't research posts from the regular meter readers. You would have found there is endemic confusion with the identity of the registers.

I'm not saying it does not or cannot ever happen, I'm sure it does.
In some cases though it is the consumer and their principle should be to square up their bills , in the case of the OP it would make a difference of about £17 per month for 12 months, as others mentioned it could have been thousands :eek:

Frodo365

it is not a mistake on my part and i am not trying it on.
when i switched suppliers they asked me foe my Rate 1 Reading, this is my day usage and was around 8000 units, my second rate reading is my night one and was around 1500. i know which one is which as it is on a sticker next to the meter and also on the back of the form they sent me on how to read a meter.

i switched from eon ad was paying around £75pm, Utility warehouse calculated my bill would be around 5 pounds less.
with what i owe my bill should have been around £90, when i updated the reading every few months shouldn't something have been picked up? i would have happily changed my plan then. some one said its hardly a "re mortgaging" amount of money, but you don't know my situation and £200 is a lot for someone else's mistake.