Anybody else been stung by First Utility today?

vectra90

Received my email about my monthly bill as normal..

Ive been with them for 7 months.

£78
£68
£48
£46
£44
£44

Then today's shocker £151.. :eek:

I rung them and they said my gas meter readings haven't been going to them correctly so they have been estimating, which sounds fair enough. When I joined they said ring up before the 28th of each month with your meter readings if I wanted to, so thats what ive been doing. The chap on the phone said nope we havent had any readings from you since june.... We discussed that fact I had and why they didnt think to let me know they wern't receiving my meter (even though ive phoned them every month) I really dont know what they are playing at but EDF have won them selves a returning customer

Atidi

vectra90 wrote: »

Received my email about my monthly bill as normal..

Ive been with them for 7 months.

£78
£68
£48
£46
£44
£44

Then today's shocker £151.. :eek:

I rung them and they said my gas meter readings haven't been going to them correctly so they have been estimating, which sounds fair enough. When I joined they said ring up before the 28th of each month with your meter readings if I wanted to, so thats what ive been doing. The chap on the phone said nope we havent had any readings from you since june.... We discussed that fact I had and why they didnt think to let me know they wern't receiving my meter (even though ive phoned them every month) I really dont know what they are playing at but EDF have won them selves a returning customer

OMG! :eek:

Almost £500 gas consumption over the 6/7 month summer perriod.

We don't use that amount in a whole year ... and obviously we use the majority during the winter period.

Sounds like you've really been stung ... or you have used a whopping 12,000kWh over the summer months when the average annual consumption is only 13,500kWh

macman

But it's not actual consumption, the bills have been based on estimated readings. The £151 is then a catch-up bill.
You can't deduce actual kWh consumption from any of the data provided.
Sadly, this seems entirely routine billing incompetence at FU.

Atidi

macman wrote: »

But it's not actual consumption, the bills have been based on estimated readings. The £151 is then a catch-up bill.
You can't deduce actual kWh consumption from any of the data provided.
Sadly, this seems entirely routine billing incompetence at FU.

As it's a catch up bill, then the latest reading must be an actual. The fact the intermediate bills were estimated is irrelevant.

If you add them all up and include the last 'catch up' one, that relates to the consumption over the entire period

vectra90

macman wrote: »

But it's not actual consumption, the bills have been based on estimated readings. The £151 is then a catch-up bill.
You can't deduce actual kWh consumption from any of the data provided.
Sadly, this seems entirely routine billing incompetence at FU.

I know I have phoned them everymonth and the person on the other end has said yup ive put them in the system?? I asked them at the start if I was allowed to phone up and give them everymonth aswell as them having the smart meters just to be extra carefull for this reason.

wakeupalarm

vectra90 wrote: »

I really dont know what they are playing at but EDF have won them selves a returning customer

OMG! :eek:

Out of the frying pan.....

vectra90

Thought I would update this thread.

My next bill came ...... £1670!!!

Obviously phoned up, to which I got no explanation and still haven't...

Has anyone got the CEO's E-mail address

jaybeetoo

Why don't you submit your meter readings online or by text message?

Have you signed on to their web site and looked at what meter readings they are using for you?

vectra90

I've been doing it every month either by phone or online.

I'd like to think I'm reasonably smart, I couldn't work it out looking at the bill and neither could they.

I'm still waiting to hear why and what happened...

wongawonga

vectra90 wrote: »

Has anyone got the CEO's E-mail address

I guess there PR Agency http://www.first-utility.com/press/new-ceo-appointed can get a message to him for you.

kizzie_nikita

I've had nothing but problems with these for the past 6 months i've been with them, it's sad as they're the cheapest, but they're terrible.

They charged us £800 for one month! and it took 2 further months to sort, and then they charged us £600, then £200 and then it finally got sorted 4 months into it.

We're only a 2 bed house and try not to use much, it's been terrible.