night storage heaters and obscene bills!

dogshome

Sorry chris1973 I disagree
I've seen two of these 'Spark' lease documents, and on these the tenant will have totally fulfilled their contractual obligation, by accepting Spark as their 'new' supplier

However, there has been nothing in the clauses that lock the tenant to Spark for the term of the lease, and for the good reason that such a clause flies in the face of the consumers rights enshrined in the 2000 Utility Act and it's later amendments

However
There is a solid history on this site of Spark being 'awkward' if a tenant wants to Switch, one ploy of which is that they will block the Switch if any money is owed, when their billing system makes it vitually impossible for the consumer to know what is owed at any one point in time, let alone 3 weeks hence when a Switch is being progressed

buglawton

This will be a lovely one for BBC Watchdog, but some patience would be needed as a real 'mystery buyer' has to be created.

Wickedkitten

ladysunter wrote: »

yes, our billl is worked out by adding the night time cost and daytime cost together, night time cost is 9.5p per unit and daytime 21.98p a ( I know this is very high, we have been battling spark to swap suppliers, but thats another story)
I checked our DAYTIME meter reading from 1st September to 17th December, and using these costs Spark have charged us approx £470 for ou daytime rate (the house is empty from 9-5 during this time!)

Why on earth would you have your day and night rates put together if you have storage heaters. Right now you are paying 30p+ per unit no matter which time of day you are using electricity

southcoastrgi

alot of storage heaters have a boost function so you can use this during the day, are you sure that this isn't switched on ? how many cables does each heater have going to it ? are you sure they are wired into the econ7 side, do the spurs have a neon light on them & is this light on during the day if so they are either wired wrong or there is a prob with your econ7 meter or timer

chris1973

Why on earth would you have your day and night rates put together if you have storage heaters. Right now you are paying 30p+ per unit no matter which time of day you are using electricity

Complete Rubbish gleaned from speed reading and too many mince pies, go back and read the post again.

The OP states that their total bill is calculated by individually adding the Daytime and Nighttime unit usage together (at each relevant rate). Just the same as anybody on E7 or dual tariff meters.

So if they had used £200 worth of peak electricity and £100 Off peak their TOTAL bill would be calculated to be £300

Where did you get 30p+ per KW/H from? out of a Christmas Cracker?

winelight

I would absolutely reiterate the points made by molerat (the meters swapping over has happened to me several times - fortunately I have the email address of the guy at the energy company who can swap them back) and by southcoastrgi - many storage heaters have a built-in fan heater function or convector heater. It's highly likely that this would come on in the evenings, by which point much of the stored energy will be lost.

And personally if it was me I wouldn't use the storage heaters at all since most of the money you spend warming them up is wasted while you are out all day, and instead just put a fan heater on in the evenings. You will probably find one heater with all internal doors open is enough. You'd have to change to a non-E7 tariff so you get a cheaper day rate.

jalexa

dogshome wrote: »

There is a solid history on this site of Spark being 'awkward' if a tenant wants to Switch, one ploy of which is that they will block the Switch if any money is owed, when their billing system makes it vitually impossible for the consumer to know what is owed at any one point in time, let alone 3 weeks hence when a Switch is being progressed

Coming in to this late. Indeed there is a history of that being reported here.

The relevent regulation says this regarding domestic transfer blocking...

(a) subject to paragraphs 14.5 and 14.7, if at the time the request is made Outstanding Charges are due to the licensee from that Domestic Customer;

"Outstanding Charges" is a defined term, no bill submitted means there cannot be "Outstanding Charges" regardless of what an account balance might say.

Outstanding
Charges
means the amount of any Charges for the Supply of Gas which are due to the licensee from a Domestic Customer, have been demanded of that Domestic Customer by the licensee in Writing at least 28 days previously and remain unpaid;

In such circumstances the customer needs to play a step by step long game starting with a formal complaint, then if still dissatisfied on "deadlock" or after 8 weeks, whichever occurs first, make an Energy Ombudsman referral at which point the really "long game" begins.

Of course the Energy Ombudsman is reported here as being disinterested in the "Regulations":( (even though their own terms of reference say otherwise) but at some stage there will be a concrete regulatory issue for Ofgem.