Electricity meter reading mix up.

aliciac

Hi everyone!

I'm new to these forums and am a small business owner. I hope someone can help me with my question please. I signed up to a three year electricity contract with E.ON last year and have completed one year. There have been no issues until now. Yesterday I received an amended bill for just over £300. After calling them, the reason is because my digital electricity meter has four readings (1, 2, 3 and T). The reading for 1 is for day usage. The reading for 2 is night usage. The reading for 3 is weekend and evening usage. I presume the T reading is total (although 1, 2 and 3 don't add up to T!). I also don't know what the difference between night and evening is in E.ON's definitions, i.e. when evening ends and night starts.

Anyway, what had been happening is that they had been billing me for this past year as reading 1 for night and reading 2 for day. In other words the person who had been coming to read the meter had been reading it incorrectly, mixing up the readings for day and night. Or perhaps he had been reading it correctly, but their computer system had readings 1 and 2 incorrectly defined. This meant that because the E.ON night rate was cheaper, but I was using most of my electricity in the day, I had been underpaying throughout the year. I had not noticed this myself and payments was always by direct debit. So now E.ON admit the error was theirs for misreading the meter, but want that £300 back which they say they will take by direct debit.

I just want to know if anyone knows what my rights are, if I have any? If they're admitting it was their mistake, do I still have to pay? And if so, am I entitled to some sort of discount or do I have to pay the whole amount?

I'd really appreciate any help on this. Please feel free to ask me any questions if you need more information.

Thanks very much!

Alicia. x

[Deleted User]

Hi,I read a lot of these meters, usually seen in pubs and some small businesses. The suppliers cant really work out an ordinary 2 rate eco 7 meter, so they will be baffled by those meters with 3 rates. When I read the meter, all I have on my hand held computor is the numbers 1,2,3, and total with no indication of which rate equals which period of the day and week, so I have no option but to select rate one on the meter and imput it into rate 1 on my hhc. The meters can vary, sometimes I see R1 blinking to indicate weekday, others could be R2 or R3 blinking. The only person who can really work out what they all mean is you. The meters default to show, ( by a blinking curser or flashing number ) which rate is in operation. If its a weekday you can easily see the flashing reading to indicate, and can work out all the rates that way and check against your bill if they have it right..Adding the rates together doesnt work as some of the rates may have gone around the clock and started again from zero.
when I have found mis billed 2 rate eco 7 meters a determined customer fights his/her corner and gets any catch up bill waived eventually but you being a contracted business may be a different kettle of fish than the domestic customers

Fire_Fox

You used the energy so you need to pay, it is your responsibility to check both the bills and readings. However given the underbilling is partly their fault you should be able to offer to pay by instalments. If they are being awkward on the telephone write a letter to the Complaints Team offering, say, £30 extra a month for the next ten months.

aliciac

Thank you sacsquacco and Fire Fox for your replies. Sounds like I am responsible for the whole amount. I will ask E.ON if they will allow me to pay the amount over a period of months, but if not, I will just have to pay it in one go. Don't want any legal action! Never mind. The joys of running a business! Taught me to pay extra extension to all bills even if they're online and look right.

Thanks again.

Alicia. x

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi Alicia

I'm sorry we've not been billing you correctly.

Billing the registers the wrong way round is known as 'transposed readings.' We've a specialist Business Transposed Readings team who will be dealing with this for you.

They'll correct the metering mismatch and re-bill the account with the readings in the right order.

We'll be happy to set up a payment arrangement to spread the resulting balance over a mutually agreeable period.

The times a meter switches between the various registers differs depending on the region and type of meter. We can also let you know the times your meter switches between the different registers.

Sorry again for not billing you correctly in the first place but hope this is of interest.

Malc

dan3811991119

As you use most electric during the day pay eon to switch you to a single rate meter and this would remove the issue of readings been the wrong way round for billing as there would only be 1 reading.

knightstyle

Plus make sure you are billed at the correct unit rate for when the electric was used, not the current, recently increased rate.

sirusmathu

It may be the issue that your previous bills have not been filled so they added last payment in this bill also. According to me you should communicate directly to upper level employees. They will solve your problem.

aliciac

Thanks again to everyone for their kind replies. I will contact E.ON on Monday to see what they say about setting up a payment plan. And of course I will be sure to monitor future bills carefully - something which I should have done from the beginning instead of relying upon E.ON for the bills' accuracy. It would seem electricity suppliers don't have computer software to pick up such billing anomalies, in the sense that for most businesses, the day reading should be the highest number because that's when most businesses are open. Unless they have something like storage heaters of course. Anyway, we live and learn.

Appreciate all the help.

Alicia. x