Not been billed! Now want £2400!

Smile06

My electric/gas supplier has not billed me nor contacted me in 2yrs and now have sent a bill for £2400! What are my rights considering I thought I had a dd set up, then mention they sent a letter Feb11 saying it was cancelled (can't remember), not had any comms since and now send a bill for £2400. It is there fault for not billing? And not even noticing. What are my rights?

Smile06

Many thanks for you're response.

geri1965_2

Surely you must have noticed that you hadn't been paying any bills for two years?

caeler

I suspect your not going to get the responses you expect. It is your responsibility to make sure you are paying your bills even if the company doesn't contact you, your supposed to contact them! Ignorance is no excuse. The best thing you can do is at least work out if the bill is correct for the past 2 years, ie. move in readings that you took 2 years ago and today's readings. Then you can enquire what they will consider doing to help you repay the monies owed. Good luck.

chris_n_tj

You dont really have any rights. The onus is on you to check your bank and make sure your bills are paid. Ring yuour supplier and try and sort a payment plan out. x

antrobus

Smile06 wrote: »

... What are my rights?

Your rights will be outlined in the code of practive 'Back Billing for Domestic Customers' see:

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/publication/finish/43-code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills/412-the-code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills-back-billing-for-domestic-customers.html

DUTR

Smile06 wrote: »

My electric/gas supplier has not billed me nor contacted me in 2yrs and now have sent a bill for £2400! What are my rights considering I thought I had a dd set up, then mention they sent a letter Feb11 saying it was cancelled (can't remember), not had any comms since and now send a bill for £2400. It is there fault for not billing? And not even noticing. What are my rights?

£2400 for 2yrs = around £100 per month, I honestly do not see what you are complaining about, surely they will let you spread the payment (assuming that the money towards the expected bills for the last 2 years you had not set aside).

Cardew

There is not enough information in your post to give an answer, so you need to look at the billing code.

There is a provision that if you have not been billed and it is the fault of the Utility company, they can only back-bill 12 months.

However the billing code specifically excludes situations where occupants move into a property and don't co-operate fully to get an account set up.

i.e. when you moved in you should have contacted the Utility company, given them your details and meter readings and set up a payment method.

There is little point in saying 'I thought I had etc' any telephone conversation would have been confirmed in writing.

To have not had bills for 2 years, and paid nothing, would appear to place the blame with yourself.

dogshome

Though not exactly precise, it does appear from your post that you contacted your Utility supplier when you moved in - The failed D/D payments are not a consideration, it often happens and the bank blame the supplier, supplier blames bank and it just goes around in circles.

It would appear that you are entitled to claim relief from part of the debt under the Back-Billing agreement, which means you only pay for what you have consumed in the last 12 months - As the debt has accumulated over 2 years, your debt will be around 50% of the £2,400 presently demanded - However the 'year' is caclulated back from February when they sent you the £2,400 bill, so be aware that as it's now April you will also being paying for the power/gas you have used since Feb on top of the debt

zerog

If you thought you had a DD set up, you should have an extra £2000 sitting in your account now... and since you'll only need to pay for 1 year's use, you can use the rest to go on a holiday to relieve stress.

Fire_Fox

Are you 100% sure you have not been billed? Are you on an online or paper billing tariff? Why haven't you been checking your current account and reading your meters regularly?