Electricity being re-billed at a high estimated usage - can they do this?

SiRaff

Hi there,

We are having trouble with our energy supplier (who I won't name) and I am in need of some advice on where we stand.

I discovered towards the end of last year that our electricity meter readings had not advanced since the previous reading. I called our supplier and in November they fitted a new meter. All fine so far.

In january we received a bill for £1200 which is purportedly a "re-bill" of our usage for the past 20 months. Neither our supplier nor I took any meter reading duing the period in question (I realise now it would have been wise for me to provide them periodically - they used to send an engineer to read it but it appears at some point they stopped bothering. They have arrived at this bill by estimating our usage over that entire period at £88 per month.

My questions are:

- Who is responsible for meter readings? Are they able to bill us for this "estimated usage" at all given that they did not read the meter for this long and were only interested after it broke?

- Are they allowed by law to re-bill a previous period that has already been billed up to date?

- £88 is much higher than our average monthly usage. We live in a one bedroom flat and re conservative with heating (use hot water boTtles instead where possible). We have single glazing but keep all doors and curtains closed unless it is warm outside. Is It just me or is this estinate much too high? What is a reasonable figure based on your experience?

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated as I am a little out of my depth here.

Thank you,
Simon

macman

The supplier is only required to read the meter very two years.
Yes, you can be rebilled if there is evidence that the meter is faulty.
Without a prior record of consumption, the normal method of estimating usage is to replace the meter, then monitor a few months consumption and back bill on that basis, which is what they've done. However if you use electric heating then a Nov-Jan estimate could be inflated.
In such cases, the customer invariably come off best.
On what basis were you billed over those 20 months? Every bill would have said 'estimated'-did you not think to submit readings to get the billing corrected?