HELP! Excessive Gas Bill... Confused.

lottica

Hi all.

I'm looking for some advice on the gas bill which I received yesterday and wonder if anyone could help me? I was a student last year (until 1st July 2013) and our Gas & Electric supplier was Glide, a company used by students so you can split bills individually. They set up a weekly payment of:

Electricity £3.87
Gas £4.72
Weekly Fee (per person) £8.59

We have paid this without fail over the year, but as an account closure statement yesterday, all four of us tenants have received an individual bill for an extra £545.61!? It does not seem reasonable to me that they are asking for a total of £2182.44 on top the weekly payments that we have already made for the year. I have had a look at the meter readings, and am unsure what could be wrong - can anyone see anything glaringly obvious?

30/06/2012 40894 Customer
19/07/2012 42305 Actual
31/08/2012 42383 Estimated
25/09/2012 42512.08 Customer
30/09/2012 42512 Actual
31/10/2012 42687 Estimated
30/11/2012 42916 Estimated
31/12/2012 43189 Estimated
09/01/2013 43859.975 Customer
17/01/2013 44017 Actual
28/02/2013 44300 Estimated
31/03/2013 44622 Estimated
17/04/2013 45670 Customer
30/04/2013 44823 Estimated
31/05/2013 44950 Estimated
04/07/2013 46098.014 Customer

I am unfamiliar with gas bills as I haven't had much experience with it, if anyone could give me a bit of advice on all this it would REALLY be appreciated as I need to phone them today to query this for the second time.

Thankyou in advance!!!

Lottica

spiro

First are the reading you have posted gas or electricity?
If it is gas is the meter imperial (ft3 on meter) or metric (m3 on meter)?
Just post 1st (30/06/12) and last (04/07/13) readings for both fuels plus the cost of units and any standing charge, we can then check if the bill is correct.

molerat

We need more information to make any real judgements. How many kWh does it show used, does it show your payments, was the meter in the house metric or imperial ?

lottica

Hi Spiro - sorry for lack of clarity.

Those readings are for Gas. The meter is listed as metric on our account, although I am no longer at the property to look on the meter itself.

1st Gas Reading: 40894 (30/06/12)
Final Gas Reading: 46098.014 (04/07/13)

1st Electric Reading: 22532 (30/06/12)
Final Electric Reading: 27620 (04/07/2013)

It says on our bill Price kWH@p : 59427.13 @ 4.7 <--- I presume that is the cost of Gas Units?

For electricity it says Unit Price kWh@p : 2542.00 @ 13.83 for first half of year and 2546.00 @ 15.92 for second half. Standing charges: 162 days @ 62.32p for first half. 203 days @ 63.59p for second half.

I hope this makes sense - like I say, please bear with me as it's my first time dealing with gas/electric bills!

lottica

Hi Molerat - the bill shows that we have made payments of £1786.56 over the year already.

Pincher

Yes, they are overcharging compared to a normal household.

Most universities have remedial maths classes now.

46,098 - 40,894 = ? (Assume electricity in kWh)

? kWh x 15p = ?? (Assume 15p per kWh)

So the FOUR students used about £700~800 worth of elecricity ine one year, IF it was 15p per kWh.

If it was 25p per kWh, plus lots of money for the admin of handling lots of tiny amounts, it means you have just put a value on trust and sharing.

lottica

Hi Pincher - it's the Gas that's mainly the issue, rather than the electric.

The figures you quoted are the gas readings not the electric?

So are you saying that we should have to pay the bill and that it's likely we would have overused that much on gas? I don't see how we can possibly have used that much. Our gas allowance was £992.52 over the year, and the account says that we have over used by £1940.21. Previous tenants never had this problem and we haven't used any more gas than they would have done?

spiro

Looking at the figures you have provided your gas bill for the whole period is £2793.07 and for elec £986.95 giving a total cost of £3780.02.

For electricty you have used nearly double the national average, for gas you have used 3.5 times the national average.

lottica

Yeah that can't be right - there's no way we used that amount for the gas. There must be a problem somewhere. I just don't know what the problem is. Could there be an issue with the meter?

StuC75

Likely the tariff is very expensive in terms of what you are paying per Kwh.. What the actual Kwh usage been for the time - what are the meter units in?

macman

The chance of one faulty meter is very small. The chance of two is minute.
The real issue is to address is your very heavy consumption. In student houses, 4 students heating 4 bedrooms all the time is invariably the cause.
Since you appear to have submitted fairly regular quarterly readings, I am at a loss to understand why Glide allowed your account to fall so massively into arrears. It shoud have been adjusted at each meter reading as necessary.
Unfortunately you pay a hefty premium to Glide in terms of tariff rates to administrate a simple billing account.