Economy 7 but been billed night for day and day for night!

Felicity

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,



OP says this all goes back to 2006 when new meter was fitted, prices were a lot cheaper then, so not a lot of difference.

Yes, figures are VERY rough due to huge price changes in electricity. It would take me the best part of a day to work it all out.

The prices are as they are at now.

I think the back payment for the last 12 months would be maybe around £400-£500 which I am hoping will be the extent of our liability.

The electricity company wont even accept that this is the case though, they cant seem to get their head around it and have told me its impossible that this could happen!

It only clicked with me recently due to 1. large changes in the way that we use our electricity and 2. a change in the presentation of their bills.

It also hit home when I saw Martin Lewis on morning TV last week talking about massive electricity price rises and I was thinking that our bills are not as high as everybody elses.

Oh dear!

I will let you know the outcome though.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

did you see post 9, any comments?

Felicity

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,

did you see post 9, any comments?

Sorry, I had missed that.

Thank you so much for going to the trouble to work all that out.

I think I have written a very confusing post.

We have paid the majority at 5p when it should have been 15p.

We have paid the minority at 15p when it should have been 5p.

Sorry for the confusion.

Felicity

[Deleted User]

Correct Felicity, you have been paying half price on the majority of units and full price on very few, maybe only one or two kwhrs a night. Suppliers may still think your property has night storage or is all electric. They wont twigg on. You could just carry on as you are, or switch supplier. They all rely on auto billing systems now, no sensible humans look at your billing. Its was very common transposed billing, but BG seem to have got a system running now that knows which reading go s where whichever way the meter reader enters the reading

yangptangkipperbang

Felicity wrote: »

No we have used 40,000 units during the day (but billed at the cheaper night rate)
We have used 15,000 units during the night (but billed at the more expensive day rate).
So well over DOUBLE the amount, economy 7 not for us at all.

Ignoring the mix-up in what you were actually charged...........

You used 55,000 in total - 15,000 of those were at night. 15,000 is 27% of your total usage of 55,000.

Therefore you would be better off on E7 than on one rate.

(As they charged you the "wrong" way round, with 40,000 at night you saved even more )

Felicity

Hi ... trust me .... its complicated.

We were reasonably heavy users at night at one point (water heating, dishwasher and washing machine). Even then I remember it was 50/50 as to if that was the right tariff for us ... so you must have to be really heavy users to make economy 7 work.

We since stopped using electricity during the night (water heater broke so heating it using gas now), dishwasher on the blink etc.

It would be messy to go through all those bills.

Anyway, thanks for the advice above. I have written to them to advise of their error (signed for delivery) so will wait and see what occurs.

I feel happier due to this code of practice re billing that would seem (although not counting our chickens till they hatch) to mean we are only liable for the last 12 months.

When I called for the second time yesterday, I asked the telesales person to read out the notes from the first call and I was happy that my story has been recorded on their system accurately.

Yes, we could just sit back and accept mega cheap electricity bills for the foreseeable but I do feel now that we are aware of it that we need to sort it out.

It was a genuine error on their / our behalf but feel that a case for fraud would not be unreasonable if we continued as we are!

lstar337

Felicity wrote: »

Hi ... trust me .... its complicated.

We were reasonably heavy users at night at one point (water heating, dishwasher and washing machine). Even then I remember it was 50/50 as to if that was the right tariff for us ... so you must have to be really heavy users to make economy 7 work.

Not true!

Obviously the heavier your night usage is the more you will save, but that does not mean you have to be a really heavy user to make it work.

20%+ (which you are currently hitting) will usually make it pay with most suppliers.

Felicity

lstar337 wrote: »

Not true!

Obviously the heavier your night usage is the more you will save, but that does not mean you have to be a really heavy user to make it work.

20%+ (which you are currently hitting) will usually make it pay with most suppliers.

Yes but we are not hitting that now. That is the average over the years. We are currently on about 10% at night, if that.