Utility bills - estimates added to actuals - am i being overcharged??

bamme

My energy provider EON have issued me 2 actual bills, and one estimated bill, since I have been with them. For the purpose of understanding my confusion here are the bills I have been issued:

BILL 1: 1 Mar - 10 Apr (ACTUAL) £79.67 - paid. included to give an accurate idea of a months usage for us (when it was coldest)
---
BILL 2: 10 Apr - 25 July (ESTIMATE) £323.86
BILL 3: 25 Jul - 21 Sept (ACTUAL) £176.98

You can see my actual bills, uploaded here, in accordance to the titles bill 1 bill 2 and bill 3 in this Post

(Removed)

At the time just before paying our first bill, (BILL 1 above), we signed up for some self-service online feature, that we were told would allow us to submit meter readings without contacting EON by phone.

Uknowingly to us, signing up to this feature would result in our bills being sent by email. We were not told this, or exactly when to next submit readings - we assumed we'd submit more, as soon as we received the next bill in the post.

We did not know bills would come to our email so we did not check our junk mail for them. Of course, no bill in the post came (although we found out later, one apparently came to us by email for Apr-July - BILL 2 above). Then one arrived in September (still not sure why at this point they decided to switch BACK to postal mail bills) simply stating an estimated bill for July-September.

We then went online to submit our september readings, with a view to getting an accurate bill in response and paying. When we revisited our online account a day later, to pay the accurate bill, we saw that there was infact an outstanding balance over £500 - an additional amount of £323.86 was also on our account.

We called up to ask about this and we were told that this was the sum of our latest accurate bill for Jul-Sept (BILL 3 above), ADDED to an ESTIMATE for April-July, for which we did not receive a paper bill. we received an online bill instead because we signed up to the online self service feature. But, for some unknown reason, they had decided to instead send us a paper bill again in September.


What I am concerned about here is that the estimate for Apr-July - BILL 2 above, the bill that we did not actually receive, therefore did not have a chance to submit readings for and correct - both seems outstandingly high AND has been ADDED to the july-september bill, which is quite a lot less and is actual.
I asked if they could simply take the readings we gave in April, in response to our April estimated paper bill, and compare them to the readings we gave in September, in response to our September paper bill, and bill us ONE ACTUAL amount from the time period between the two dates, instead of adding a huge £323.86 estimate bill in there in the middle, despite now having two actual sets of readings to bill between.

Here are the bills again:

BILL 1: 1 Mar - 10 Apr (ACTUAL) £79.67 - paid. included to give an accurate idea of a months usage for us (when it was coldest)
---
BILL 2: 10 Apr - 25 July (ESTIMATE) £323.86 (this is the 'phantom' estimate bill we never received in the post because it was apparently sent to our email, we have now also checked our email and it is not in our junk email inbox either)
BILL 3: 25 Jul - 21 Sept (ACTUAL) £176.98

They said they couldn't do that. They said the figures represent actual figures regardless.

That just does not add up to me, and the apr-july bill just seems extortionate in comparison to the actual bills either side of it. I also don't understand why they cannot bill us from the 2 actual reading dates, instead of include a grossly large estimate bill for months where we did not have a chance to submit our readings?

How does the sum of BILL 2 and BILL 3 represent actual figures represent actual figures, if BILL 2 was an estimate??
Please can anybody help me figure out if I am being asked to overpay here my electricity and gas bill?

You can see my actual bills, uploaded here, in accordance to (removed)


Any help or assurance would be very helpful, I am of very low confidence challenging these things and am really not sure of what im being asked for and what im being overcharged for here.

SwanJon

bamme - I'd remove those links & files as they have your details on them.

You didn't mention the readings above, so I've brought them here:
01 March 2013 - Ele 02080 - Gas 00742 - Customer
10 April 2013 - Ele 02358 - Gas 00791 - Estimate (Bill 1)
17 April 2013 - Ele 02552 - Gas 01208 - Actual (Meter reader?)
25 July 2013 - Ele 03195 - Gas 01237 - Estimate (Bill 2)
21 Sept - 2013 - Ele 03783 - Gas 01289 - Customer (Bill 3)

From this you can see that over bills 2 & 3 your readings have gone from 02358 to 03783 (Ele) & 00791 to 01289 (gas).

If bill 2 was an overestimate, bill 3 would have been smaller to compensate. If they created a new bill combining bills 2 and three, it would still use the same readings, and charge you the same amount.

If you look at units/day, bill 2 is actually lower than average across all three bills.

Double check your readings, just in case.

Nada666

As above, you should remove the links (and delete the documents) as they contain personal info.

I don't see any problem with the bills - all readings, whether actual or estimated, are consecutive as are the dates. There is no overlap. As you are on a daily standing charge tariff there is no complication with estimates from that. And the price of the tariff is the same for the entire billing period.

Total charged is £20 more than cost of what is used - accounted by the two £10 late payment charges. (Just added them up approxinately in my head, though.)

bamme

Thanks v much and will remove file links - so to clarify, regardless of whether bill 2 here is an estimate, I would have been charged the exact same amount if it was actual? I.e if they did not include bill 2 at all and just sent a bill from the first date a reading was provided (apr) and the date the second readings were provided (sept)?

SwanJon

That's right.
The bill is split into two parts
The standing charge (or equivelant) is charged per day, so the cost of this would be the same.
The unit price is charged per kWh using the start and end readings. This means that if there is an estimated read between two actual reads, then the total cost of the two bills would be the same as one single bill for the whole period.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi bamme

As others have said, as the bills for 1 March and 21 September were based on actual readings, we've charged only for energy used over this period.

Just thought I'd give you a bit of info about our online accounts. Once registered with our website, paper bills stop. This is highlighted at the top of the first page when registering for an online account.

Instead, we'll send an email to let you know a bill is ready to view online.

Also, before a bill is issued, we'll email to ask for meter readings. Where we don't receive these, an estimated bill will be issued.

You mention receiving a paper bill in September. I suspect this is either because an advisor sent you a copy following an enquiry or the online account has been cancelled.

Might be worth checking to see if the online registration is still active. If not, you can either re-register if you want to manage the account online or, leave it cancelled, if you prefer to receive paper bills.

Hope this helps.

Malc

bamme

Thanks Malc

Sorry if i am being stupid here but just to 100% clarify.. this is the way i have understood others' responses and yours..

despite the fact bill 2 is an estimate, the sum of bill 2 and bill 3 (actual), which results in the outstanding debt, is exactly as it would be, if it were the case that i had actual readings for all of bills 2 and 3?

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Hi bamme

As others have said, as the bills for 1 March and 21 September were based on actual readings, we've charged only for energy used over this period.

Just thought I'd give you a bit of info about our online accounts. Once registered with our website, paper bills stop. This is highlighted at the top of the first page when registering for an online account.

Instead, we'll send an email to let you know a bill is ready to view online.

Also, before a bill is issued, we'll email to ask for meter readings. Where we don't receive these, an estimated bill will be issued.

You mention receiving a paper bill in September. I suspect this is either because an advisor sent you a copy following an enquiry or the online account has been cancelled.

Might be worth checking to see if the online registration is still active. If not, you can either re-register if you want to manage the account online or, leave it cancelled, if you prefer to receive paper bills.

Hope this helps.

Malc

Nada666

Why not try the sums yourself? You have to learn how to do it as a householder. Take five minutes to fathom out how to now. This is a one time learning process - every time you do it in the future will then take thirty seconds, not five minutes.

Take the opening reads, take the end reads, take the dates. Subtract the two dates in Excel - that will show you there are 204 days (the same as the individual bills suggest - 40+106+58). That'll give you the standing charge. Check the total kWhs too and you find the bills correspond.

DO THIS! Take the time to do the sums, the bills are clear - there are no charge backs to accommodate customer reads crediting previous payments that are recalculated or any of those shenanigans.

Take the first bill (1 Mar to 10 Apr). Count the number of days, see the reads, take a note of the prices. Put the bill aside then try to do the calculation yourself.

Do the same for bill 2 but note there are two periods of time with open and close reads to practice with. Do the sum again but spanning the whole period of the bill - same result (hopefully).

Nada666

(Argh! After saying all that just noticed the different time periods have different calorific values! May want to stick to working with the electricity readings and check them and reassure yourself separately about those before including the gas.)

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

bamme wrote: »

Thanks Malc

Sorry if i am being stupid here but just to 100% clarify.. this is the way i have understood others' responses and yours..

despite the fact bill 2 is an estimate, the sum of bill 2 and bill 3 (actual), which results in the outstanding debt, is exactly as it would be, if it were the case that i had actual readings for all of bills 2 and 3?

Hi bamme

That's right. As the first and last readings were accurate, we've only charged for the electricity used, even though there was an estimate in the middle. Therefore, the charges are correct.

Malc