SSE been ripping us off for years!!

LoopyLou1969

Hi there. Need some advice. We are with SSE and live in a 3 bed mid terraced house. Last year our monthly bills were £120 for electric and £88 for gas which equals £2496 a year!! We missed two electric payments over the year and because of that they sent a debt collector to our door (my daughter was here and took the letter) and they charged us £50 for sending him out when we had been laying our bills. Anyway my partner phoned them and gave them a mouthful and the outcome was that our electric has now been put up to £139 a month and gas £116 -that's a whopping £255 a month!!! even though we are credit with the gas. I knew this was high but it wasn't until I talked to friends and family that I found out EVERYONE ELSE is paying £100-£120 a month combined gas and electric!! So we are either supplying the whole street or they have been seriously ripping us off. We have a newish combi boiler -only 7 radiators, pressure fed shower (not electric) and we don't do anything different from anyone else as far as I can see and yet our bills are ridiculously high. We are in the process of switching to EDF who hve told us our bills should be £124 a month combined - so what do I do about SSE????:mad:

apt

There are three things you need to do to keep gas and electricity bills down to a reasonable level and phoning someone up and giving them a mouth of abuse isn't one of them. First know how much energy you use and seek to reduce that as far as possible. Second put your energy usage figures into a couple of comparison sites to see what are the best tariffs available. Search for single fuels as well dual fuels and check whether cashback is available on the cheaper tariffs. Third switch to the best tariff for you and pay by direct debit.

dude89

LoopyLou1969 wrote: »

Hi there. Need some advice. We are with SSE and live in a 3 bed mid terraced house. Last year our monthly bills were £120 for electric and £88 for gas which equals £2496 a year!! We missed two electric payments over the year and because of that they sent a debt collector to our door (my daughter was here and took the letter) and they charged us £50 for sending him out when we had been laying our bills. Anyway my partner phoned them and gave them a mouthful and the outcome was that our electric has now been put up to £139 a month and gas £116 -that's a whopping £255 a month!!! even though we are credit with the gas. I knew this was high but it wasn't until I talked to friends and family that I found out EVERYONE ELSE is paying £100-£120 a month combined gas and electric!! So we are either supplying the whole street or they have been seriously ripping us off. We have a newish combi boiler -only 7 radiators, pressure fed shower (not electric) and we don't do anything different from anyone else as far as I can see and yet our bills are ridiculously high. We are in the process of switching to EDF who hve told us our bills should be £124 a month combined - so what do I do about SSE????:mad:

First off - don't ring up a company and give them a mouthful. It's not the person you speak to who is at fault and you have a lot less chance of getting a positive result out of it.

You need to forget about ££££s and focus on how many kwh you use. Find an actual reading from approximate a year ago on each fuels and take a reading now and come back with how many kwhs you have used. It doesn't matter what your neighbours friends or family pay as everyone's habits are different. The average is about £120 per month but if have the heating on for 12hours a day, have 20 spot lights in your kitchen, use the tumble dryer everyday and boil the kettle 10 times a day then your usage will be higher.

And to switch to edf what figures have you used for them to set the price?

matelodave

The advice above it correct. There's not much you can do about SSE. If you don't pay your bills on time they are entitled to try and recover the cost of collecting them. They have been charging you a tariff that you've obviously accepted because you've done nothing about checking or swapping.


If you read your meters and check your bills you should be able to assess whether they are correct and do something to reduce your consumption. You should also check the comparison sites using your own actual annual kwh figures, not some estimate based on averages unless you want to end up being in arrears in a very short time.

Anyone can offer you a deal that sounds everso good until you realise that you've been using a lot more than you've been paying for and then the big one drops through the letterbox - just look at the number of posts on this forum from people who have been bitten by not keeping an eye on their consumption, bills and direct debits.

Cardew

LoopyLou1969 wrote: »

Need some advice.
Last year our monthly bills were £120 for electric and £88 for gas which equals £2496 a year!!

Welcome to the forum.
There are several factors that could be the reason why you have such a high monthly DD for a 3 bed mid-terraced house.

1. That you had build up a large debit balance in the previous
year(s) and the DD level is set to repay that debt.
or

2. You are using far too much gas/electricity.
or

3. Your gas/electricity meters are faulty - highly unlikely.
or

4. Your gas meter is Metric(measures in cubic metres) but you are being charged for an Imperial meter(measures in cubic feet) That will result in you paying nearly 3 times too much for your gas.

If you let us know how many kWh of gas and electricity you have used in the last year(NOT how much you paid), we can give some advice.

Also look at your gas meter and on the front dial it will have cu ft or ft3 if an Imperial meter or cu mtr/m3 for a metric meter.

LoopyLou1969

Hi there. Just looked at my gas meter - it is really old and in cubic feet. We didn't owe from previous years apart from last year and because we were late paying twice they have added that on to this year plus it seems they've added a. Whole lot more! I will try And get an annual consumption later today.

yangptangkipperbang

SSE have not been ripping you off years ! They have been exercising their position in the energy market by exploiting your inability/unwillingness to see what you are paying compared to others.
They have a legal duty to obtain the greatest profit for their shareholders - sorry, but people like you make it easy for them !

spiro

LoopyLou1969 wrote: »

Hi there. Need some advice. We are with SSE and live in a 3 bed mid terraced house. Last year our monthly bills were £120 for electric and £88 for gas which equals £2496 a year!!

If the bill is based on Actual readings (not estimates) these figures don't make sense. If you have gas I would expect you to heat the house using GSH and possibly cook using gas. Therefore your electricity element seems too high. If you pay 15p/kwh for elec you are using 800kwh/month or 9600kwh/annum which is about 3 times the national average. I would be checking the the last 4 bills to ensure there are lots of actual readings to ensure you are not playing catch up for 2 years of under estimating. I would also be looking at what you are using. One post on here was running about 12 * 50w lamps 12 hours a day meaning lighting alone was using 2628kwh/annum or nearly the natonal average.

Tyrone_the_great

I recently moved in to a new flat in Bow E3 and was horrified when i received the electricity bill.....

I queried it and N power said that it was due to the previous owner!.. So due to this scare i have been monitoring the electricity usage and bills and i have realised that my small (but beautifully formed) 2 bedroom flat is sucking power like a nuclear power station.

I have queried this and all they say is that "....I can have a meter i f i want...?" :mad:. and ..... "why dont you switch to Direct Debit!" .... if i did that id be broke and wouldnt even realise till i got my bank statement or tried to use my visa card!

WHAT CAN I DO!!!! HELP! :money:

molerat

Give us some numbers.

How can your bill be "due to the previous owner", did you give the supplier a meter read when you moved in ?

How do you heat / hot water the flat ?

E7 or standard ?

matelodave

How much electricity are you using and when do you use it. Once you've got those figures you can look at what you've got turned on and try to do a bit of economising. The only way to reduce you electricity bill is to use less. You can turn thermostats down, reduce the time that heating and hot water is switched on. Using less hot water and making sure that what you do use is used economically.
Washing machines, tumble dryers & dishwashers use the same amount whether full or empty, so make sure you've got full loads.
Only boil as much water as you need in the kettle.
Turn stuff off or unplug it when not in use, especially computers, TV's, game consoles, video recorders etc - don't leave them on standby.. Lights as well, especially if you got lots of halogen down lighters, consider swapping them for LEDs. My 10x50watt kitchen down lighters used 500watts, now they only use 40watts, saving over 5p an hour