Back dated Correction Factor bill

HappyHamm3r

Hi all,

I'm with First Utility and have been happy with them up to now. I hadn't received a bill (online) for a couple of months and when I eventually got hold of someone they said that they were having issues with their system.

When I got my bill they had charged me additional costs for Correction Factor back dated to August 2013, which come to about an additional £200! Not what I expected and wiped out the savings I thought I was was making by switching to them.

Has anyone else had this experience? Is this normal and can they suddenly back date bills like this?

macman

Yes, they can backdate up to a year if the billing is incorrect-though I'm unclear what the error is is this case.

Consumerist

HappyHamm3r wrote: »

. . . When I got my bill they had charged me additional costs for Correction Factor back dated to August 2013, which come to about an additional £200! Not what I expected and wiped out the savings I thought I was was making by switching to them.

Could you give more details about this correction factor?

The only correction factor I am aware of on energy bills is the "Volume Correction Factor" used for gas conversions to kWh. This factor is the same for everyone at 1.02264 so there should be no room for error on that.

What can vary over time is the Calorific Value of the gas.

Could you give a bit more info?

macman

A calorific value correction cannot possibly account alone for a £200 surcharge. Differing CV's would make a few pence difference over a year, if that.
So the OP needs to clarify what is meant by 'Correction Factor' in this case.

Consumerist

macman wrote: »

A calorific value correction cannot possibly account alone for a £200 surcharge. Differing CV's would make a few pence difference over a year, if that. So the OP needs to clarify what is meant by 'Correction Factor' in this case.

I thought that's what I had asked for.

Edit
Yes, that's definitely what I'd asked for.

HappyHamm3r

Correction!

Having taken another longer look at my bill, I can see what the correction factor does to calculate my bill. Not sure quite what's happened but all stemmed from them not billing for 3 months.

Thanks for all your replies. Think I'll be looking to move to someone else now.