Massive Powergen Electricity bill

MiM

Can anyone please offer any advice regarding how best to go forward with a situation that is now giving me great concern?

I have been with Powergen for many years and never had problems. Two years ago we installed underfloor heating in our extension and unfortunately it seems that its high electricity use has left us in a situation where we are £1500 in debit on our electricity bill. During a 14 month period when the bill was mounting up Powergen based all their quotes on estimates so we had no idea we were getting into a hole.

We are happy to pay off our debt at a rate we can afford and have offered to increase our monthly payments from £70/month to £100/month. They say this is enough only to pay off the debt over two years and insist we must pay more. Those maths don't add up for me, especially as we are averaging 20 units per day over the past 2 or 3 months when we switched off the underfloor heating.

Does anyone know whether Powergen can insist on the rate we pay back or do I have any rights within reason? Do you know how much 20 units a day should cost me on a monthly basis?

Would appreciate any help people out there can offer!

Rikki

Can I just ask, when they sent you an estimated bill, why on earth didn't you give then the correct readings? You must of realised they were under estimating and you would have eventually ended up with a big bill like this.

Markyt

Rikki wrote: »

Can I just ask, when they sent you an estimated bill, why on earth didn't you give then the correct readings? You must of realised they were under estimating and you would have eventually ended up with a big bill like this.

Same happened to me with Powergen. I gave readings, and for nearly two years they didn't tell me the DD was not covering the shortfall. i've just changed provider so it came to light then :-(.

MiM

It's a friend of mine who's posted this under my username Rikki but like many poeple, he didn't check and assumed it was about right (as I think many people do).

Rikki

I don't pay by direct debit as I don't want to end up with this problem. This is why I keep check on my meter readings. Maybe its become a a bit of an obsession.:o

It also helps when they price changes take place. I phone in the meter readings for those dates so they can't estimate for higher/lower usage amounts. :T

Cardew

[quote=MiM;discussion/495609]
Does anyone know whether Powergen can insist on the rate we pay back or do I have any rights within reason? Do you know how much 20 units a day should cost me on a monthly basis?

[/quote]

I believe that technically you are liable for the whole amount immediately. As you are on a DD they could(in theory) simply notify you that they were going to take that money from your account! - however if you don't have that sort of money in your account!

Buried in the small print is normally a stipulation that if the bill is based on an estimated reading that it is your responsibility to contact them and give the correct reading; so that 'throws the ball back in your court'. So you really haven't any 'rights' in the strict sense of the word.

However any utility company must be pragmatic in these circumstances as if you haven’t got the money you can’t pay it. The ‘rule of thumb’ applied by some companies is that they will get you to pay back the debit balance over the same length of time as the debt took to built up.

The call centre operators will try to get you to pay it back as quickly as possible, as it is costing the company money. At the end of the day it is a matter of negotiation. However don’t ‘overplay’ your hand as you will finish up with a pre-pay meter through which they will recover the debt.

P.S.
Depending on where you live, and what tariff you are on, 20 units a day will be £50-£60 a month. It would be reasonable fot them to expect you to pay back the £1500 debt at £100 a month + of course your consumption. So a figure of £200 a month averaged across the year is the sort of figure you will be looking at.

MiM

Thanks for the advice Cardew, will pass it on. EnergyWatch negotiated on his behalf yesterday and told him he would have to pay £170 a month.