WRONG ELEC BILL Powergen

jonathanw

I have had a dispute with Powergen for the last two months.
They have made errors on my bill and are now asking me for £2,000 going back 4 years. They also came to read the meter on average 3 times a year.
Below is the last letter that they have sent me.

Please can comeone tell me what my rights are. Manyt many thanks.

In regards to our telephone conversation today, you have requested that I state my conclusion to MRS X complaint in writing.
On 31 August 2005 we sent Mr.x a letter advising that we have been unable to retrieve amete reading and requesting that she contact us with one. On 8th September 2005, Mrs x . Contacted us and provided a reading of 01971 on her RHT (restricted hour tarrif) meter and 34573 on her standard meter.
Both these readings were applied to the account. The standard reading continued to follow in line with future readings from our meter readers but the RHT reading did not.
Below I have outlined what hqapped to Mrs. X account after this RHT reading was applied;
Reading Used:
08/09/05 (customer) 01971 (a)
30/11/05 (estimated) 02273 (b)
16/10/06 (estimated) 03284 (c)

Reading Rejected:
28/11/05 (Meter Reader) 21500 (d)
18/08/06 (Meter Reader) 30179 (e)
As you can see, once the customer reading was applied, the subsequent Meter readings (d and e) were rejected as they did not fall in line with her projected consumption.
In the absence of usable meter readings we applied estimates based on the reading Mrs. X provided (abc).
This continued up until April 2007 when it was discovered that the 08/09/05 reading was incorrect and so were the estimates . When the account was rebilled, I used the meter readings previously rejected.
The latest reading taken on 29 May 2007 by a meter reader was confirmed as
36508 which follows on from past meter readings i have used so I am confident that the billing is now correct.
It is clear that the original problem occurred due to a customer reading that was incorrect; however it is equally clear that proper steps to confirm this reading did not happen.

tripled

Basically they are saying the reading they were given by Mrs X on the 08/09/05 was 01971, when in fact the reading should have been 1971x. As a result of the incorrect zero at the beginning, it meant the following readings didn't match up (as they didn't have a zero at the beginning) and so were rejected.

So basically they are saying it is your fault as you gave them a wrong reading, which is what screwed up the account, although they accept they should have noticed the reading you gave was wrong at the time.

Cactus_Jack

they may say its your responbility to ensure meter readings on bills are accurate - if they're estimates you can call to get them changed. might be worth saying you're not willing to pay so many years back though