EDF, Spark Energy and a wrong initial read

john1423

Hi! First post from me here.

I moved into a 2-bed property in December 2013 and agreed with EDF a Blue+ price promise plan. I took a photo of the initial read of '00301' on the meter but did not send it to them. 9 months later, in August 2014, I received a monster energy bill to the tune of £700 on top of what I was already paying each month. I checked their initial read and they claim that the move in value at the start was '93267' .

I therefore sent a dispute along with a photo of the initial read, but they have come back to me with a long email short "meter readings are accurate, based on August 2013 read of '90629' and October 2013 read of '91119', therefore no dispute" even though my initial read was clearly different and the photo clearly shows otherwise, the photo also containing all relevant data such as camera timestamp and meter ID number.

What can I do?

energyworker

john1423 wrote: »

Hi! First post from me here.

I moved into a 2-bed property in December 2013 and agreed with EDF a Blue+ price promise plan. I took a photo of the initial read of '00301' on the meter but did not send it to them. 9 months later, in August 2014, I received a monster energy bill to the tune of £700 on top of what I was already paying each month. I checked their initial read and they claim that the move in value at the start was '93267' .

I therefore sent a dispute along with a photo of the initial read, but they have come back to me with a long email short "meter readings are accurate, based on August 2013 read of '90629' and October 2013 read of '91119', therefore no dispute" even though my initial read was clearly different and the photo clearly shows otherwise, the photo also containing all relevant data such as camera timestamp and meter ID number.

What can I do?

The dispute will need to be based on supporting readings, in most cases a photo will not be of much interest.

The two readings do seem to indicate that it would massive jump for 00301 to have been your opening reading. Did you take a submit readings in the months shortly after you moved in? What were they?

And as a general advice, please never move in to a property without submitting opening readings immediately.

Bark01

It sounds like the person who was in the flat before you left an artificially low final reading when they moved out. Are the reads EDF has quoted Meter reader reads or customer provided reads or estimates.

you really should have questioned this longer ago.

dogshome

So where do Spark energy come into this ?

Running_On_Empty

You need to submit readings every month via their website to avoid this kind of issue arising. Submitting readings is very easy indeed.

Bark01

dogshome wrote: »

So where do Spark energy come into this ?

I presume it was the deemed supplier when they moved in.

matelodave

Why bother to photograph the meter and then not give the info to the leccy co when you moved in - sounds decidedly strange behaviour unless you had an ulterior motive in not communicating the reading at the time.