M&S Energy (SSE) Unfair bill Calculation.

Goldilocks82

Hi,
I'm trying to find out if there is anything I can do about this so I hope I can explain myself fully.

I have been on an M&S Energy (SSE) fixed deal which ended on 31st Dec at which point I was moved to their standard tariff. I received a request for a meter reading last week and today I have received my Dual Fuel bill. I was very surprised at the significant increase in the cost and upon inspection of the bill I found that SSE had estimated a reading on 31st Dec. This reading was very low compared to my usage this time last year and I'm not sure why they didn't request a reading from me as they usually do. As a result the reading I gave them last week was very high and they have therefore charged me at the standard rate for over 25% of the bill for electricity and over 40% of the bill for gas.

Since the period I have been on the standard rate is just 14 days I feel this is completely unfair and is purely taking advantage of me as a customer. :mad:

I hope that all makes sense and would really appreciate any advice on this matter. For clarity here are the tariff details I am talking about:

Tariff until 31st Dec 2014 = M&S Energy Fixed Price Dec 14
Tariff after 31st Dec 2014 = M&S Energy Standard Energy
Payment Type: Quarterly Direct Debit

Thanks in advance.

Robin9

There's nothing you can do about the latest bill.

Did M&S write oe email to you to let you know the deal was ending and you wou l'll d be transferred to the standard tariff.

Time to look for the best deal available - staying on a standard tariff is a very bad idea. When you do swop put the date

Goldilocks82

I think it is outrageous that they can estimate a bill and then charge at the higher rate for a significant quantity of the bill over such a short period of time. What is to stop them from doing an even lower estimate and then claiming that I used 99% of my fuel in the two period after their estimate!

I have already switched. But I am still waiting for it to happen. Therefore I feel even more like they have taken advantage of me!

matelodave

You should have sent them a reading at the end of your tariff on 31st December rather than just letting it trip over and ignoring it. Better still you should have anticipated the end of tariff when you got your notification and sorted out a swap.

Unless you've got proof of what your meter reading was on 31/12 then I doubt there's much you can do except move as soon as you can and bear the lesson in mind for the future. Ideally you should send them a reading every month to ensure that you don't get any estimated bills at all.

I do the same on 1st April every year and send in the water meter reading just so I don't get unrealistic estimates when the price increases.

Goldilocks82

matelodave Thanks for your response but I feel I should point out that I didn't ignore my fix end date, its just the swap has taken longer to go through then I'd hoped!

Also, I thought you might be interested to know that despite the assumption there was nothing I could do about it, I phoned SSE and explained I was unhappy with my bill. They were very happy to help and asked me for my current reading so they could work out my average usage. They then agreed to adjust the bill according to these new figures and I will be saving approx £30 on my electricity and £45 on my gas. I think you'd agree that is quite a big difference!

The moral of the story for anyone reading this thread with a similar problem is if you don't ask you don't get! SSE were very amenable and more then happy to re-calculate the bill in a fairer way. :T