Bill received after 18 months!

mrs_drudge

In January 2006 we changed from Seeboard to British Gas for our electicity bills (yes, we did check who was offering the cheapest deal!)
Today I received a letter from EDF - who at some point have taken over Seeboard - stating that we owe them £90.96. We paid by direct debit, and had a final estimated bill which was to cover the quarter up to February 2006, which was paid. We haven't heard anything at all from them until the letter this morning. The letter is dated 24/07/07 - and states at the bottom that the debt will be referred for external collection on 31/07/07.
So eighteen months after we thought that we had paid all our dues, we get one week to pay a large (to us) amount of money.
I phoned them and they said that British Gas had not given them a final reading until September 2006 - I said this is still almost a year later - the reply from the call handler was 'with over 5 million customers occasionally someone presses the wrong button' !!!
Where do we stand? The annoying thing is that as so long a time has elapsed we cannot check any of their figures - I did read the meter at the time of the change but cannot find where I wrote the figures down. Obviously the final bill is no help as it is an estimated reading.
Any advice anyone?

tripled

energywatch wrote:

Companies must have a Code of Practice which covers how they bill consumers. As of July 2006, the main domestic suppliers (those who belong to the Energy Retail Association) agreed a new Code of Practice which stipulated that, where suppliers were at fault for not billing a consumer, they will not backdate (or backbill) more than two years. This drops to a one year timeframe with effect from July 2007.

So, in essence, they can't back bill you. Also, if BG didn't supply a meter reading, an estimate should have been agreed, so they can't rely on that to expect you to pay. If they refuse to write it off, complin to the energy ombudsman.

Rikki

Try giving Energywatch 0845 9 06 07 08 a ring.

mrs_drudge

:T :T Thankyou both so much - will look into both those options!

tripled

You are better off writing a letter of complaint to edf, then contacting the energy ombudsman if you don't get a satisfactory response. Whilst usually I also recommend energywatch, in this instance it is the energy ombudsman who introduced this rule and the suppliers have signed a legal afreement to abide by their desicions, so they are best placed to enforce it.

70ian

actually this rule was introduced as a result of the energywatch billing super-complaint in 2005.

ofgem (regulator) told the companies that they had to cease back billing customers for longer than 12 months (from july 2007 onwards) if the company had been responsible for mismanaging their customer's account.

you can go to either energywatch or the energy supply ombudsman with this type of complaint if you don't get any joy from your supplier. the energywatch process is quicker though.

Terrylw1

Hi Mrs Drudge - complete rubbish from them. BGas don't supply the change of supply reading, their data collector does and sends a copy to BGas and a copy to EDF's data collector. Your final bill gets produced from there.

The fact that it took so long shows that there was most likely a another "stuck process" in the way before they had to produce your final reading.

They should write it off, no matter how much really.

I would suggest before you waste your time waiting on Energywatch that you confront them in call over the post by Tripled. A manager will be aware of such a policy and will write your bill off (tell them you are going to Energywatch)

I know that some unscrupulous people have attempted to bill customers despite the change in policy but when confronted, they just back down as they have no right to do it anymore.

Good luck