Moved House, Swapped Suppliers, First (and final bill) is crazy

hacketta

Hi

We moved house 9th Feb and remained with British Gas till 3 March and the bill is £430.40 for Gas and Electric which seems absolutely ludicrous.

We switched from British Gas to NPower using Uswitch.

We have a dial meter for gas and digital reader for electric.

It seems British Gas have not taken into account the readings i gave and the splits are below:

Gas totals: 8666.13kwh
Electric total: 337kwh

Any advice on next steps? I have already called British Gas and explained the problem but they were pretty useless!!

I can't paste links as i am a new user so not sure how else to attach the photos of the before and after readings

macman

Is the opening billing date correct? What date did you register with BG and give opening reads?
Did you give nPower your closing reads to supply to BG? If so, have you spoken to nPower?
Does your BG closing read match the nPower opening read?
The billing appears about right for that (alleged|) level of usage, but it's not feasible to use that much gas in 24 days-that's 6 months average consumption, which means either a meter fault or a misread. Since you haven't posted the actual usage from your own reads, but say it's wrongly billed, then it's presumably a misread.
Post the actual opening and closing gas reads (the electricity looks fine for that period).
Are you sure you switched on 3/2? 24 days is very fast for a switch, assuming you started the process on 9/2.

hacketta

Yes opening date is correct on 9th Feb

However the opening readings are not correct:

GAS
BG have 0778 - 9th Feb
We have 00222 - 9th Feb
NPOWER have 1053 - 3rd March (opening NPOWER reading)
We have 00322 - 2nd April
(its really hard to read the Gas metre as it is a old dial one?)

Electric
BG have 99658 - 9th Feb (i have no idea where this came from)
We have 785 - 9th Feb
BG have 99995 - 3rd March (BG estimated out final meter reading?)
We have 822 - 3rd March (opening NPOWER reading)
We have 871 - 2nd April

I have called BG and explained and got little response. Not sure what to do next. I have all photos on iphone and dates photos were taken etc of the meter readings.

I am got the NPOWER opening metre readings for 9th April online - they are pretty useless and i have had no correspondence via post - only online email to say we can logon to view out bill (but doesn't recognise my details)

macman

Your leccy meter has gone round the clock.
Clearly erroneous readings somewhere down the line, so your photographic evidence will be very useful.
If you submitted the final reads to BG online, the system may well have rejected them as erroneous. If so, it will then substitute estimated readings instead.
The main principle is that the incoming and outgoing suppliers agree the figures, even if incorrect. Then any overbilling on one side is cancelled out by the other-however this clearly doesn't work when they have billed you for 6 months usage in one month!
You need to raise a formal complaint in writing with BG-forget phoning or emailing.

footyguy

hacketta wrote: »

...However the opening readings are not correct:...
I have called BG and explained and got little response. Not sure what to do next.

Follow their complaint procedure. Writing a letter, preferably recorded delivery, would be my recommendation with a request the response is also given in full in writing.

SwanJon

hacketta wrote: »

GAS
BG have 0778 - 9th Feb
We have 00222 - 9th Feb
NPOWER have 1053 - 3rd March (opening NPOWER reading)
We have 00322 - 2nd April
(its really hard to read the Gas metre as it is a old dial one?)

So the estimated consumption is 2.5 times what you used.
However, one thing that jumps out is that you are giving 5 digits in your reading while they are giving 4.

Normally I would suspect that you had a metric meter (m3) and they are billing you for an imperial (00 ft3) one. Is there a meter serial number on the meter? Newer ones have it near a barcode.
If the wrong meter is registered on the system, only npower will be able to correct this as they are your supplier.

From the readings and the kWh, they are billing you as imperial, but as you describe an old dial meter I would assume that is imperial too. I've never seen a dial meter for gas - all digital or LCD, but I know how easy it can be to make reading mistakes on them.

If you email your pictures to BG with your explanation they will be able to begin working it out, but they may need to change the account before yours (their closing reas is your opening read) and the transfer read it might be a while. You can register a complaint on the phone, email or letter and they then have 8 weeks to complete before you can take it to the ombudsman.

Also send the same info to npower so that they have it, and follow up with regular readings (and photos) until you are comfortable they have it right.