Massive energy arrears help!

Roscoe10

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for some advice regarding my energy arrears of over £2500.
In April 2013 I switched suppliers. With the new supplier I paid £159 monthly combined for gas and electricity. This was based on what was paid to the previous supplier entering regular meter reads.

Around the time of the switch we had our loft converted and our meter, which is sited under the stairs became buried under all sorts of things out of the loft. So to cut a long story short no meter reads were sent to the new supplier and no engineer has read the meter until I sent a read in at the beginning of August this year.

Looking back through the the payments statements on line our dd payment was reduced from £159 to £73 a few months into the new contract.

This is something I probably should have picked up on at the time but didn't. So I suppose my question is, am I responsible for not entering meter reads or do they shoulder some of the blame for not once reading the meter in over two years and halving the dd payments????.

HappyMJ

Roscoe10 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for some advice regarding my energy arrears of over £2500.
In April 2013 I switched suppliers. With the new supplier I paid £159 monthly combined for gas and electricity. This was based on what was paid to the previous supplier entering regular meter reads.

Around the time of the switch we had our loft converted and our meter, which is sited under the stairs became buried under all sorts of things out of the loft. So to cut a long story short no meter reads were sent to the new supplier and no engineer has read the meter until I sent a read in at the beginning of August this year.

Looking back through the the payments statements on line our dd payment was reduced from £159 to £73 a few months into the new contract.

This is something I probably should have picked up on at the time but didn't. So I suppose my question is, am I responsible for not entering meter reads or do they shoulder some of the blame for not once reading the meter in over two years and halving the dd payments????.

It's something you are responsible for.

Back billing time limits are very unlikely to apply.

Now how to pay it back without making you skint... You can usually arrange to pay back a bill in the time that it accrued. So a normal quarterly bill you should pay in 3 monthly payments. That's how it's normally done. In your case though you weren't paying enough so I'd offer an extra £100 a month for the next 2 years to clear it. You could try and offer £70 a month for 3 years. You won't be able to switch in that time so make sure it's worth staying. You can change tariffs onto a better fixed rate tariff to save a bit but switching suppliers might prove to be difficult.

System

Roscoe10 wrote: »

This is something I probably should have picked up on at the time but didn't. So I suppose my question is, am I responsible for not entering meter reads or do they shoulder some of the blame for not once reading the meter in over two years and halving the dd payments????.

The supplier has a licence obligation to check and read your meter/s ONCE every two years (unless the customer is with British Gas when the requirement is once every five years). If a customer is happy just to accept the supplier's estimates and occasional actual reading, then the meter can stay buried. However, if customers want accurate billing, including properly re-assessed DD payments, then the customer must provide meter readings.

As others have said, the best that you can hope for is time to pay. It also looks as if your £159 monthly DD is too low for your consumption. You will need to get your calculator out.

Nada666

Hengus wrote: »

It also looks as if your £159 monthly DD is too low for your consumption.

Not too too low - over 28 months the £86 shortfall accounts for most of the shortfall.

geoffken

Shortfall may be accounted for by 28 months at 73 but that means she is still currently averaging 173 per month and has the extra 2500 to pay.
To clear this she needs to pay approx 250 per month for next 2 years.

System

Nada666 wrote: »

Not too too low - over 28 months the £86 shortfall accounts for most of the shortfall.

'A few months into the new account' - said the OP.