Final meter reading given to new supplier they used estimate instead

twokcc

Switched from Coop to Eon in September.
Lots of problems with Coop last account was more than 6 months old. Many e-mails to them requesting final account and issue of credit. Many spurious replies but with little actual action to resolve the situation. Advised them that I shouldn't be having all this hassle providing a timely and accurate bill was something that I shouldn't have to spend my time chasing still with little action. As a final resort I advised them that if issue not resolved I would charge them for each e-mail that I had to send if this was as a result of them not resolving this problem. Eventually got a final bill with correct electric reading BUT wrong gas reading- so further e-mail to them They advised that this was the reading given to them by EON but was not the final gas reading I had passed to EON. Emailed EON surprised to receive following reply

We've used an estimated reading for the Gas due to a system error.....

The difference is 50 units(more than 10 weeks usage at that time of year) but they say.

The industry requirements to be able to dispute the reading would be over 125 units, so we aren't able to change this reading.

I can see that this may be allowable in certain circumstances (when they cant get readings etc).
Seems abysmally low standards that they don't consider that they have any obligation to bill an account accurately
Anyone been in a similar situation and got the supplier to correct readings/

System

People have been known to provide incorrect meter readings to save a few £s on a switch/ give an incorrect meter reading in error /or the switch has not gone through on the stated date. The 'industry' with Ofgem's approval sends all meter readings to a third party for adjuducation which takes into account past usage. Both suppliers are required to use the adjusted/estimated figures. Provided the same reading is used on the closing and opening bills, then the difference to you is small. You will not pay for the energy twice. I switched away from E.oN in mid August: the estimated figure was 105C3Ms in E.oN's favour. My gaining supplier couldn't raise a dispute as the dispute figure is 109C3Ms: I should reach the opening figure next week.

So what does this mean. E.oN got about £35 of my money for energy that it didn't supply. I have only paid my present supplier for 3 months of standing charges. The actual difference in cost to me was about £1.70.

naedanger

twokcc wrote: »

Switched from Coop to Eon in September.
Lots of problems with Coop last account was more than 6 months old. Many e-mails to them requesting final account and issue of credit. Many spurious replies but with little actual action to resolve the situation. Advised them that I shouldn't be having all this hassle providing a timely and accurate bill was something that I shouldn't have to spend my time chasing still with little action. As a final resort I advised them that if issue not resolved I would charge them for each e-mail that I had to send if this was as a result of them not resolving this problem. Eventually got a final bill with correct electric reading BUT wrong gas reading- so further e-mail to them They advised that this was the reading given to them by EON but was not the final gas reading I had passed to EON. Emailed EON surprised to receive following reply

We've used an estimated reading for the Gas due to a system error.....

The difference is 50 units(more than 10 weeks usage at that time of year) but they say.

The industry requirements to be able to dispute the reading would be over 125 units, so we aren't able to change this reading.

I can see that this may be allowable in certain circumstances (when they cant get readings etc).
Seems abysmally low standards that they don't consider that they have any obligation to bill an account accurately
Anyone been in a similar situation and got the supplier to correct readings/

As you were switching suppliers, rather than moving to another address, the financial impact of the estimated reading should be very minor. You will pay Co-op for 50 extra units and pay Eon for 50 fewer units, so the impact for you will be 50*(co-op unit price less Eon unit price). I suspect the actual amount will be very small.

However if you feel the Co-op's service standards have been unacceptably poor then you should send them a written complaint and see what they say. If you are unhappy with their final response, or after 8 weeks, you could escalate your complaint to the Ombudsman. In practice, I think you will be wasting your time as I expect you will get little more than an insincere apology. (Unfortunately poor service appears very common in the energy supply industry, and so the service you have received will probably be regarded as close to acceptable.)

firefox1956

Hi Twokcc.........
I had exactly the same thing happen about 2 years ago when I moved to FU from Scottish Power.
It took forever to sort out even though I had all the proof of meter readings etc etc etc.
In the end FU had to wait until my actual reading overtook the wrong reading that had been used !!!!
I think it took about 8 months for that to happen.
HTH

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

twokcc wrote: »

Switched from Coop to Eon in September.
Lots of problems with Coop last account was more than 6 months old. Many e-mails to them requesting final account and issue of credit. Many spurious replies but with little actual action to resolve the situation. Advised them that I shouldn't be having all this hassle providing a timely and accurate bill was something that I shouldn't have to spend my time chasing still with little action. As a final resort I advised them that if issue not resolved I would charge them for each e-mail that I had to send if this was as a result of them not resolving this problem. Eventually got a final bill with correct electric reading BUT wrong gas reading- so further e-mail to them They advised that this was the reading given to them by EON but was not the final gas reading I had passed to EON. Emailed EON surprised to receive following reply

We've used an estimated reading for the Gas due to a system error.....

The difference is 50 units(more than 10 weeks usage at that time of year) but they say.

The industry requirements to be able to dispute the reading would be over 125 units, so we aren't able to change this reading.

I can see that this may be allowable in certain circumstances (when they cant get readings etc).
Seems abysmally low standards that they don't consider that they have any obligation to bill an account accurately
Anyone been in a similar situation and got the supplier to correct readings/

Hi twokcc

I'm really sorry a problem with our systems has stopped your gas reading from being used. Already some great advice on here - thanks all.

Usually, in situations like this, we would use an industry wide arrangement called an Agreed Readings Dispute (ARD) to re-agree a starting/closing reading with the old supplier. As Hengus and our advisor has mentioned, this only kicks in when certain thresholds have been passed. With the difference being 50 units (it needs to be greater than 125 units for 5 dial metric gas meters) we're unable to go down this route. Thresholds are different for electricity and 4 dial gas meters.

As Hengus says, it's important our starting readings match the former supplier's closing readings. This makes sure the same gas is only charged once. It'll mean you paying one supplier a bit more and the other a bit less.

Sorry again we've been unable to use your starting gas reading. Going forward, bills will be based on meter readings received.

Malc

Shrimply

It's all very well saying that as long as the opening and closing meter readings match then that's fine.

But ( in my region) if you moved from the CO-OPs standard tariff to the MSE E.ON fix and the estimate is 50 metric units greater than it should be the extra the customer is paying compared to what they expected to be is over £20. I don't really class that as a very small amount.

I apologise, when I get the calculation correct it's ~£7.50

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

To be honest Shrimply, I don't think it'll be that much. Could be wrong though.

On a metric meter, 50 units converts to about 560 kWh. On our MSE Collective tariff, this works out at around £16. If this is then taken away from what would've been paid on the tariff switching from, I would expect the difference to be around 4 quid. This is if based on the standard tariffs offered by most suppliers. A lot less when compared with fixed deals. It also depends on whether the 50 units is over or under the expected figure as to which supplier gains or loses.

I'm speculating a lot here Shrimply and, as you say, there's regional differences to be taken into consideration too so sorry if I've miscalculated.

Malc

twokcc

Thanks for all the replies.
I was moving from a fixed deal with the coop so difference is only small.
It is just so frustrating that EON could get this wrong- whats a system error? in particular when I have spent a lot of time trying to get a correct final bill from the coop. If I had known about the error it would have saved me sending a strongly worded e-mail to the coop about their abysmal customer service culminating in not even being able to get the final gas reading correct.
Now had to go back at aplogise, so eon if you do this to customers (use wrong opening meter readings) have the decency to advise them. Maybe not everyone checks that their energy supplier bills are correct.
After being with Npower, Scottish Power and Coop I would be £100's out of pocket if I'd accepted that they only issued correct bills!!!

Shrimply

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

To be honest Shrimply, I don't think it'll be that much. Could be wrong though.

Malc

No no, you are totally right. I'm sorry. I did the calculations quickly using my own spreadsheet and failed to remove the correction for an imperial meter even though I thought I had. Hence my £20 was about 3x too high.

System

twokcc wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.
I was moving from a fixed deal with the coop so difference is only small.
It is just so frustrating that EON could get this wrong- whats a system error? in particular when I have spent a lot of time trying to get a correct final bill from the coop. If I had known about the error it would have saved me sending a strongly worded e-mail to the coop about their abysmal customer service culminating in not even being able to get the final gas reading correct.
Now had to go back at aplogise, so eon if you do this to customers (use wrong opening meter readings) have the decency to advise them. Maybe not everyone checks that their energy supplier bills are correct.
After being with Npower, Scottish Power and Coop I would be £100's out of pocket if I'd accepted that they only issued correct bills!!!

I think that you are reading too much into the phrase 'system error'. I suspect that the person that you spoke to didn't have a clue as they would not be part of the transfer team. The more logical explanation is that the third party came back with an adjusted gas usage figure based on the historical data held for your property. The 'problem' with gas is that the Annual Quantity (AQ) for your property is only changed once per year whereas the Estimated Annual Consumption (EAC) figure for electricity is adjusted each time that there is an actual reading.

As I said previously, the opening/closing figure shouldn't be considered in the same way as estimated readings on your energy bills. On a switch, the 'industry estimated' figure is binding on both the losing and gaining suppliers so to all intents it is an actual reading. You may pay the losing supplier for 'x' units that it hasn't supplied both there is no question of you having to pay for the same 'x' units twice.

Sadly, there are many people who lie about their meter readings on switch - if they can see a small financial advantage. Third-Party review by the data collectors is the industry's answer to managing this problem, The longer term solution is smart metering.

naedanger

Hengus wrote: »

I think that you are reading too much into the phrase 'system error'. I suspect that the person that you spoke to didn't have a clue as they would not be part of the transfer team. The more logical explanation is that the third party came back with an adjusted gas usage figure based on the historical data held for your property. The 'problem' with gas is that the Annual Quantity (AQ) for your property is only changed once per year whereas the Estimated Annual Consumption (EAC) figure for electricity is adjusted each time that there is an actual reading.

As I said previously, the opening/closing figure shouldn't be considered in the same way as estimated readings on your energy bills. On a switch, the 'industry estimated' figure is binding on both the losing and gaining suppliers so to all intents it is an actual reading. You may pay the losing supplier for 'x' units that it hasn't supplied both there is no question of you having to pay for the same 'x' units twice.

Sadly, there are many people who lie about their meter readings on switch - if they can see a small financial advantage. Third-Party review by the data collectors is the industry's answer to managing this problem, The longer term solution is smart metering.

I suspect the actual amount at stake will be trivial but am curious to understand the process.

I can certainly understand the use of an "industry estimated" figure where no actual reading has been taken by the customer. And I understand that some customers will lie.

Nevertheless I find it difficult to accept the customer could be bound to this industry practice unless they accepted it as part of their account's terms and conditions. (I had a quick review of one company's terms and conditions and could see no reference to this process, though I may have missed it.)

It is also worth noting companies either have to accept a customer's reading on a change of tariff or arrange their own actual reading. (Even though customers could have an incentive to lie in this circumstance too. The amounts at stake may typically be even smaller but this eventuality is also likely to be more frequent.)

So if the customer wished to pursue the case through the courts (and possibly the Ombudsman) I do not think the courts would automatically go with the industry practice figure. (Of course the court might not accept the customer's figure either if they did not come across as credible.)