Can only be billed for up to 1 year back?

matchplayer

I was with Scottish Power, my deal was coming to an end so I was checking my account for details of usage so I could compare the current market. Surprise surprise, I had not been billed since last April & my account was showing £2235 in credit! I could find no history of bills etc. Phoned to see what was going on & they could find nothing either. We will need to look int this for you etc etc. 2 weeks later still nothing and a manager was allocated to deal with it. I switched company to see if that would spur them on. What a fool I now feel! I have just found out due to Npower being fined £26 million for billing complaints that they cannot claim anything over a year old? WOW I should have kept my mouth shut & stayed with scottish power, if nothing changed by April 2016 I would be on FREE electric? Just keep paying my standing order & count it as savings? Wonder how long it would have taken?
What I am saying is, if you have billing problems, dont wory too much, let it go as long as possible, one you are over a year, They cant ask for it back. Lets get that highlighted!
Link-https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/you-havent-received-a-gas-or-electricity-bill-in-a-while/

HappyMJ

matchplayer wrote: »

I was with Scottish Power, my deal was coming to an end so I was checking my account for details of usage so I could compare the current market. Surprise surprise, I had not been billed since last April & my account was showing £2235 in credit! I could find no history of bills etc. Phoned to see what was going on & they could find nothing either. We will need to look int this for you etc etc. 2 weeks later still nothing and a manager was allocated to deal with it. I switched company to see if that would spur them on. What a fool I now feel! I have just found out due to Npower being fined £26 million for billing complaints that they cannot claim anything over a year old? WOW I should have kept my mouth shut & stayed with scottish power, if nothing changed by April 2016 I would be on FREE electric? Just keep paying my standing order & count it as savings? Wonder how long it would have taken?
What I am saying is, if you have billing problems, dont wory too much, let it go as long as possible, one you are over a year, They cant ask for it back. Lets get that highlighted!

But you've been paying for the energy. They have the money and can bill you more than 12 months back. The 12 months back billing is just a guideline. You need to have done something to request a bill and been ignored for it to apply. You cannot ignore and hope they won't notice. If you had not been paying anything then they can't request you pay for more a year of charges but you've paid. You can't ask for the money back until you've got a bill so I'd be sending them updated meter readings and get a bill so you can get your overpayments back.

It's not good advice to ignore billing errors. The longer they go on the harder they are to resolve and it would probably cost you more as you won't be paying by direct debit and won't be on the best tariff for when they do the back billing.

Cardew

Post above is correct. See:

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/energy-industry-codes/code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills.html

Back billing

A back bill is a ‘catch-up’ bill sent to you by your gas or electricity supplier when you haven’t been correctly charged for your energy use (for periods of 12 months or more). If your supplier is at fault and has not sent you an accurate bill, that they should have sent you, they will not ask you to pay any extra for energy you used (and which you did not receive an accurate bill for) more than one year before they issued the bill.
The back billing scenarios document has been developed with input from suppliers to reflect the principles which all of the major energy suppliers follow relating to back billing.

spiro

Cardew wrote: »

Post above is correct. See:

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/energy-industry-codes/code-of-practice-for-accurate-bills.html

The poster is expecting to get the money he is paying back, that doesn't happen under back billing they just can't ask for more money.

backfoot

It may be that the OP has got the same issue as detailed in this thread.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5357927

In that case, bills had been produced, but the history of them disappeared from the SP online system, generating some spurious credit balances. Their fix with me was to produce a bill where the gas units were billed back to April 2013.That fix was also inaccurate so they reverted to a manual bill.

In that case, I don't see any case for a back billing adjustment.

For the OP, if they failed to correct the billing situation since the last generated bill, having been notified, then I think a case could be made once the period started to exceeded 12 months.

footyguy

matchplayer wrote: »

I was with Scottish Power, my deal was coming to an end so I was checking my account for details of usage so I could compare the current market. Surprise surprise, I had not been billed since last April & my account was showing £2235 in credit! I could find no history of bills etc. Phoned to see what was going on & they could find nothing either. We will need to look int this for you etc etc. 2 weeks later still nothing and a manager was allocated to deal with it. I switched company to see if that would spur them on. What a fool I now feel! I have just found out due to Npower being fined £26 million for billing complaints that they cannot claim anything over a year old? WOW I should have kept my mouth shut & stayed with scottish power, if nothing changed by April 2016 I would be on FREE electric? Just keep paying my standing order & count it as savings? Wonder how long it would have taken?
What I am saying is, if you have billing problems, dont wory too much, let it go as long as possible, one you are over a year, They cant ask for it back. Lets get that highlighted!
Link-https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/you-havent-received-a-gas-or-electricity-bill-in-a-while/

Bad advice, sorry.
The 12 month back-billing rule essentially means a supplier cannot charge you more for energy consumed over 12 months ago. In this case, if you've not used more than £2235 in the last 12 months then they don't need to charge you anymore.

(If you have used more, it gets complicated as it will depend when you actually did consume the energy)

Best advice is to provide regular meter readings (and keep a record yourself) and ensure your supplier produces regular bills.

e.g. if you are in credit by £2235 and you've only used say £1200 worth of energy, then you could claim back the £1035 you appear to be lending the supplier on an interest fee loan to them (and then maybe put it towards any loans you are paying interest on yourself!)

What's more, if you are paying so much more than necessary every month, then get the supplier to revise that payment down leaving more money in your pocket

System

It really is time that Ofgem threw the Back Billing Code into the bin of history. It was introduced as a voluntary code to encourage energy suppliers to improve their customer billing systems: it has manifestly failed. The only way to hit poorly performing energy suppliers is via licence sanctions and proper fines. The latter should not include voluntary - tax deductible - donations to charities.