New flat but gas bill linked to wrong meter

_cbc

Just moved into a new flat three days ago and set up the utilities yesterday. Spark were supplying gas and electric so I gave them a call and set up what I assume is a "deemed contract", they asked for meter readings but I could only access the electric meter at the time so they asked me to call back with the gas meter reading at some point.

Yesterday I located the MPRN number inside one of the boxes outside and asked my partner to switch the gas on to confirm it was ours - it didn't budge. The MPRN and plot number match our flat but the meter doesn't move. This meter reads about 250. I checked some other meters and the one that seems to correspond to our flat is reading ~3500 and is labelled with a different MPRN and another flat number.

Any advice? Where do I go from here?

System

Not very scientific. Check as follows:

Your gas supplier

Contact the Meter Point Administration Service to find out who your gas supplier is.

Meter Point Administration Service
Telephone: 0870 608 1524 (Source Citizens'Advice)

NB: try 0191 216 3000 instead of the above.
They can also give you your Meter Point Reference Number.)

If the MPRN starts with 74,75.76 or 77 this usually indicates an independent gas transporter (IGT). The above check may not reveal who is the supplier.

_cbc

Okay, so we've determined British Gas supply our real meter, however they can't create us an account for the meter because someone else is paying the bills. They considered my "burn test" acceptable enough to determine the meters are wrong.

BG have said there's nothing they can do as we need to start the process from our side. Managed to speak to a helpful rep at Spark tonight who has advised they probably need to do a burn test for the whole block as it's unlikely we're the only one affected - difficult as some are holiday flats. She also advised to ignore the bills until it's resolved... Let's see where this goes.