Huge settlement bill I don't understand why...help?

muskethound

Hi,

I hope someone can help as I just dont understand this. I switched away from daligas in July and didnt recieve a settlement bill until a couple of days ago.
The bill waS huge! £600! And I am told that they will be taking it ouf of my account on the 15th which is very worrying!

On the bill the reads were based on estimates (even though I sent readings regularly) so I have gathered all of my evidence of meter readings to send. However my opening and closing reads are fairly similar to their estimates.

The part that I dont understand was that I was on a fixed rate tariff for most of the time and may have finished that tariff but I was sending meter readings regularly so shouldn't they have adjusted my direct debit for whatever tariff I went on to at the time instead of keeping it the same and sending me a huge bill at the end???
I cant check the emails they have sent me as outwork hasnt been working for me the last few days.

Thanks for any help

spiro

You never ask why the didn't use the readings you provided. If they were ignoring these then they would not adjust you DD. If the account opening and closing readings are right then the money is due. If you submitted the readings online they should have a reocrd so I would contact them tomorrow and ask why they ignored these and also to ask for time to pay.

muskethound

Thank you, am i right to think that they should have adjusted my direct debit when i went off the tariff my meter readings that showed that i needed to pay more?

I am only assuming that I finished the tariff as frustratingly I am unable to check on my emails at the moment.
My direct debit remained the same for the whole time so I have no idea if/when the tariff changed.

Cardew

Like all companies, if 'The great computer' 'thinks' the meter reading is wrong it will substitute an estimated reading. This nearly always means the next meter reading will be ignored. This will carry on until there is human intervention on the account.

Unless you challenge these estimated readings on your bill at the time, the deficit will just grow.

matelodave

If you don't check your bills and get them corrected if they are wrong then the energy company will just continue. It really is up to you to keep an eye on the situation and make sure that bills are correct.

If your opening reading was about right and your closing reading was also about right then it sounds as though you do actually owe the moneny - all you can do is ask for a bit more time to pay.

Make sure that you check and correct bills in the future to stop it happening again.

Tbaron

Something in this doesn't add up. So a quick overview;

Meter readings are like bookstops. You only ever end up paying from the start to the end, no matter what was charged in the middle so if the opening and closing readings are right or near right, then you have been charged correctly. Actual readings always take priority over estimated readings too.

If you provided regular actual meter readings and they were billing you regularly, in the situation of oweing £600 you should have seen a debt building up on each statement whilst you were on supply. Its something you should have addressed if this is the case. In this situation a debt doesn't just magically appear, you have been chronically underpaying. If you can put up a case that you cannot pay the £600 off in one go, they may set up a payment plan for you.

The only reasons you would suddenly end up with a huge bill is if you were:

A: not giving regular readings and they were billing off of low estimated consumption figures
B: you were not getting regular bills and they billed the whole lot in one go
C: your regular readings were not being used and they were billing off of low estimates.
a start or end reading had been amended as part of a meter reading dispute.

In A you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
In B and C it would be the suppliers fault and you could probably get some form of compensation
D is extremely complicated and ill only be able to help you if you find out it happened and provide meter reading history against their billing history.

Cardew

Tbaron wrote: »

The only reasons you would suddenly end up with a huge bill is if you were:


C: your regular readings were not being used and they were billing off of low estimates.

In B and C it would be the suppliers fault and you could probably get some form of compensation

Sorry disagree.

The OP has experienced a very common scenario reported frequently on MSE and elsewhere. It is also explained in the two posts above.

The accounts computer has an algorithm that will reject a meter reading that it 'thinks' is incorrect(i.e. outside a set tolerance from an estimated - i.e.expected - meter reading). It doesn't matter if that meter reading is from the customer or an official meter reader. In both those case the computer will reject the meter reading and substitute an estimated reading, and it will continue doing this. As it states in the small print, the customer must bring to the attention of the energy company the discrepancy between the estimated meter reading and the actual meter reading. Until a real live human is involved, nothing will be done.

We have had scores of cases where customers have run up large debit balances because they haven't checked their bills. We have also some customers who have run up large credit bills because of over-estimated meter readings.

The OP submitted meter readings regularly but they substituted estimated readings instead, and apparently the OP didn't check his bills.

muskethound

Thank you all for the replies and explainations!

This has been a steep learning curve and I understand now that my direct debits have been too low which has built up a deficit.

I've previously been with other companies before that monitor usage and have adjusted the direct debits accordingly so when my direct debit amount wasnt changed after submitting readings to daligas, I assumed I was paying the correct amount.

I just thought I was doing well because i'm stingy about putting the central heating on!

I have had a reply from them about my complaint but they are saying it is my fault for not noticing that I wasnt paying enough and sorting it out earlier..

I'm not entirely sure how to know if bills are correct? Sorry if thats silly but how do other people do it? Do they get their calculators out and work out their usage with the supplier's rate?
I definitely need help with this one

Also is this common practice to attract new customers with a too low direct debit amount then make them pay for it at the end? It doesnt seem fair.

Cardew

muskethound wrote: »

Thank you all for the replies and explainations!

This has been a steep learning curve and I understand now that my direct debits have been too low which has built up a deficit.

I've previously been with other companies before that monitor usage and have adjusted the direct debits accordingly so when my direct debit amount wasnt changed after submitting readings to daligas, I assumed I was paying the correct amount.

I just thought I was doing well because i'm stingy about putting the central heating on!

I have had a reply from them about my complaint but they are saying it is my fault for not noticing that I wasnt paying enough and sorting it out earlier..

I'm not entirely sure how to know if bills are correct? Sorry if thats silly but how do other people do it? Do they get their calculators out and work out their usage with the supplier's rate?
I definitely need help with this one

Also is this common practice to attract new customers with a too low direct debit amount then make them pay for it at the end? It doesnt seem fair.

The problem in your case was you apparently didn't check that the meter readings you submitted were used on the bills, and that they had ignored those readings and substituted estimated readings.

You ran up a deficit because the estimated meter readings were too low, not because the unit rates were wrong. For example you might have been billed for, say, 1,000kWh using the estimated reading. However had they used your actual meter readings you might have used, say 1,500kWh. So your bill should have been 50% higher based on usage*.

*Your Daily Standing Charge would have been correct.