Final electricity bill ridiculous!!

hansug

Hi all,
We switched our electricity supplier to Flow Energy last April (2016) and have been paying between £25 and £51 per month as a direct debit (they increased it last Christmas). We decided to switch to EDF since our tariff had ended this April so we went through the process again and supplied a final meter reading to our new suppliers.
We've just received a final bill from Flow for £1300!!! This is just for our electricity!! We are feeling very stressed about this. We live in a 4 bedroom converted chapel but we both work and are all out of the house 4 days a week...
Any idea why the bill would be so huge???? They seem to have worked out our consumption based on estimated readings over the last year and now have our final reading which puts it at this huge amount!!! How can this be right???
Thanks in advance :eek:

NeverInDebt

Only one way to stop high bills like this apart from cutting down is supply regular meter readings. The energy company isnt to know how much you consume its therefore within your own interest.

I assume you are all electric as heating is usually the main culprit for high usage

£25 and £51 per month is quite low to pay per month I average throughout the year £85 (dual fuel) and I am in credit

Your best supplying your actually usage here per kWh

hansug

No we have a gas heating system which is why I'm so confused at the cost! And we've only been with them for a year and have paid DD each month...

NeverInDebt

In that case seems quite a high catch up bill what was your usage in kWh per annum?

As rough reference I consumed 4005 kWh per Year for 3 adults for electric, no heating hot water, or showering all done by gas boiler.

bob_bank_spanker

£25 is almost as low as to not be believable, and £51 would still only cover smaller properties.

That you're out 4 days a week doesn't really differentiate you from other people, which leaves the size of your house - above average. I would therefore expect your consumption to be above average.

When you consider "average" consumption is about £90 a month, it would seem like you've been significantly underpaying.

The supplier is only obliged to read your meter once every 2 years, everything else is down to you. I'm afraid this is an expensive lesson that you need to supply regular readings, ideally monthly. Normally, a positive is that they will allow you to pay this off in installments, although if you're leaving they will want you to pay this off now.

matelodave

If you'd been checking your bills and meter readings over the past year or so you'd have seen that you weren't paying enough to cover your consumption and that the bills were being estimated.

It's up to you to check your bills or statements against your meter and get any estimated ones corrected otherwise you get ginormous bills when the meter eventually gets read.

Nearly all the complaints and whinges on this forum are due to people not taking responsibilty for their bills or payments and then getting stung when they either try to change supplier or their existing supplier reads their meters.

All you can do is pay the bill and move on, taking a bit more care in checking or ask you existing supplier for a bit more time to pay but still putting five minutes effort in once a month to make sure that they get up to date readings.

By reading the meter yourself you'll also know how much energy you are using and possibly be able to do something about reducing your consumption - it;s too late late when the ginormous bill come in as you've already used it.

hansug

We've not had any bills from Flow Energy until this final one. We've had email correspondence stating they were increasing our DD in December but that's it!
Surely a usage of £1600+ a year for electricity alone is ridiculous?! We didn't pay anywhere near that much previously with Npower... and nothing has changed in the house!!
And I don't appreciate the comments that I'm whinging, I came to ask for opinions and advice, not insults. We pay by DD as we have very little time to monitor things as accurately as we'd like as we both work (I'm a teacher) and we have a severely disabled child who takes up all our spare time...
Thanks you for your replies.
It seems that we will have to pay it but we don't have that kind of money to hand. If We cannot pay then would Flow Energy allow us to return to them until the balance is payed off? There is no way we can afford that right now!!

matelodave

Most energy companies provide on-line statements, it just requires you to log-in now and again. Having to go to work isn't really an excuse for not checking energy bills. I used to do mine when I was at work even though I could be away from home abroad for several weeks or even months at a time. We are all busy but it's not an excuse for not doing important stuff.

Likewise I used to check my bank account to make sure that my salary was being paid and my account was in reasonable shape. It's just basic housekeeping

I'd agree that £1600 a year sounds a lot but if you haven't been checking your meter you don't know whether it's right or wrong. All you can do is go back to the previous actual reading and check. I'm assuming that you have had at least one actual reading before this final one so you can check what you've used.

If you dont do it yourself you can't check if a meter reading error has crept in or even if the meter has gone haywire.

Geoff1963

Is there a way to do the calculation of how much electricity they think you used each day, and then convert this into an average power ? E.g. A 3kW kettle is 72 kWh / day
If the average is more than your house can draw, then you might have a case that it is too big, but I expect not. Some people grow crops in their loft, and that uses a lot of power - I'm told.

The bill is big, and a shock, but if you have paid too little by D-D each month, then you've effectively had a interest-free loan ( but in reverse ) ; so the demand for £1300 is actually maybe "only" £1200 or £1000, depending on the interest rate for any borrowing / saving you have. That might soften the feeling a little. Most people complain when the D-D is too high, and the power company is getting a free loan of them.

House_Martin

The final reading could well be a load of old tosh. £1600 a year is ridiculous ..Have you got an old dial meter with the 6 revolving dials with pointers ?..These are notorious for being read incorrectly especially when the pointers are on borders.. Meter readers get them wrong and the public are even worse..Also digital meters get read incorrect with 4 and 9 and 1 and 7 getting mixed if the meter is very low

footyguy

hansug wrote: »

Hi all,
We switched our electricity supplier to Flow Energy last April (2016) and have been paying between £25 and £51 per month as a direct debit (they increased it last Christmas). We decided to switch to EDF since our tariff had ended this April so we went through the process again and supplied a final meter reading to our new suppliers.
We've just received a final bill from Flow for £1300!!! This is just for our electricity!! We are feeling very stressed about this. We live in a 4 bedroom converted chapel but we both work and are all out of the house 4 days a week...
Any idea why the bill would be so huge???? They seem to have worked out our consumption based on estimated readings over the last year and now have our final reading which puts it at this huge amount!!! How can this be right???
Thanks in advance :eek:

Your bill is that size presumably as it reflects the cost of the energy you consumed according to what the meter recorded and the tariff you agreed to.

Am I correct?