Spark Energy - one and only bill really high!

Jakubk

amylouise94 wrote: »

We are also having issues, we moved into our property and moved our energy supplier straight away, we received two letters with the 'sorry to see you go' and confirmation from our new supplier that every thing had moved over 16 days later, we then received a bill for £40 and then a further bill for £96 , which seemed high for 16 days worth of energy, when we rang, Spark then told us that we owe £200 for 16 days! We've now received a text saying its £296 and they appear to have moved it over to someone called Zinc? I'm really concerned as this is our first property and first time doing anything like this! There is no chance that the bill should be that high as we both work full time and haven't had the heating on due to the nice weather! Could anyone please offer some advice? We have meter readings from when we first moved in on our inventory? Thank you!

amylouise94

It seems that you have faulty equipment.

If you go to your consumer unit fuse box inside your property you will be able to turn off the power to different rings, e.g. lighting, plugs, cooker, heating and so on,

Go to your meter, take a photo of reading, then look how long it takes to increase by 1 kWh and take another photo.

Then turn off all power at the consumer unit fuse box (the biggest switch) and make sure the meter stops incrementing on the reading. Then after a few minutes take photo of meter reading put switch on consumer unit back on,

Then take a photo of the reading every hour

Look to see if anyone has wired in a supply to their swimming pool heater look for tampering with meter!

Check you do not have your immersion heater switched on all the time if you have one, these are used to reheat a water tank when you run out of water. They have a separate switch to a boiler or a eco7 heating element.

Turn off the ring switches on the consumer unit one at a time each hour, starting with the heating, also turn off any boiler or storage units at the switches adjacent to them.

Then turn off ring switch that does water, then cooker and so on.

In theory the lights ring should be the cheapest, plugs may have something expensive plugged in, old fridges have been known to use £400 a year compared to new eco fridges which use under £80 and some even say £30 but I do not believe that in a normal home

Make sure no fish tanks, underfloor heating or other high energy use devices.

If you have eco7 check the timer is turning off power during the day.

The usage you report is so high that I think must be a fault or some very very high energy device.

ChloeGarth

Hi,

I got the keys to my house in December but didn't move in until January whilst the house was being decorated. I signed up with Spark Energy on a Digital Saver v1 tariff (15.94Kwh) however recently I discovered my Smart Meter was displaying high usage, to which I then realised the smart meter was showing I was on a Economy 7 Tariff (23.773Kwh) even though I haven't got an Economy 7 meter, which by the way was not reporting the readings back as it should do. Spark Energy engineers recently sorted this, so now the smart meter shows I am on the correct tariff. But now I have just received an email advising my bill will change from £70 per month to £320 based on my current and estimated usage. I have taken a look at the bill online between December-June and June - July 2018 and they both show estimated readings which are being charged based on a tariff I am not on, again an economy 7 tariff. What can I do? I have already told Spark energy on the phone before receiving this bill that they have me on the wrong tariff, which they acknowlegded and recitifed, but still seem to be charging based on this tariff or what seems to be an updated version of this tariff as it appears the price per kwh has increased.

Kind regards

[Deleted User]

Most of the billing problems with Spark Energy Eco 7 all electric are caused by their meter readers , currently MDS, and the customers submitting transposed day/night readings.
The majority of Eco 7 customers have digital Eco 7 meters with rate 1 (day ) rate 2 (night ) and sometimes a "t " for total kwhs of the day/night. Some meters in certain areas may be r 1 night and r 2 day. Its really up to the householder to investigate if the meter does not state which rate equals which period.
I know for a fact that MDS routinely input digital Eco 7 meters as rate 1 in the night field on their PDA s as I work for them occasionally on Spark Energy meter reading. This is because on their PDA s rate 1 is night/low rate
Most customers do not know which rate is day and which is night on these digital Eco 7 meters