Overbilled on leaving First Utility

KevinR · 14 September 2017 at 2:24AM

I've just discovered an issue with exit ie. final billing, from First Utility. I had CheapEnergyClub move me ... in April 2017.First Utility just (Aug/Sep) double billed me the Standing Charge for entire time I was with them prior to leaving. And that's 4 months after I left.

This could easily apply to other customers leaving, so check your bills and bank statements.

Details:
In May First Utility produced a normal bill with included the final readings (I'd had an automatic bill only a few days before transfer, so the additional charges were minor.)

In July First Utility seemed to realise that I'd left, but they hadn't paid me the credit that was left in my account. They then produced a new bill (which was a surprise). This originally looked very scary as they had billed me over £800 and I'd only been paying about £60 to £70 a month by direct debit! Reading further it turned out that they had for some reason wound back my account to when I opened it and then recalculated EVERY SINGLE MONTH & READING they had. So 13 months of bills recalculated. In the course of doing this they somehow determined that I owed an addition 65p, but I was still around £23 in credit.

I queried the second bill with their twitter support at the time but once we'd worked out it was a re-bill and not new changes I decided not to argue about the 65p and waited for my refund.
A couple of weeks later I received my refund of around £23.

Imagine my surprise at the end of August when I received an alert telling me that I had a new bill. As the account was closed I could not immediately see a bill or any transactions, but I again queried their support. They suggested that it was just a final bill to show the payment of the refund and clear the account down to zero.

Anyway, tonight I noticed that First Utility had taken £116.75 from my bank account. Logging into their accounts and digging deeper into the "account history" it turns out that the August bill was real. Their system had once again wound my account back to zero and recalculated EVERY SINGLE MONTH that I was with them. In doing so it decided I owed them an additional £116.75. THIS IS AN ERROR, but they have my money.

Printing out the three versions of "my final bill" it turns out that they have computed the same charges in the third bill that they determined in the second final bill. At the start of each re-bill, they credit the original billing back into the account BEFORE doing the recalculations. In the third bill they have only credited the usage charges and not the standing charges (dual fuel). They have then re-billed the standing charges and usage. So I have been charged for 395 days TWICE. Once in my original bills and direct debits and then again in this recalculation and debit!

I have messaged this information to their support tonight, for them to begin dealing with it tomorrow. You can follow it on twitter @TechKev

I've posted this here and emailed CheapEnergyClub as it seems the kind of error that could affect (many?) other customers leaving First Utility. :mad::mad:

System · 14 September 2017 at 8:37AM

Often it is the case that when a supplier re-issues a bill it reverses the previous bill. Where your bills based on actual meter readings or estimated readings? Your Final Bill will have been based on industry verified readings which may not be the same as the ones that you provided to your new supplier. I am not sure what more help people can provide without further detail about the tariff that you were on etc.