Electricity Dispute

EllBee1

Hi,

I am currently in a dispute with my electricity provided over the rebilling of our account. We moved into a rented property in March 2017 and a month later informed customer service that our Economy 7 meter was not working. After getting then energy Ombudsman involved, our meter was finally replace 3 weeks ago. The issue we now have is that the Ombudsman has recommended that our account be rebilled based on our actual consumption now. However, as it is winter and our only fuel source is electricity we feel that rebilling our account for spring-summer based on winter consumption will be extremely costly on our behalf.
I have looked online for statistics of household consumption variations per season but cant seem to find what I need. Is this information out there? Where do we stand on this? Any advice please?

Laura :-)

NineDeuce

The Ombudsman advice is just a recommendation, nothing binding.

I would personally try and argue to pay nothing. It is in the supplier's interest to replace the meter and if you have told them that is their issue.

This is not unheard of.

Alternatively, get your historical data from your supplier and argue that you data from the previous summer is more accurate.

footyguy

EllBee1 wrote: »

Hi,

I am currently in a dispute with my electricity provided over the rebilling of our account. We moved into a rented property in March 2017 and a month later informed customer service that our Economy 7 meter was not working. After getting then energy Ombudsman involved, our meter was finally replace 3 weeks ago. The issue we now have is that the Ombudsman has recommended that our account be rebilled based on our actual consumption now. However, as it is winter and our only fuel source is electricity we feel that rebilling our account for spring-summer based on winter consumption will be extremely costly on our behalf.
I have looked online for statistics of household consumption variations per season but cant seem to find what I need. Is this information out there? Where do we stand on this? Any advice please?

Laura :-)

If you accepted the ombudsman's proposed resolution, you would have done so in full and final settlement of your complaint.
That resolution then becomes binding on the supplier.

EllBee1

footyguy wrote: »

If you accepted the ombudsman's proposed resolution, you would have done so in full and final settlement of your complaint.
That resolution then becomes binding on the supplier.

Thanks for the response footyguy. :-)

We have declined the ombudsman's report findings as we felt it wasn't financially in our best interest. Hence why I am looking for information on seasonal variation for domestic usage, and any other information that may help in the ongoing dispute with the electricity provider.

Richmc

If your energy company decided to not replace your meter of ten months then they can't reasonably expect you to pay anything, they knew the meter was faulty but declined to fix it. they can send you estimated bills till the cows come home but they can't prove you owe them a penny and this is through their own incompetence.

Stand your ground!

footyguy

EllBee1 wrote: »

Thanks for the response footyguy. :-)

We have declined the ombudsman's report findings as we felt it wasn't financially in our best interest. Hence why I am looking for information on seasonal variation for domestic usage, and any other information that may help in the ongoing dispute with the electricity provider.

As you rejected the ombudsman's proposed resolution to this complaint, the proposed resolution falls away; the supplier will not be asked to implement it. The replacement of your meter wuld have been totally unrelated to the fact you escalated the matter to the ombudsman; presumably it was replaced by the supplier as you had notified the supplier it was faulty and they agreed.

Indeed, the supplier may refuse to consider your complaint against them any further as you already took the decision to involve the ombudsman service.

Your only effective way to attempt to resolve this complaint, should you wish to pursue it further, would be to take legal action against the supplier.

If you do not know how to do this, I would suggest you seek independent legal advice.

You would probably need to find an 'expert witness' who would be willing to support any claims over seasonal usage variation, which I suspect would be very difficult to obtain for your complaint. With you having no historical usage data for this property (as you only moved in in March this year), you could not even use that as a basis of complaint.

If, having sought independent legal advice, they are firmly of the opinion you may have a valid claim, then I feel sure they will be willing to assist you in securing the required evidence/expert witness to support such a claim.

EllBee1

footyguy wrote: »

As you rejected the ombudsman's proposed resolution to this complaint, the proposed resolution falls away; the supplier will not be asked to implement it. The replacement of your meter wuld have been totally unrelated to the fact you escalated the matter to the ombudsman; presumably it was replaced by the supplier as you had notified the supplier it was faulty and they agreed.

Indeed, the supplier may refuse to consider your complaint against them any further as you already took the decision to involve the ombudsman service.

Your only effective way to attempt to resolve this complaint, should you wish to pursue it further, would be to take legal action against the supplier.

If you do not know how to do this, I would suggest you seek independent legal advice.

You would probably need to find an 'expert witness' who would be willing to support any claims over seasonal usage variation, which I suspect would be very difficult to obtain for your complaint. With you having no historical usage data for this property (as you only moved in in March this year), you could not even use that as a basis of complaint.

If, having sought independent legal advice, they are firmly of the opinion you may have a valid claim, then I feel sure they will be willing to assist you in securing the required evidence/expert witness to support such a claim.

We escalated the complaint to the ombudsman in order to get them to address the fact that the meter wasn't working. We were guaranteed on 3 occasion in April, May and June that the issue would be rectified within 10 working days, however, they took no steps to address the issue. At that point I stopped dealing with customer service and contacted their complaints department, and when they failed on their promised steps to rectify the issue I then escalated to the ombudsman in order to get them to address the meter fault.

Now that the meter has been replaced, the suggested method for rebilling the account is to apply our winter usage to the spring summer months. We live in an apartment that is supplied only by electricity so our consumption in the winter months based on heating needs is going to be much higher than in spring and summer.

Cardew

EllBee1 wrote: »

Now that the meter has been replaced, the suggested method for rebilling the account is to apply our winter usage to the spring summer months. We live in an apartment that is supplied only by electricity so our consumption in the winter months based on heating needs is going to be much higher than in spring and summer.

You have made the assumption that the daily spring/summer consumption will be calculated at the same daily consumption as this winter. e.g. If you are using, say, 50kWh a day now, then the spring /summer will also be assessed at 50kWh a day.

All energy companies use a computer with a sophisticated, and audited, algorithm to estimate past and future consumption if they have not had actual meter readings. This algorithm is the reason why someone can be in credit now and the computer predicts that their DD payments are insufficient and increases them so that the balance will be zero at the review point.

They obviously should use that algorithm in your situation. It might be worth checking with them before you get into a nugatory fight

footyguy

EllBee1 wrote: »

We escalated the complaint to the ombudsman in order to get them to address the fact that the meter wasn't working. We were guaranteed on 3 occasion in April, May and June that the issue would be rectified within 10 working days, however, they took no steps to address the issue. At that point I stopped dealing with customer service and contacted their complaints department, and when they failed on their promised steps to rectify the issue I then escalated to the ombudsman in order to get them to address the meter fault.

Now that the meter has been replaced, the suggested method for rebilling the account is to apply our winter usage to the spring summer months. We live in an apartment that is supplied only by electricity so our consumption in the winter months based on heating needs is going to be much higher than in spring and summer.

Any resolution proposed by the ombudsman is not binding on the supplier. In fact, it is totally irrelevant now as you decided to reject the ombudsman's proposals.

The supplier is not even expected to do anything about your complaint against them now as you elected to seek the assistence of the ombudsman.

You are at liberty to seek alternative form of redress, but that effectively is now limited to legal action against the supplier, as I explained.
(Otherwise you will have to accept whatever the supplier does to resolve it their way)

Good luck!

Ectophile

footyguy wrote: »

If, having sought independent legal advice, they are firmly of the opinion you may have a valid claim, then I feel sure they will be willing to assist you in securing the required evidence/expert witness to support such a claim.

You're assuming that the OP needs to make a claim. But it's the supplier who wants money from the OP, not the other way round.

More likely, the OP would be defending a claim.

That's unless the supplier is willing to make a sensible offer. As a previous poster has said, they can be surprisingly good at estimating bills.

footyguy

Ectophile wrote: »

You're assuming that the OP needs to make a claim.... .

Yes I am.

The OP has described that they have already made a complaint to the supplier, and escalated that to the OS. However, the OP elected to reject the proposed resolution put forward by the OS, and was now asking for "any other information that may help in the ongoing dispute with the electricity provider."

As I explained, the only realistic chance of resolving the ongoing dispute now, if the OP still wishes to pursue the matter, is via the legal route.