Overcharging?

coldlandlord

I have a rather strange case which I am not entirely sure how to deal with.
We have an historic food led public house in the cotswolds
I was supplied electricity from my previous supplier between September 2016 to November 2017. I had a flat day/night rate of 9.6 pence per unit for this period and we had a smart meter fitted.

The first thing that I have noticed is at first (in the depths of winter when we were running 2 x 2KW electric heaters for 8 hours a day, big old fashioned flood lights for longer periods and servicing customers for the busy xmas period) our bills were coming in at around £650 per month. Come the spring/ summer months, our bills started to consistently grow month on month without explanation or reason to, up to £850 in august/September 2017. Nothing had changed in regards to equipment usage, apart from our flood lighting was on for much less time and we were not using the electric heating at all. Trade also stayed fairly consistent. Despite this, our bills increased. I did question the supplier about this and the person I spoke to seemed a bit puzzled as well but was quick to get back on track and blame us for using more. The end result of the conversation was..
A. I would be charged for an engineer to come out and check the smart meter if i wanted it checking (which we could not afford at the time)
B. I was sent a completely inadequate form to fill out which would go into great detail in regards to every single piece of electrical equipment, including things like phone chargers etc. This was an impossible task due to the age of equipment, the amount of equipment, the lack of the required info on the equipment and the inconsistent usage periods. The form would have been ok for a domestic household with a hand full of electrical devices but not an operation such as ours.

I spent 2 days going around looking at the manufacturers plaques on every piece of equipment, researching the equipment that did not have the relevant information on it, trying to work out the usage periods and in the end I came to the conclusion that any figure gained from this exercise would be so far from the true figure that it was as good as useless.

What makes the case even stranger is the fact that we switched to Eon in October 2017. In the switch our unit rate increased by over 20%. Since switching, we have not had a bill that exceeds the £800 -£850 bills that we received from the previous supplier in August and September. This is despite the fact that…

1. Our turnover has dramatically increased on last year through having a higher foot fall. (more usage on kettles, coffee machines, dish washers, glass washers, ice machine, fridges etc)
2. We have just had one of the coldest winters on record, certainly significantly colder than winter 2016/17 (more electric powered heating)
3. We have installed 2 additional chillers since switching

I have been receiving calls from companies looking for cases of overcharging in the energy market which has got my mind back on the above issues. It does seem a very strange set of circumstances to me and I do believe that I may have fallen victim to this emerging problem. I also read that there have been issues with smart meters.

Does anyone else thinks this smells fishy?

JJ_Egan

This will be Business account do you not have a business account manager you can speak to .
What is the LPG re your other post used for ??

coldlandlord

yes, it was a business account but no I did not get assigned a business account manager for the electricity.

LPG is for heating boiler and most of the kitchen equipment. range, solid top, fryers etc.

House_Martin

If you are a pub then its rare for them to have a single rate meter. I read a lot of pub meters and they are mostly three raters with evening and weekends and day/night rates, hence plenty of scope for transposing the rates.
Smart meters will be a godsend in these establishments. At least they will get the billing correct. Suppliers constantly mess up the rates. They frequently mess ordinary Eco 7 so add a more complex pub meter and they re bound to do it more often with a pub meter.
No wonder there are companies out there trying to get business from overcharging because it will be common.
I ve been sent out to pub smart meters many times ( when they stop communicating) to check the readings..
I m inclined to trust the smart meter in your pub rather than a historic meter which could have been undercharging.

coldlandlord

The thing is, the bills did not change straight after the smart meter was installed. We had it installed from the time we started trading so I'm ruling out a simple change in billing methods mid way through supply period and it consistently rose throughout the period that we were supplied by them. First 4 months were around £650 per month (winter), next 4 months were mid £700's (spring/early summer) and then the last 4 months crept up towards £900. What I am questioning is why, it was the least amount in the winter period when we were using high consumption equipment such as big old fashioned flood lighting for longer and we had 4kwh of electric heating going most of the time.
The only thing i can think of is chillers having to work harder in the summer time but our food fridges/freezers are in the kitchen which is always hot in there and our cellar is deep bellow the building, completely enclosed from the outside. Our walls are 2 1\2 feet think, solid stone and the cooling system sits idle for the majority of the time.

Im also questioning why, after a 20%+ unit rate increase and an extremely cold winter, we are getting bills around £700.... less than our cheaper unit rate in the summer months.

Robin9

Is not Spring and Summer due to freezer / chill cabinets type of load ?