Switch Dispute

dozstanford

Greetings,

Recently my mother switched Gas+Elec supplier from British Gas to Octopus Energy, her switch date was the 11th March and she was asked to provide meter readings to Octopus on the 6th.

She was unable to provide readings on or before the 6th as Octopus only answer their phones 9 to 5 and so readings were provided on the 8th with figures taken on the 8th.

Today she received her final Gas bill from British Gas but not for electricity, she called BG and they claimed they had not been given the reading for electricity by Octopus and they would not take it from her, she was told to give it to Octopus.

She then called Octopus and they said there is a dispute with the reading and asked her for a current reading as of today (28th). (Her next due reading is/was on the 15th April and no one had called or emailed her about any "dispute").

In over 3 years she has not had her meters read and she has always called them through over the phone and she has never, in 50 years of being a BG customer had issue with her readings.

Now I am worried as Octopus are going to be charging mum from the readings provided on the 8th and if BG dispute the readings as being too low, what happens if BG sends her a final bill for more that the final meter reading and we pay Octopus from the final reading... she will be billed for the same electricity twice...

This is the first time she/we have ever done a switch and I'm seriously worried that BG are going to stitch my mum up good and proper. As I said earlier no one has read her meter any time recently and we do not have a smart meter so how exactly does BG have the right to dispute the readings???

As for going by previous bills, looking back over the past 30 months the bills are all over the place, 2 years ago mum had 6 relatives stay at her house for 3 months, one winter mum was on holiday for 6 weeks, I fail to see how or why this is happening...

Octopus said they would call mum back in 7 to 10 days, but I would love to be armed with information before they do as I want this sorted before the 15th of April otherwise it's going to get very messy.

Help, pretty please

dozstanford

Sorry, not trying to bump the thread, some additional info came to mind. After my mother received her last bill, it was found that BG had ramped up her night rate by 50% (she does not have central heating) and this was why she switched.

When she saw the increased night rate she reduced the time the heaters were on in the house by 2 hours.

Then when she switched to Octopus she found out that the times she thought were the economy 7 times were wrong (Octopus didn't change the times, they were provided to Octopus by BG) she thought the winter time was 12am to 7am in winter and 1am to 8am in summer, they were in fact 12.30am to 7.30am in winter and 1.30am to 8.30am in summer.

As such when she found this information out all the heater timers were changed which would have reduced day consumption by about 2.5 units and I also altered her immersion heater times to 2am to 7am which would have reduced day and night rate.

Now BG will no longer speak to mother as she is not a customer and is constantly referred back to Octopus, so how is she able to have a say or provide information for her case in this "dispute" ?

System

Hi - welcome to the forum. All meter readings on a transfer of supply go to the Data Collectors for independent verification . This link explains the process:

https://octopus.energy/blog/secret-life-opening-meter-reading/

If either supplier is unhappy with the verified meter readings that it receives then there is an Agreed Readings Dispute process. There is no question of your Mother having to pay for the same energy twice. The two suppliers are required to use the same meter readings to close and open your accounts. The fact that your Mother gave the meter readings two days later than asked will not have an effect on the verification process. I tend to give switch meter readings on the actual day of transfer. Some times they are accepted and, on other occasions, they are revised slightly by the Data Collectors. The difference in cost is in pence.

Finally, I should add that under the terms of its Supply Licence the gaining supplier is responsible for managing all aspects of the transfer of a supply. Octopus has first rate customer service and I am confident that they will resolve any issues that your Mother might have. I speak as an Octopus customer.

dozstanford

Thank you for your time and comments Hengus, they are most reassuring.

Regards
Doz

System

No problem. I had a delayed switch in the summer of 2016 which resulted in an estimated gas reading that was just under the figure that suppliers can use to raise a Dispute. Both suppliers had to accept the reading, as did I. The effect of this was the I only paid the new supplier a daily standing charge for nearly 3 months until the meter reading passed the verified switch meter reading. I ended up over paying my old supplier about £35. The actual difference in cost to me was £2.34 which was more than covered by my new supplier’s compensation payment of £25 for a botched switch. It’s computer thought that as I was a returning customer that I was already on supply so it cancelled the switch.