Spark Energy £417 Bill.

Ally_E.

You can legally change providers, Spark are horrible and a company that makes deals with landlords and estate agents to have new tenants be switched to them. We had our own saga with Spark and Ludlow Thompson.

[Deleted User]

Ally_E. wrote: »

You can legally change providers, Spark are horrible and a company that makes deals with landlords and estate agents to have new tenants be switched to them. We had our own saga with Spark and Ludlow Thompson.

Spark Energy has gone bust. OP is changing supplier anyway now.
No wonder Spark went bust anyway having to deal with constant problems with flat dwellers due to the letting agent "bung " model ..

wavelets

Houbara wrote: »

Spark Energy has gone bust. OP is changing supplier anyway now.
No wonder Spark went bust anyway having to deal with constant problems with flat dwellers due to the letting agent "bung " model ..

Ofgem has appointed Ovo Energy to take on Spark Energy Supply Ltd’s 290,000 domestic customers.
Separately, Ovo Energy has acquired Spark Energy’s operating company Spark Energy Ltd and retained the Spark Energy brand.
Energy will be supplied under Ovo Energy’s supply licence.
As Ovo Energy has acquired the Spark brand and operating company, customers will continue to be billed by Spark and be contacted by Spark’s customer service staff.
Spark Energy’s customers will stay on the same tariffs and all outstanding credit balances will be honoured, including money owed to both existing and former customers of Spark Energy.
(Customers will not be charged exit fees if they decide to switch to another supplier.)

Ovo obviously don't believe the Spark Energy brand to be in any way toxic.

What's the difference between a letting agent "bung" and a comparsion site "bung"?

wavelets

Niklas33 wrote: »

Hi all.

We've received a bill for a Month's electric bill of £417.31.

We live in a one bed rented flat.

All the rest of our bills have been between 50 and 90 pound per month.

Not sure how this has happened? We don't submit meter readings we pay the average for our property.

Our electric cut off a week ago and had an engineer out to fix it for us he submitted a reading but surely 417 is too much?

Thanks.

Niklas33 wrote: »

It doesn't show an 'A'

And we don't submit meter reading's as the meter reading is out of reach for all residents (We're all on Spark Energy) and none of us submit meter readings and just to clarify the guy who visited had to put down on his tablet he was unable to reach the meter and put in a guess on usage.

And before anybody states 'Use a ladder' the box is 30ft in the Air at the bottom of the stairs.

And to quote the guy who visited 'I've put down i'm unable to reach the box and the landlord hasn't provided a method to gain access to the box as it's too high in the air'

So you've had estimated bills, and now they've cought up with you.

If you are paying the bill, you have the right to see/access the meter - else how can you be sure the bill is correct according to the meter?

How did you read/access it when you agreed with the landlord/agent the ingoing meter reading?
How did you read /access it when you first opened the account with the energy supplier, and they would have asked you for the meter reading?
(Hopefully this was the same reading)

wavelets

HampshireH wrote: »

I'm finding it quite hard to believe you have willingly accepted this situation.

What will you do in june when spark issue you another bill this time for £800 because based on this logic they can do whatever they like.

Can we see a picture of these meters from ground level? Just all seems a bit bizarre.

Hopefully, the OP will have learned the lesson, and supply regular meter readings going forward.

In any event, the OP should agree a final outgoing meter reading with the landlord/agent when the tenancy ends in 8 months, and also supply this reading to the supplier.

Now the supplier has a usage figure for the last 2 yaers, it will hopefully be used to better estimate what the OP uses (in the event the OP fails to learn the lesson), it will mean higher bills than the previously low estimated ones , but that will not give the supplier carte blanch to "do whatever they like"

Ultimately, when the OP gets the next bill, the OP should check the meter readings used in that and compare to what the meter actually reads.

victor2

wavelets wrote: »

So you've had estimated bills, and now they've cought up with you.

If you are paying the bill, you have the right to see/access the meter - else how can you be sure the bill is correct according to the meter?

How did you read/access it when you agreed with the landlord/agent the ingoing meter reading?
How did you read /access it when you first opened the account with the energy supplier, and they would have asked you for the meter reading?
(Hopefully this was the same reading)

OP has already answered the bit in bold...

Niklas33 wrote: »

When we first moved in, we was told by Spark Energy that our bills would be based on the average for our flat and they know we can't get hold of our meter reading to it being stupidly placed.

We've been paying the estimated bills for the past 2 years.

And yes it's a tower block.

It does sound like a bizarre situation for all the tenants though. A picture of these meters would enlighten everyone on this thread.


Edit:
I see "Spark Energy: Jenny" is reading this thread, perhaps she can comment?

Former Spark Representative

Hi Niklas33

Some good advice here already, although I don't feel that contacting the Energy Ombudsman at this stage would be the right thing, as I think we could do more in-house to help with this.

It sounds to me like you'll have been billed based on estimates from the date you moved in, and it does sound like a reading's been received, so we've sent you a catch up bill. It's concerning to hear that the engineer didn't use an actual reading - I've never heard of that happening before - so it's something that we should look into.

You should have easy access to your meters at all times, but that's something that you'd need to discuss with your landlord, as it's their responsibility. It's important that the landlord and tenants have the ability to take readings to make sure that everyone's being charged the right amount for their usage.

To be honest, I'd like to investigate in more detail. Could you please email the address given in my profile and confirm your full name, your supply address, your MSE screen name and any other information you think would be helpful? It would be good to see a photo of the area where your meter is, so that we can understand the challenge you have looking at the meter.

Kind regards

Jenny
Customer Relations Team

[Deleted User]

wavelets wrote: »

Ofgem has appointed Ovo Energy to take on Spark Energy Supply Ltd’s 290,000 domestic customers.
Separately, Ovo Energy has acquired Spark Energy’s operating company Spark Energy Ltd and retained the Spark Energy brand.
Energy will be supplied under Ovo Energy’s supply licence.
As Ovo Energy has acquired the Spark brand and operating company, customers will continue to be billed by Spark and be contacted by Spark’s customer service staff.
Spark Energy’s customers will stay on the same tariffs and all outstanding credit balances will be honoured, including money owed to both existing and former customers of Spark Energy.
(Customers will not be charged exit fees if they decide to switch to another supplier.)

Ovo obviously don't believe the Spark Energy brand to be in any way toxic.

What's the difference between a letting agent "bung" and a comparsion site "bung"?

The major difference with letting agent bung against a comp site bung is that Spark accumulated a large clientele of mainly young first time renters. First time away from home with an agenda of having a good time at all costs .No mortgages, no real jobs with many of them. As a meter reader for Spark Energy for at least 10 years I ve been listening to stories from flat or lodgings dwellers for long enough
. Half of them had no idea who their supplier was anyway ! as half/most of them were on PAYG meters.. Makes sense for landlords to make sure that they had these meters in because many tenants only lasted a few months ...Huge amount of meter tampering went off with the Spark Energy crowd.. I Hope Ovo clean it up a bit by fitting their smart prepays AND keeping an eye on the meters and doing something about it when someone substitutes an Ovo Secure Liberty smart gas meter for an Ebay G4 meter.. I don t think they will somehow !
Ovo have took over Spark 100% in all but name only. The brand is toxic IMO until they stop the letting agent bung model and spread out the first time flat dweller from their books...Ovo will probably drop it so they have less of the here today gone tomorrow tenant who leaves a trail of non stop problems, and debt.. if they don`t stop it , then Ovo is the next to hit the wall.
I ve been on the Energy board since 2008 ( in different guises ) and I reckon Spark would come out top of the list for complaints despite the fact they are a tiny supplier.. Certainly on a pro rata basis they would win easily..because of the letting agent incentive bung. It would work ok if it was all to upmarket flats but now with a typical HMO of say a dozen flats with unemployed/asylum seekers or working Eastern European immigrants its failing. All around my Town Centre developers are opening batches of flats to cope with mass uncontrolled immigration from around the world and Europe

[Deleted User]

It sounds to me as if these flats are transient abodes frequently let out short term and no one has really got to the bottom of the issues as they aren't there long enough to care and the landlord has never been pushed / challenged to sort the meters.


Who in their right mind installs meters originally so high and inaccessible knowing they would need maintenance and to be read, beggers belief unless some changes have been made to layout ie originally a floor but now a ceiling etc

barnes53

Dear Jenny,

I have had a related problem with a bill from Spark, which according to the debt collector Opos, has resulted in a default being placed on my credit record with 0 prior warning. I haven't had any success at getting this sorted so I'm hoping you can help. I emailed you to the address on your profile yesterday, and would really appreciate you getting in touch.

barnes53