Final bill delays after switching energy supplier

nothingsimple345

Hi, done my bit over the years and switched a number of time's when my contract was due for renewal to a cheaper unit price. My issue at present is the length of time taken by my next to last supplier, whom I left 27th September 2018, giving a final statement. When I contact them they refer me to my new supplier, to make sure they have sent the final readings through the "inter connector". I have been on to both suppliers and not getting anywhere fast. Is any one else having delays due to this "inter connector".(Not sure if this is the correct name, basically a means of transferring details from one company to another). Apparently this system should all be automatic, but the information being sent by my present supplier is not being picked up by my previous supplier.
Anyone else having delays?


King Canute could not hold back the rising tide, this is the same with energy costs.:(

jk0

Yup. Loads of us. Look at all the threads about Outfox & Economy Energy.


I believe the system works perfectly well. Just certain firms are broke, and so pretend they 'don't yet have the final readings'.

Anthorn

nothingsimple345 wrote: »

Hi, done my bit over the years and switched a number of time's when my contract was due for renewal to a cheaper unit price. My issue at present is the length of time taken by my next to last supplier, whom I left 27th September 2018, giving a final statement. When I contact them they refer me to my new supplier, to make sure they have sent the final readings through the "inter connector". I have been on to both suppliers and not getting anywhere fast. Is any one else having delays due to this "inter connector".(Not sure if this is the correct name, basically a means of transferring details from one company to another). Apparently this system should all be automatic, but the information being sent by my present supplier is not being picked up by my previous supplier.
Anyone else having delays?


King Canute could not hold back the rising tide, this is the same with energy costs.:(

The way the process works is that you give your meter readings to your new supplier, they pass on those readings to your old supplier and hopefully they both agree. Then your old supplier produces your final bill, closes your account and refunds a credit balance or charges a debit balance. This means that your closing readings with your old supplier will be the same as your opening readings with your new supplier so you won't be charged twice for the same energy.

In your case the process does appear to be taking longer than usual: Even in the case of disputed meter readings I would expect a delay of no more than two months. Personally, I would refer it to Ofgem but you could be shooting yourself in the foot if you expect the final bill from your old supplier to be in debit with an amount owing.

jk0

If the losing firm has cash flow problems, presumably it's in losing firm's interests to dispute the readings to give them two month's grace, isn't it?

Lochmaben

I learned to take photos of both electricity and gas meters and submit them TO BOTH COMPANIES the day before switchover takes place. I do this via email and on the online meter reading sites and ask for the companies to confirm that they have received the readings.

Biggus_Dickus

nothingsimple345 wrote: »

Hi, done my bit over the years and switched a number of time's when my contract was due for renewal to a cheaper unit price. My issue at present is the length of time taken by my next to last supplier, whom I left 27th September 2018, giving a final statement. When I contact them they refer me to my new supplier, to make sure they have sent the final readings through the "inter connector". I have been on to both suppliers and not getting anywhere fast. Is any one else having delays due to this "inter connector".(Not sure if this is the correct name, basically a means of transferring details from one company to another). Apparently this system should all be automatic, but the information being sent by my present supplier is not being picked up by my previous supplier.
Anyone else having delays?


King Canute could not hold back the rising tide, this is the same with energy costs.:(

I’ve never heard the term "inter connector";...perhaps they use it to describe how the switching info etc flows between the 4 parties involved,..i.e. previous supplier, gaining supplier, gas verifiers and leccy verifiers.

Your final gas & leccy meter readings are forwarded to two separate companies for what’s called ‘industry verification’. Your final readings are NOT agreed between your previous supplier and your new supplier,...the final meter-reading ‘industry verification’ process is designed to take care of all that.

Until the ‘industry verification’ process for both gas and leccy is completed your previous supplier cannot issue an accurate final bill,...and consequently cannot issue an accurate credit refund.

Xoserve have administered 3.5Million gas consumer switches (verifications) in 2018 up to October;...the average ‘gas’ switching time was 18 days which on the face of it doesn’t seem particularly impressive, IMHO.
https://www.xoserve.com/index.php/our-services/ie-consumer-switching/

During my own recent supplier switch from Avro to YorksEnergy the gas reading ‘verification’ took over 7 weeks! ;...however, the leccy reading ‘verification’ was completed within a very impressive:j 3 or 4 days.

I have no idea why the two separate ‘verification’ processes had such very different time-scales.

MoneySavingAtWork

I keep reading your existing company has 6 weeks to produce a final bill. Can anyone clarify whether that is 6 weeks after the you sign up to a new company or 6 weeks after the new company officially takes the supply? As that process often takes several weeks does this exent the final bill deadline even later?

wavelets

MoneySavingAtWork wrote: »

I keep reading your existing company has 6 weeks to produce a final bill. Can anyone clarify whether that is 6 weeks after the you sign up to a new company or 6 weeks after the new company officially takes the supply? As that process often takes several weeks does this exent the final bill deadline even later?

It's 6 weeks from the point at which they stop supplying you
i.e. from the point the new supplier starts supplying you.

[Deleted User]

From OFGEM, I've made the part Bold for ease of reference

SLC 27 Payments, security deposits, disconnections and final bills
This SLC covers a number of areas. Of particular relevance to this theme:
 Suppliers must take all reasonable steps to send final bills or statements of
account within six weeks of the end of a supply contract.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2017/11/metering_billing_and_payments_0.pdf

wavelets

nothingsimple345 wrote: »

Hi, done my bit over the years and switched a number of time's when my contract was due for renewal to a cheaper unit price. My issue at present is the length of time taken by my next to last supplier, whom I left 27th September 2018, giving a final statement. When I contact them they refer me to my new supplier, to make sure they have sent the final readings through the "inter connector". I have been on to both suppliers and not getting anywhere fast. Is any one else having delays due to this "inter connector".(Not sure if this is the correct name, basically a means of transferring details from one company to another). Apparently this system should all be automatic, but the information being sent by my present supplier is not being picked up by my previous supplier.
Anyone else having delays?


King Canute could not hold back the rising tide, this is the same with energy costs.:(

Lochmaben wrote: »

I learned to take photos of both electricity and gas meters and submit them TO BOTH COMPANIES the day before switchover takes place. I do this via email and on the online meter reading sites and ask for the companies to confirm that they have received the readings.

I think in all the years we have been switching energy suppliers, I can only recall two occassions where a final bill was significantly delayed.

With one supplier I don't think it related to any excuse over meter readings but rather that they were just useless in that not only did they not produce the final bill within time, but all attempts to contact them were also ignored
e.g. they never answered the phone (i.e. long delays kept on hold), or didn't respond to other communications such as email, letter etc.

So followed the supplier complaint procedure, which was also ignored by them initiallly, until I instructed the ombudsman who soon got the supplier to produce the final bill for us.

The other occassion was indeed the excuse that the old supplier claimed they had not had the closing meter reading passed to them by the new supplier.
I don't know how true that was (as the new supplier was telling me they had done so) but the situation was soon resolved after 6 weeks waiting.

You see when we switched supplier on that occassion, I just so happened to give the meter reading to both the new and old suppliers on the day of switch - it was easy as I had online accounts to do so.

As an added bonus, I noticed from the old supplier who I had been with for several months giving regular monthly meter reads, would only display a submitted meter reading on my account a few days after submission, and I was previously informed this was because they only accept them after they have been verified by the independent meter reading agency.
I did get acknowledgemets of meter submissions on the day they were submitted, but the actual reading was not displayed until verified.

So, sure enough, when I submitted the meter reading to the old supplier on the day I left, it was not displayed immedaitely, as the supplier automatically sought verification. And a few days later it was displayed, indicating the old supplier had obtained the verification themselves from the meter reading agency of the meter reading I submitted.

Also, when I looked into matters all those years ago, and I don't think the procedure has changed since, although the new supplier is supposed to manage the switch, after 6 weeks the old supplier can begin to take charge and submit an estimated reading for verification that the new supplier needs to use to start billing from.

Well, by this time I already had the first bill from the new supplier, and they were using the start reading I had supplied them.
So I asked the old supplier to "take the reasonable steps" required of them and produce a final bill, based on an estimate if necessary that would fisrt need to be verified.

It was at this point that I reminded them they already had a verified meter reading relating to the day they stopped supplying me, which would make their estimation process both extremely easy and accurate!

So to avoid the consequences of inevitably getting charged by the ombudsman if I was forced to instigate a formal complaint because of their ongoing denial of being able to produce a final bill, they decided they could after all produce a final bill based on the information they had, and simply said they may need to amend it later if there was a challenge raised by the new supplier or the meter reading agency over the meter reading they would use as a final reading.

I received their final bill shortly therafter, and of course, there has been no amendment to this day, because there was no challenge, as both suppliers had used the same reading - the same one I had provided both on the day I switched.

Sometimes, what appears to be a rather strange way to handle matters (in this case not to display meter readings until they were verified) can actually work to your advantage in the long run.

nothingsimple345

Thanks to all comments and suggestions.
I will have one more attempt with direct contact with Green Star, my previous supplier, after confirming with Bulb my new supplier that they have sent the readings. If no success I guess I will be contacting the energy ombudsman to sort out.:)