Stay away from Spark Energy

mnikkhou

Spark Energy installed a Smart Meter on 19th October and my bills suddenly increased three times. I called them several times and wrote them emails but they do not care. Their answer to me is that I am probably using more energy! I am already with this company for two years, and I have the same lifestyle. How could be possible to receive the bills three times more expensive, exactly from the day, they installed the smart meter? I have to pay over £200 if I want them to send engineer to investigate the problem. Now, I should write down 14 days of meter reading and the details of what I am using every day. After wasting 14 days, they may decide to send engineer. Of course I have to still pay for the engineer if they think the smart meter is correct. They could easily solve this problem by checking my previous bills and the fact that why the meter reading should increase drastically exactly after they installed the new one. They should take responsibility for their problem and send engineer right away without asking for additional money. They just waste time and charge money. Stay away from Spark Energy!

jk0

Was your old gas meter in cubic feet, and the new one in cubic metres?


That usually explains this sort of thing, if the company did not change their calculations.

[Deleted User]

jk0 has may have hit on the answer..
OP, check the detailed calculation and see if the units used on the meter , that will be in cubic metres, has been multiplied by approx 33 instead of 11.2. to convert the units used on the meter to kwhs., they then multiply the kwh s used, by your tariff, and add standing charges to total up the bill. Old imperial gas meters are multiplied by approx 33 , Metrics by approx 11.2..when this mis billing takes place with gas meters its nearly three times extra that the price would increase.
If that is not the case then there is the chance that your old meter was grossly under reading and now the new smart meter is billing you correctly
I m assuming you are in a dispute about a gas meter reading but if its an electric meter then misbilling can take place with Economy 7 meters where the day and night rates get transposed.

antrobus

mnikkhou wrote: »

Spark Energy installed a Smart Meter on 19th October and my bills suddenly increased three times. ...

The Spark Energy of which you speak went bust on the 23rd November 2018 - on the 27th November 2018 Ofgem appointed Ovo Energy to take on their customers. So you now have a different supplier, although I believe Ovo are continuing to trade as 'Spark Energy'.

Certain things should have happened; you should have supplied meter reads on the 27th November 2018 - Spark should have produced a final bill etc.

I'm not sure anyone can explain why your bills have tripled. Do you have meter readings that show your gas and electricity usage? What about your monthly DDs?

MrLeccy

I think the point is being missed here.. just because OP mentions x3 billing doesn't mean its the gas usage; OP doesn't specify if he's gas/electricity or if he's on Econ7/Whitemeter.

If were coming to our own conclusions the blindingly obvious is yet to be pointed out -

When a SMART installation occurs a sticker is placed on you're new electricity/gas meters by the engineer - this a requirement for all 3rd party engineer visits - it will be dated 19th October 2018 - this will have the final reading of the meter that was removed along with the serial number.ect.

It will also contain a start reading which is along the lines of "00000"

Check the final reading on the sticker matches the final reading of you're old meter on you're "high bill" - if the reading on the bill is higher this may explain the high charges straight away.

This issue is more common than you think and explains the "My bills have doubled/tripled since SMART installation

"Assuming" (Make-an-!!!-out-of-you-and-me) you were last billed in October its been around 3 months so you've received you're first quarterly SMART bill and this is when you've been billed for the potential high final reading from the old meter and you've potentially missed it on you're bill and think its down to the new usage on the new SMART meter.

Again more information would be appreciated IF you can confirm its purely a bill from after the 20th of October then it could either be a gas related issue to do with kwh conversions however this is unlikely as this is done at the billing phase the meter doesn't auto calculate this - the imperial/metric conversion is updated when a MEX (Meter Exchange) is updated on a system via a flow and would be extremely rare.

If it's none of the above it could be a case the old meter was recording inaccurately and the new meter is now recording accurately..

This is the CHECK meter you're energy supplier have advised you have to pay to have installed - its an "accuracy" test to make sure the meter is working correctly - most suppliers policy is if they find a fault they will cover the costs but you have to front them to have it installed.

Good luck!