Please tell me I'm having a late April's fools from Spark.

Marco84

I just had an e-mail from Spark saying "At the moment your monthly Direct Debit is!£50, but based on your meter reads, it looks like your payment should increase to!£108.01. This will help to pay back your outstanding balance over the next six months, while covering the extra energy you’re likely to use over the colder winter months."

Of course they send it just before closing for the weekend.

Back story: I moved into my one bed Marionette in middle of Feb and Spark was the current supplier. They set me up and said £50 will cover me.

From Feb until Apirl all I been doing is renovating and decorating (washing and cooking at parents) no TV, led light bulbs, central heating on average 2 hours a day.

My Feb bill was £4 electric and £5 gas. They take £50 for the month as expected. I'm £40 in credit.

Looking at my March bill today after the e-mail is where it gets confusing (same low usage as Feb) it says I submitted £2 (13 kWh) electric yet they added their own estimation of £12 (81 kWh) and charged me for their estimation over my submitted accurate reading.
The same story with gas my 6 units vs their 18.

That brings my current balance to them 41p... and apparently my June gas and electricity estimation (on a 1 bed Marionette) is ££223.17... I've only started normal household usage in Apirl and haven't submitted that reading yet!

What on earth is going on? It's a worry I can do without and I can't even call them until Monday.

Neil_Jones

Your direct debit is only ever an estimate of usage, it means nothing on its own. The estimate for June is what it is - an estimate. Until you can figure out how to install a flux capacitor into a Delorean, ignore it.

You won't use anywhere near that amount of gas and/or electricity in June especially if we have another heatwave like we had last year which went on for weeks and everybody lived under electric fans. Its a common misconception for somebody to look at a bill for the coldest month of the year, multiply the amount by 12 and have to be scraped off the floor afterwards - what you use October-March is the bulk of the year's energy. After that you're just into basically showering, cooking, hot water for cleaning, etc and gas will probably drop into next to sod all usage after the end of April.

Anyway if you're submitting readings and they're adding estimates on afterwards that means your readings are out of sync with the billing period. To avoid this submit your readings closer to that date, ideally the day before where possible.

Marco84

It says they will take £108 from now on instead of £50 a month. It's a big jump I can't afford and it seems for no reason, I wont even use £50, they using their own made up figures.

And I always submit my readings when they request them usually a week before the bill, but they still estimating away.

Marco84

I just checked my eletric meter now. On 31st March I submitted reading 18811. My meter now reads 2 weeks later 18851. Their random estimate that overuled my reading is 18892. They doing a more than 100% increase on my DD for what?

Mr.Generous

Change supplier ASAP cancel the DD and pay the actual usage bill as and when due.

Marco84

Will it cause any issues changing supplier/cancelling, while they pulling out random estimates?
I'm concerned as I'm on a shoe string at the moment and got no room for error financially. I've always been so careful with utilities and this has unnerved me.

D_M_E

My respose to that would be to cancel the DD before any more money is taken by them and, when they get on and complain, tell them why and state that the bill payer is a low user and that, as such, bills for accurate supplied readings would be paid on receipt, all estimated bills would be ignored but bills based on actual readings supplied either by the bill payer or their meter reader(s) would be paid.

Would also tell them that actual photos of the readings given would be supplied on request.

EDIT - would also watch the bank account in case they try and reinstate the DD.

Former Spark Representative

Hi Marco84

I'm sorry to hear that you've been concerned by our Direct Debit review.

The communication you received should explain that if you call or chat with us, that we can review the amount you're paying, the amount we propose only stands if you don't contact us.

When you move into a property, your Direct Debit amount is estimated, as we won't know how much energy you've used until you've been in the property a few months. This means we review Direct Debits on a regular basis and any adjustments are usually made to cover your actual usage or any balance due.

Before switching supplier, please check your tariff as you may be on a fixed tariff, which would come with an exit fee.

Before cancelling your Direct Debit instruction, please consider contacting us using the email address in my profile, as cancelling your Direct Debit will put you on the more expensive non Direct Debit tariff.

Once we've heard from you, we can check your bills and re-calculate your payments.

Kind regards

Jenny
Customer Relations Team

Marco84

Closure: Spark claimed their system got it a bit wrong. My electric and gas DD has now been reduced to £40. Quite a swing 100%+ increase to a 20% reduction.

m0bov

Did'nt spark go bust?

D_M_E

It would appear that Spark customers were transferred to Supplier of Last Resort and Spark's customer service team - or at least some of them - also moved with them and are handling complaints on behalf of former Spark customers.