Scottish Power Charged me £3205 for Gas

SteveDC

Thanks for that info it has made the situation clearer to me with regard what the mistake could be. From what you are saying the 311 m3 translates to 3483 KWh which would be about right for my final quarter. Previous quarter reading was around 2500 so 3483-2500=1483kwh for the quarter in question I assume is not unreasonable. My bill has the serial number of my new meter for the final quarter and the old meter for all previous quarters. I am thinking the mistake is calculating the total based on my old meter and not the new one. Question is how do I make them look into this. They just keep telling me I owe that money! Very frustrating..

Robin9

So you know that the old meter reading was correct. Now go back through your bills until you can find one with an A for ACTUAL on it. Do your sums - you know the tariff, number of days and standing charge.

[Deleted User]

D_M_E wrote: »

Smart meter installed and you say the reading is 311Kwh?

Is this taken directly from the meter or is it off the in home display?

If from the IHD, is it the actual Kwh reading and SP have taken it as cubic meters and converted it to Kwh by multiplying by about 11.2 to reach your ginormous bill?

You need to supply them the actual meter reading in cubic meters - press button 9 and the first reading shown should be the required one, but this depends on the type of smart meter and also the supplier.

Scottish Power, or any other supplier cannot take a reading directly from an In House Display monitor..Scottish Power would only take a reading from the meter itself in cubic metres only.
Scottish Power do not use Secure Liberty keypad meters in my area.They use either Elster or Landis Gyr..no keypads on these meters

[Deleted User]

I work for Scot Power as a meter reader.Very occasionally there are customers who have an imperial gas meter with 4 digits needed as reading , that is approx 31 kwhs per each unit on the meter and Scottish Power will bill this mistakenly as a 5 digit metric meter where each unit equals only 11 kwhs.
Possibly Scottish Power have realised this and omitted to explain their mistake and taken all the underbilling back in one go .
At only £40 a month I think is seriously underbilled personally.. Its not enough IMO to cover a 3 bed semi with GCH. If this underbilling as gone on long enough for years you could easily owe £3k

GunJack

Houbara wrote: »

At only £40 a month I think is seriously underbilled personally.. Its not enough IMO to cover a 3 bed semi with GCH. If this underbilling as gone on long enough for years you could easily owe £3k

Utter tosh!! I've got a 3-storey, 4-bed semi, and my annual gas bills are under £400 a year, with 2 adults and 1 late-teen and 1 early-20 kids.

...and NONE of my bills are ever based on estimates..

[Deleted User]

GunJack wrote: »

Utter tosh!! I've got a 3-storey, 4-bed semi, and my annual gas bills are under £400 a year, with 2 adults and 1 late-teen and 1 early-20 kids.

...and NONE of my bills are ever based on estimates..

Sounds like you may be being charged for the wrong meter too.. You too are being seriously underbilled or you are as tight as a they come watching the temperature and donning thick pullovers.i would expect a normal family with a 4 bedder to be closer to £700 a year..so utter tosh to you too !!!!!!! lol
There are lots of variables involved in what anyone actually uses, depends on where you live as well .Isles of Scilly or Northern Scotland ?
I personally spend around £420 a year on gas but I am super tight and economic and live on my own..3 bed detached bungalow in South Yorks..Central heating now turned off completely until October most likely unless it drops below 8 c

SteveDC

1 year with ScottishPower so not possible to use that much gas. It’s clearly their mistake but they are not listening to me.

GunJack

SteveDC wrote: »

1 year with ScottishPower so not possible to use that much gas. It’s clearly their mistake but they are not listening to me.

Follow their internal complaints procedure and if no joy go to the ombudsman. Insist on talking to at least a supervisor, not a typical script monkey when you phone.

Bertles

What sometimes happens when you have a meter exchange close to a switch is that a reading is estimated based on the reads data from the old meter that is held in the industry database.

This would mean that your meter exchange was processed on your account and the installation read for your new meter would be 0, but then you leave and an incorrect industy estimate is used for your final read, based from the old meter reads, and this is a lot higher causing a high bill.

The supplier can just do a change of supply read dispute to get the read amended. These are very common so I don't really understand why they are giving you a hard time about it.

They should just need a photo of the meter and two support reads at least 7 days apart and then they can raise the dispute. It can take a few weeks for the dispute to be agreed but they should be able to put your account on hold so you are not being chased.

If you get nowhere on the phone, ask to speak to the manager and make a complaint.

SteveDC

Bertles wrote: »

What sometimes happens when you have a meter exchange close to a switch is that a reading is estimated based on the reads data from the old meter that is held in the industry database.

This would mean that your meter exchange was processed on your account and the installation read for your new meter would be 0, but then you leave and an incorrect industy estimate is used for your final read, based from the old meter reads, and this is a lot higher causing a high bill.

The supplier can just do a change of supply read dispute to get the read amended. These are very common so I don't really understand why they are giving you a hard time about it.

They should just need a photo of the meter and two support reads at least 7 days apart and then they can raise the dispute. It can take a few weeks for the dispute to be agreed but they should be able to put your account on hold so you are not being chased.

If you get nowhere on the phone, ask to speak to the manager and make a complaint.

Really appreciate this advice and is probably what has happened. I will call them again and mention what you say.

What a great community this is, you are all being very helpful. :T