Impossible Bill - Collection agency

joseph2020

MWT said:

joseph2020 said:

According to my online readings for BG, the first reading they received on 16th Jan and it was 14000 which was estimated. The most recent on 3rd May was 16605 from the smart meter.

In your earlier post you said they were trying to charge you for usage of 6731 over that period, but those readings would give 2605 for the period?

For 4 months 2605 is not unreasonable, so where does the 6732 come from?

Can you give us all the meter readings since you had the smart meter installed along with their dates...

I am not entirely sure. I am just going off what my BG account says on my statement. Before that with Breeze, the ones sending the collection notice, I do not have access to all my meter readings. 
My account with them is now inaccessible. Even with attempts to reset the password I cannot login to receive my bills or readings.

joseph2020

Robin9 said:

A second look at the meter please - is there  a decimal point ie 01742.5   ?? and is there a card left when the meter was changed - this gives the meter reading of the old meter and of the new (usually 00000.0 but it may have been second hand)

Double checked and there is no decimal point. Also no card or sticker left too. 

joseph2020

MWT said:

joseph2020 said:

I was paying a direct debit with them from beginning of my contract, my usage only deviated by £1 or £2 every month until the smart meter was installed. Since that date it is when the bill came to £999, over a period of a couple of months. 
There is no card or sticker on the smart meter unfortunately. 

You need to go back and look at those bills to see which ones were using estimates vs actual meter readings. If they were using their estimates to set the DD and the consumption then they wouldn't have varied much right up until they swapped the meter and used the actual final meter reading for the last bill...

It also wouldn't be the first time that the final reading from the old meter was incorrectly reported causing an excessive bill but that will not be easy to spot if you have no meter readings of your own on the old meter...

Got ya. Thank you. I will try and find any type of bill from Breeze, but all I can say is that they told me not to do the readings as they would themselves. Also, have no access to the account where all the info was saved

MWT

So in summary, the readings you've given us from the smart meter do suggest that you have relatively high daily usage (48kWh/day for 3rd-20th May) .. but not clear proof that the meter is faulty.

I would suggest that in addition to checking the old bills to try and get a handle on the claimed debt, you start looking closer and what you are using each day.both by taking daily readings to look at total usage and by using the IHD to see how much is being used at any one time so you can try and figure out where it is all going...

I'd start by looking at water heating and in particular make sure you haven't got an immersion heater on 24/7 for example...

joseph2020

MWT said:

So in summary, the readings you've given us from the smart meter do suggest that you have relatively high daily usage (48kWh/day for 3rd-20th May) .. but not clear proof that the meter is faulty.

I would suggest that in addition to checking the old bills to try and get a handle on the claimed debt, you start looking closer and what you are using each day.both by taking daily readings to look at total usage and by using the IHD to see how much is being used at any one time so you can try and figure out where it is all going...

I'd start by looking at water heating and in particular make sure you haven't got an immersion heater on 24/7 for example...

I will do, thank you.
I don't have anything ridiculous on as it would seem. Only 2 people in the flat, away most of the time too as working full time. 

MWT

Also some simple tests you can do to verify that the meter is accurate.

Unplug and turn everything off and check that the meter is not still going up...

Once you've done that just turn on a single high current device like a kettle, and see what the IHD shows, probably around 2-3kW and then check that the meter also shows an appropriate increase. So if it is a 3kW kettle then the meter should show an increase of 0.150 kWh if it is on for 3 mins...

Robin9

Trying to make some sense of this.
Working backwards from the BG data  - 15705 at the beginning of May less a consumption of 6731 would give an opening read of 8974 at the beginning of Jan. (20 weeks)
this is 60 kwh a day.  and about £1100.   But you don't query that.

On the same basis Sept to Jan  is also 20 weeks but includes a high use period of Christmas and New Year - so an opening read of 00000.0 is quite possible.

As you haven't got your Smart bills - have you your bank statements ? How much had you paying as a DD ?  Well in excess of £100 I hope - it's looking to me that your DD to Smart had been insufficient for a long time and you had built up a considerable deficit. Perhaps you were already several hundred of £'s in arrears before the Smart meter went in.


P S Very surprised that the Breeze Smart meter is giving Smart readings to BG.  A very rare beast. Double check your last BG bill - was the last reading Estimated (E) or Actual (A) ?  Whatever suppliers say about Smart meters  - always keep you own records and do your own sums.

MWT

Robin9 said:

P S Very surprised that the Breeze Smart meter is giving Smart readings to BG.  A very rare beast. Double check your last BG bill - was the last reading Estimated (E) or Actual (A) ?  Whatever suppliers say about Smart meters  - always keep you own records and do your own sums.

It isn't unusual for SMETS2 though. As long as you switch to a provider that is already using the DCC properly there should only be a small delay before the data flows.

Smodlet

This is what happens when we abdicate control to computers, imho.  Smart meters are evil, imho; rely on no-one but yourself and your own readings, take them often and regularly so any dispute can be resolved quickly without the need to go back more than a month and always, always work out for yourself what you have used and how much it cost:  That way, you retain control and always have evidence (ideally photos of meters) when energy suppliers decide to play silly b*ggers ( their default setting)

Hasbeen

Robin9 said:

Trying to make some sense of this.
Working backwards from the BG data  - 15705 at the beginning of May less a consumption of 6731 would give an opening read of 8974 at the beginning of Jan. (20 weeks)
this is 60 kwh a day.  and about £1100.   But you don't query that.

On the same basis Sept to Jan  is also 20 weeks but includes a high use period of Christmas and New Year - so an opening read of 00000.0 is quite possible.

As you haven't got your Smart bills - have you your bank statements ? How much had you paying as a DD ?  Well in excess of £100 I hope - it's looking to me that your DD to Smart had been insufficient for a long time and you had built up a considerable deficit. Perhaps you were already several hundred of £'s in arrears before the Smart meter went in.


P S Very surprised that the Breeze Smart meter is giving Smart readings to BG.  A very rare beast. Double check your last BG bill - was the last reading Estimated (E) or Actual (A) ?  Whatever suppliers say about Smart meters  - always keep you own records and do your own sums.

Would think that OP had a very low startup direct debit set up with Breeze.??  But was quite happy with this as all the estimated readings were in line with the direct debit taken. So all is well. Op never appeared to gave any actual readings?


All electric flat and with what now appears high usage.


New smart meter fitted and actual old meter reading given to Breeze and smart meter started to give actual true readings.


Op left to go with BG. But is smart meter actually giving readings to BG?


OP gets a bill from Breeze for actual usage and does not pay it as it must be the smart meter at fault.


Now at debt collection stage.


Hopefully the Breeze smart meter is actually giving true readings to BG and OP is not relying on estimates?  As this scenario might be similar to the next one the OP posts?


My thoughts / opinion only on this issue. So stand to be corrected. By more expert posters.


Hope all is resolved well for OP.