Being hit by a massive 6k bill

Superbbill

Gerry1 said:

You need to give far more relevant information, your post is hard to understand.  Are you referring to an electricity bill?

Think kWh and meter readings, not £DD amounts.  Give us the actual meter readings (not estimated ones) and dates together with your tariff info (name, p/kWh and daily charge) and the total that your bank statements show you've paid them.

Yes I'm refering to an electric bill. All Bills have been paid on time - I asked for a final bill as we are moving out and that's where all of this started

stewie_griffin said:

What were The readings when you switched to e.on and what are they now. Does the serial number on your bill match the one in your home.

I don't actually know. Is there somewhere that I could find this out?Robin9 said:

Give us your present meter reading please -   watch out for the decimal point.  
The meter readings at the change are either on a card or on a sticky label.
A photo would be even better.

Meter change date: 12/9/16

Meter reading when removed was 02994

Meter reading when installed: 00000

Current meter reading 64235

Petriix said:

You've almost certainly been charged for energy that you haven't used. However, it's impossible to tell unless you provide some meter readings. Maybe you're missing a decimal point or something like that? 

You definitely shouldn't have paid a £1000 bill immediately after moving in, that's just wrong. We need to know what your reading was on the day you moved in and then the final reading on the old meter, then the opening reading on the new meter (if it wasn't 0).

They shouldn't be able to charge you for energy used more than a year ago so you should be able to at least contest the charges. However, if you don't have any records of historical readings then it will be hard to figure it out. Can you share the bill with us and also a photo of the current reading on the meter?

In future take a photo of the meters once a month on your phone and log in to your energy account (with your supplier) and submit your readings online to ensure that you have accurate bills.

I realise that now, but this was over 5 years ago when I moved in, this was the first time that I had moved into a new place. I don't think there is anything I can do now about that. This recent bill is the more pressing concern now for me, I just constantly feel sick

I will now for sure, SSE used to send someone round to do it so it made life easy

MWT said:

Check your bills over the time you have been with E.ON and look at the meter readings, do they all show they are estimates (E) or do some of them have a different description that might indicate an actual meter reading?

It is very unlikely that they would have let you go 3 years on estimated readings...

I can't see to log into EON since I've tried. each time the website freezes when I attempt to log in! I get:

504 Gateway Time-out

Microsoft-Azure-Application-Gateway/v2

dogshome said:

Old style meter replaced 4 years ago ?

If this was an analogue meter, ( Revolving wheels like an old car speedometer ), it would have been a 2nd hand one that showed the reading from it's previous service

This reading should have been the Start Reading shown on your next bill, but it's not unknown for suppliers to think "It's a new meter and they start at zero"

When an Elec meter is changed, the fitter should leave a card showing the reading of the old meter as it was removed, and the new as it was installed - These cards are usually left somewhere in the meter cupboard - have a good look

The card shows 00000 and the date it was changed, Looks to have been a new one?

gzoom said:

@Superbbill Even assuming you have no other electricity bills, £6k worth of electricity over 4 years, at say 15p kWh comes out at close to 25kWh electricity usage a day.

Most UK households don't even use 10kWh a day, either your using huge amounts of electricity or the meter/reading is wrong.

Meters do go wrong but often so your have a fight on your hands to get the supplier to accept its a meter problem.

I am hoping so much that this is a bad meter, I took a photo and sent it to them when they raised this - 25kwh is a huge amount of electric to be using, I don't even have an electric boiler!

Robin9 said:

This may simply be superbills arithmetic -   getting a decimal point or two wrong might be that he owes £600 or £60  

They confirmed the meter reading when I sent them a photo 

If they do end up sending me the bill, is there anything I can do to fight this? They have asked me to take meter readings this morning, evening and the same tomorrow - I move out in 2 days and this has just completely blindsided me!

Thank you all! 

Superbbill

Robin9

16000 units a year is very high - £2400 a year. 
I don't think you've said what your heating is ?   Is it those very fancy panel heaters filled with magic dust or oil or a wet radiator system with a big hot water tank  - ?

MWT

Superbbill said:

If they do end up sending me the bill, is there anything I can do to fight this? They have asked me to take meter readings this morning, evening and the same tomorrow - I move out in 2 days and this has just completely blindsided me

If you can post the readings here when you take them it will quickly show what is going on at the moment at least.

The reading you posted of 64235 after starting at zero 45 months ago works out at around 48kWh a day which is a crazy average to have so even though it is summer I'd expect to see some silly numbers in your readings today if the problem is still there...

For your sanity, the back-billing rules should help limit your exposure whatever the outcome, but the inability to access those previous bills makes it harder to nail down if they have ever taken a meter reading which is a pity.

MWT

Hopefully your readings for current usage are going to look 'normal' which would point at the real meter start point for the replacement not actually being zero...  ... but without any readings between now and then it is going to be hard to prove, which is why it would be good to know if there is even a single actual reading on any of the bills in the last 4 years...

Robin9

I missed in your post replying to the questions - "I don't even have an electric boiler"  - by which I think you mean an Immersion Heater.  Is your heating then gas, oil or LPG ?

Mister_G

Robin9 said:

I missed in your post replying to the questions - "I don't even have an electric boiler"  - by which I think you mean an Immersion Heater.  Is your heating then gas, oil or LPG ?

From OP
"Our heating is done by Oil and we don't have any air-con or electric heaters."

MWT

Mister_G said:

Robin9 said:

I missed in your post replying to the questions - "I don't even have an electric boiler"  - by which I think you mean an Immersion Heater.  Is your heating then gas, oil or LPG ?

From OP
"Our heating is done by Oil and we don't have any air-con or electric heaters."

... all of which suggests the replacement meter wasn't at zero I'd say, but the meter readings today should help support that.

... or there is a decimal point still being missed...

Robin9

Apologies for the red herring. 
Agree with MWT there is still the possibility of a decimal point.
Superbill - can we have a photo of the meter please ?   One of the old ones if you don't have time during your packing ?

matelodave

This is another case where reading the meters yourself a bit more frequently, sending in readings and checking that the bills do actually reflect ACTUAL meter readings would have shown up any anomalies months or even years ago. Likewise saving PDF copies of bills and statements yourself is a lot better than hoping that it's all going to be available on line when you need it.

Backtracking over four years isn't going to be everso easy, even if you did have the bills if most of them were estimated. When was the last time you had a bill with actual rather than estimated readings.

bsms1147

So the old meter that was removed read 02994? How long had that meter been there? Failing that how long had you lived there before that meter was changed for the new one (the meter will therefore be at least that old).

Assuming you’d lived with the old meter for a year, and that it started at 0 on day 1 you moved in (the meter was likely older than this, and was already well above zero on move in date, but for the point of the argument), you used ~3000 units over that year.

The new meter, if correct at 64235 units, and having been in for 45 months, works out at 17,000 units per year, if it had started at zero, which is clearly ridiculous.

Either the meter didn’t start at zero, the 64235 reading is incorrect, or a faulty meter.