Elderly Parents getting Ripped Off

bsms1147

There is a big difference between the amounts shown in the online account for each month and what the bills show;

The online account shows 3559 units for Jan and 1053 for Feb. The bills - which appear to be based of Actual readings - show 4182 units for January and 373 for February. In fact every other month visible on the bills provided shows consistently ~400 units per month, so the anomalous months are not both January and February (as implied by the figures shown in the online account), but only January, when the month’s reading was more than 10 times the normal amount.

Is anyone else not concerned/intrigued by this?

I’m still interested to see the actual bills for the months up to January 2020 and I’m expecting they show a consistent 400 units every month.

(As to why the online account shows figures which have no bearing on what was billed I have no idea, but let’s just focus on what the bills show)

OP the £315 each month is at that level as your parents are catching up on a debt from the January month. As to why they aren’t in a high amount of credit my guess is that there was a previous debt that was only just caught up with by the Jan 2020 statement. They are high users of both electricity and gas so moving onto a better tariff elsewhere is prudent anyway. You are unlikely to be able to claim back any money, even for the January month, as the current reading on the bills does match up with the meter, so the electricity has been ‘used’, just can’t yet work out how.

xlnc99

@comeandgo - who do i gve the readings too? So i give just the current readings to Scottish Power now? They havent asked for them as of yet
@Gerry1 - So how much is my parents in credit at the moment

All i wanna do right now is get the credit that is owed and switch provider. The problem is how much credit is owed? We can see its at least £1100 Plus without the extra high charges. This should be more once the charges are reclaimed (if we can do it)

xlnc99

bsms1147 said:

There is a big difference between the amounts shown in the online account for each month and what the bills show;

The online account shows 3559 units for Jan and 1053 for Feb. The bills - which appear to be based of Actual readings - show 4182 units for January and 373 for February. In fact every other month visible on the bills provided shows consistently ~400 units per month, so the anomalous months are not both January and February (as implied by the figures shown in the online account), but only January, when the month’s reading was more than 10 times the normal amount.

Is anyone else not concerned/intrigued by this?

I’m still interested to see the actual bills for the months up to January 2020 and I’m expecting they show a consistent 400 units every month.

(As to why the online account shows figures which have no bearing on what was billed I have no idea, but let’s just focus on what the bills show)

OP the £315 each month is at that level as your parents are catching up on a debt from the January month. As to why they aren’t in a high amount of credit my guess is that there was a previous debt that was only just caught up with by the Jan 2020 statement. They are high users of both electricity and gas so moving onto a better tariff elsewhere is prudent anyway. You are unlikely to be able to claim back any money, even for the January month, as the current reading on the bills does match up with the meter, so the electricity has been ‘used’, just can’t yet work out how.

In answer to your first point - i have no idea i will leave to the experts to answer that.
I will post the bills shortly from June 2019 to Jan 2020.
There was no previous debt, if you look at the chart and figures i showed you my parents have always been in credit since day by over paying her DD every month, quite substantially. If you look at the energy bill for the last 12 months and compare it to the money paid each money by DD - she is owed at least 1k 

Gerry1

As previously suggested, forget all the shenanigans and incomprehensible bills for a moment.  Have you taken the opening and present readings, done the simple sums and compared the total energy usage cost with the total paid by all the DDs shown on the bank statements?

Robin9

I don't know how SP runs their billing system but online do they have separate accounts for electricity and gas. If the £473.05 is for gas (say) is there another page for electric.

Re your question  - what is Smart ?  Your meter is one of the many that when originally had the means to communicate readings back to the supplier  (lot's of discussions on the benefits/costs - lets not go there).  Who in 2014 when the meter was installed was your parents supplier - and when did they switch to SP.

Yes the meter will retain the info and it can be extracted -  but you will have to meet the cost (perhaps £150)  which will get refunded if it is faulty. Nothing will happen due to the present situation.
Move on with the switch and return to this issue later.


Now for the GAS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pressing button 9 gives a reading in m3 - this is what you want (watch out for the decimal point)

matelodave

They do seem to be using tremendous amount of leccy bearing in mind that they've got gas heating, hot water and possibly cooking as well.

The average for most households would be around 3500kwh/year = 10kwh/day or 300kwh a month. Obviously some people use more and some less but even we, who heat, light, cook, get hot water and everything else with leccy only get through 7000kwh a year (it goes up and down - about 250kwh/mo in the summer and over 1000kwh/m in the winter) so it would be worth investigating what they are using it all for but not until you've sorted out their bills and payments.

An average for gas would be around 12,000kwh a year but that again depends on the type of house, how it's used, how hot they keep it and a host of other things.
TBH you or someone really need to start monitoring consumption a bit more closely to work out what is using it all and when it's being used so you can decide what needs to be turned down, switched off or adjusted.

It really would be a good idea to keep a spreadsheet on record meter readings once a week so you can understand what is going on - just wading through several months or even years of bills takes a bit of detective work but done methodically it should be possible to sort it out -start at the beginning with a confirmed actual reading and work through it carefully (don't try to work backwards). As others have said, even a couple of erroneous readings or random estimates should cancel out when a proper reading is given but it's important to check that the bills do actually reflect readings.

xlnc99

Bills from 2019 posted as requested 

xlnc99

Gerry1 said:

As previously suggested, forget all the shenanigans and incomprehensible bills for a moment.  Have you taken the opening and present readings, done the simple sums and compared the total energy usage cost with the total paid by all the DDs shown on the bank statements?

No , please tell me how to do so and i will do it. If you can give me a step to step guide that would be much appreciated. 

Robin9 said:

I don't know how SP runs their billing system but online do they have separate accounts for electricity and gas. If the £473.05 is for gas (say) is there another page for electric.

Re your question  - what is Smart ?  Your meter is one of the many that when originally had the means to communicate readings back to the supplier  (lot's of discussions on the benefits/costs - lets not go there).  Who in 2014 when the meter was installed was your parents supplier - and when did they switch to SP.

Yes the meter will retain the info and it can be extracted -  but you will have to meet the cost (perhaps £150)  which will get refunded if it is faulty. Nothing will happen due to the present situation.
Move on with the switch and return to this issue later.


Now for the GAS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pressing button 9 gives a reading in m3 - this is what you want (watch out for the decimal point)

I will find out the answer to your questions from my parents and get back to you. I will have a look at the GAS later on today and report back. I do recall seeing m3 when i pressed 9 a few days ago

matelodave said:

They do seem to be using tremendous amount of leccy bearing in mind that they've got gas heating, hot water and possibly cooking as well.

The average for most households would be around 3500kwh/year = 10kwh/day or 300kwh a month. Obviously some people use more and some less but even we, who heat, light, cook, get hot water and everything else with leccy only get through 7000kwh a year (it goes up and down - about 250kwh/mo in the summer and over 1000kwh/m in the winter) so it would be worth investigating what they are using it all for but not until you've sorted out their bills and payments.

An average for gas would be around 12,000kwh a year but that again depends on the type of house, how it's used, how hot they keep it and a host of other things.
TBH you or someone really need to start monitoring consumption a bit more closely to work out what is using it all and when it's being used so you can decide what needs to be turned down, switched off or adjusted.

It really would be a good idea to keep a spreadsheet on record meter readings once a week so you can understand what is going on - just wading through several months or even years of bills takes a bit of detective work but done methodically it should be possible to sort it out -start at the beginning with a confirmed actual reading and work through it carefully (don't try to work backwards). As others have said, even a couple of erroneous readings or random estimates should cancel out when a proper reading is given but it's important to check that the bills do actually reflect readings.

There is some issue with my electricity as you mentioned, the consumption is far to much and i know for a fact they use hardly anything electric. Fans - two of them when its hot but for a short time. They have a blender for fruit smoothies etc. No lawnmower, no shower. Fridge and Freezer. Lights on downstairs all night. Porch light on all night. Maybe one light upstairs at night. A couple of laptops they use plugged in all the time

This is about it

I think its a good idea to monitor everything and once i sort this mess out i will do what you say. The problem is i have no idea about meters, readings, etc. Learning each day through this thread - does seem very complex

xlnc99

xlnc99 said:

Another reason i dont trust Scottish Power is because of the billing online which does not make any sense: Please look below

Billing - All done by Direct Debit which Scottish Power Take Monthly
Energy Billing

Date                                             Energy Bill                        Payment Made

June 2019                                     £204.32                             £284.00
July 2019                                      £165.28                              £252.00     
August 2019                                   £119.82                              £252.00
September 2019                           £131.90                             £252.00
October 2019                                £115.41                               £252.00
November 2019                             £142.43                               £252.00
December 2019                            £177.55                              £252.00
January 2020                                  £289.36                              £252.00
February 2020                                  £658.38                               £252.00
March 2020                                     £175.36                             £252.00
April                                               £197.59                                £315.00
May 2020                                       £107.32                                  £315.00
June 2020                                      £149.46                                £315.00
July 2020                                       £21.57 & £41.72                  £315.00

Total                                                £2,697.71                            £3,812

If we were to include the high charges for Jan/Feb and other months without re-claiming and take it on face value my parents have been charged £2,6971 for the year. The have paid to date via DD £3,812 so it means they will be incredit at LEAST over 1k. However on account log in it says their credit is only £473.05

Can anyone please explain this?

I really dont know anything about energy but just looking at the numbers it seems Scottish power are pulling a fast one in more then one area

I have more information in regards to the post above i made about the credit. Having logged on i can see that in June 2019 that the closing balance was -£561.80 so my parents were starting at a negative, which explains why the credit is only £473.05

How is this possible? I have tried to open the bill but they dont have a record of this bill so i have no idea how this negative £500 came to light.

Please see photo attached

JGB1955

A quick glance at the Aug 2019 bill shows that your parents started off £594.90 in the RED.  The monthly payments include the bill for gas.   I suspect there is no problem with the billing.

They made a payment in May 2019, so their contract must have started earlier than you though.