Back-billing for the past 5 years!

zafyha

Hi all 
First time posting here so you can guess, there must be a massive reason for doing so! I’d really appreciate some advice please. I haven’t been good at submitting meter reads for the past 5 years. I’ve been with the same company, they kept steadily increasing my DD, changing their tariffs at times but stuck with the same company. This June during lockdown I finally decided to be a bit more proactive with everything and decided to submit both gas and electric meter readings. It didn’t allow me to do this online as their readings were too high and mine were too low. I then emailed them and submitted my readings via email. They then got in touch with me saying the meter had rolled back and so they would now look at the whole billing system. Looong story short-I now have been CREDITED £401 for both gas & electric but am also £2600 in arrears for my gas bill since 2015.
I’m in touch with  someone from their resolution team who is saying they don’t have the reads from gas at all, so they looked at the bill from my opening read in 2015 and now in June 2020. I told him
im sure there was someone who did come to the house to take readings and he confirmed on one of the bills from last year, April 2019, it says Engineer reads but it doesn’t show the actual read for gas. He’ll chase this up and email me the gas reads but he thinks there wasn’t any gas reads submitted by the engineer. 

Anyway, I’m really quite taken aback. In all honesty, I needed to have submitted monthly readings-but if an engineer came last year, if they saw there was major discrepancy, shouldn’t they have back billed me then? Can they back bill me for 5 years? Any advice/help would be welcome....

Thanks 

Robin9

zafyha said:

 .......................Looong story short-I now have been CREDITED £401 for both gas & electric but am also £2600 in arrears for my gas bill since 2015.....................................

I don't understand - you have a combined credit for gas and electric and a separate debit for gas.???

As well as not reading your meter did you ever take out fresh contracts in the last year - if not since the first one ran out you will have charged on a standard (ie expensive) tariff. What tariff are you on now -?  Switch tariffs NOW within the present supplier while this is sorted.

brewerdave

zafyha said:

Anyway, I’m really quite taken aback. In all honesty, I needed to have submitted monthly readings-but if an engineer came last year, if they saw there was major discrepancy, shouldn’t they have back billed me then? Can they back bill me for 5 years? Any advice/help would be welcome....

Thanks 

Are you saying that you haven't received a bill for 5 years ? Haven't had a bill appear on your online account ? If they have been reviewing your DDs regularly then it suggests strongly that bills have been produced ,so back billing would not apply. Also you need to have sought the bills over the period for back billing to be considered -sounds like you haven't.
As to the meter reader visit last year, they are not employed directly by the Utility Co. anymore - generally contracted out work. I had a visit by a meter reader about 15 months ago - he only read the elec. meter - told me he wasn't contracted to do gas - and the reading he took, has never appeared anywhere as far as I can see.

zafyha

@Robin thanks a lot for your reply. On switching tariffs, I have switched tariffs a few times throughout the past 5 years, to try and reduce my monthly DD. However, over the past 5 years, my DD has been steadily rising. The company has been changing my DD also in line with the estimated personal projection. 

I too am a bit confused why I have been credited for both gas & electric but then back-billed for gas. Speaking with the customer service guy, I understand that when I submitted my readings in June 2020, the company realised there was a huge difference in the readings, especially Gas. The Gas meter rolled back to 0000 at some point and so back-billed me for gas from Oct 2015 (when I moved into the property and did supply a meter reading) to June 2020, when I again submitted a meter reading. 

zafyha

@brewdave
thanks for your reply. I have been paying my DD every month, never missed any payment. In fact it has been steadily rising. They have been reviewing my DD as they have been increasing it too. I too have then switched to their different tariffs to try and reduce their increase to a more manageable DD. So does that mean if they have been reviewing it, they have been billing me? What about their claim that because regular meter readings were not submitted, and when I did submit one in June 2020 and they realised there was a roll over, they now reviewed all the usage since Oct 2015? 

zafyha

@brewdave
sorry for my ignorance-could you clarify what you wrote here:
Also you need to have sought the bills over the period for back billing to be considered -sounds like you haven't.
Do you mean do I have the bills from 2015? Well I have an online record of all my DD throughout this period-

Talldave

Explain this roll over?? What are the readings?  Any photos of the readings? 

zafyha

Talldave said:

Explain this roll over??

This is when the meter (in my case the Gas meter) reached 9999 and then rolled over (or back) to 0000 and started again. Thus the company expected my readings to be something like 9587 but mine in June 2020 were along 0235 so they realised the meter rolled over. 

Gerry1

zafyha said:

I told him im sure there was someone who did come to the house to take readings and he confirmed on one of the bills from last year, April 2019, it says Engineer reads but it doesn’t show the actual read for gas.

Does the word 'Engineer' appear on the bill?  It's not an appropriate term for a meter reader.  Are you sure it's not 'E' for Estimated?

zafyha

brewerdave said:

zafyha said:

Anyway, I’m really quite taken aback. In all honesty, I needed to have submitted monthly readings-but if an engineer came last year, if they saw there was major discrepancy, shouldn’t they have back billed me then? Can they back bill me for 5 years? Any advice/help would be welcome....

Thanks 

Are you saying that you haven't received a bill for 5 years ? Haven't had a bill appear on your online account ? If they have been reviewing your DDs regularly then it suggests strongly that bills have been produced ,so back billing would not apply. Also you need to have sought the bills over the period for back billing to be considered -sounds like you haven't.
As to the meter reader visit last year, they are not employed directly by the Utility Co. anymore - generally contracted out work. I had a visit by a meter reader about 15 months ago - he only read the elec. meter - told me he wasn't contracted to do gas - and the reading he took, has never appeared anywhere as far as I can see.

So if I were to say to the company that your engineer took the readings and didn’t submit it right or why didn’t you (the company) realise there was an issue with the roll over then, it wouldn’t be a strong enough point? 

zafyha

Gerry1 said:

zafyha said:

I told him im sure there was someone who did come to the house to take readings and he confirmed on one of the bills from last year, April 2019, it says Engineer reads but it doesn’t show the actual read for gas.

Does the word 'Engineer' appear on the bill?  It's not an appropriate term for a meter reader.  Are you sure it's not 'E' for Estimated?

I’m only saying engineer because the Energy company guy kept using that term. When I checked one of my previous bills in June 2020, some bills said E for estimate, but one said Actual so I’m sure that must mean based on Actual readings. The thing is now when I go back and check the bills, I can’t find that bill as now the company has recalculated everything! But the customer service guy did confirm an engineer or meter reader person did come last year to take readings. Surely that should imply that the company uses the readings he submitted?