Ombudsman failure

Arbed31

What can you do if the ombudsman does not support your complaint even with clear evidence of supplier errors. I basically have over £9000 debt accrued over 9 Yrs since having an air source heating system installed by my housing association. I've shown the ombudsman that my supplier did not raise any alarms at my usage jumping from 12 units a day to 45 for the first year or continuing to sit at an avg of 38 for all years after, did not even raise my monthly payment for 4 years or take seriously my complaints or queries fibbing me off as a high user yet they refused my complaint of faulty billing because never did my payments cover my now apparent ridiculously high usage. It also took 6 years to get them to replace the old economy 7 meter with a correct tariff for my new system meter at which point I now know my usage dropped dramatically from 38 a day avg to 20 a day consistently for the next 3 years but the ombudsman will not consider my complaint of this being evidence of a faulty meter either. I had my landlord replace the air source system with a smaller unit in March last year as we believed the unit was too big for the property & the cause of the issue but my avg daily usage is now 17 units a day so it clearly looks like a meter issue rather than a heating system one. I'm at my wits end with how to deal with this now. I thought the ombudsman was meant to be impartial & fair 

MWT

Unfortunately, nothing you have written so far is inconsistent with an incorrectly used ASHP which was eventually set 'correctly'.

Did the initial jump from 12 to 45 units a day coincide with the installation of the ASHP?

If so then it clearly doesn't point at a meter fault...

matelodave

What can you do if the ombudsman does not support your complaint even with clear evidence of supplier errors. I basically have over £9000 debt accrued over 9 Yrs since having an air source heating system installed by my housing association. I've shown the ombudsman that my supplier did not raise any alarms at my usage jumping from 12 units a day to 45 for the first year or continuing to sit at an avg of 38 for all years after,(it's not down to the supplier to assess whether your consumptions is either high or low - it's up to you) did not even raise my monthly payment for 4 years (did you read your meter, send in readings and most importantly check your bills to ensure that your payments were covering your consumption - if you didn't then you bear a great deal of the reponsibilty) or take seriously my complaints or queries fibbing me off as a high user yet they refused my complaint of faulty billing because never did my payments cover my now apparent ridiculously high usage. It also took 6 years to get them to replace the old economy 7 meter with a correct tariff for my new system meter at which point I now know my usage dropped dramatically from 38 a day avg to 20 a day consistently for the next 3 years but the ombudsman will not consider my complaint of this being evidence of a faulty meter either (it probably wasn't a faulty meter but if you were on an incorrect tariff and the unit was flogging it's heart out because it wasn't being used correctly then thats down to you to get onto the correct tariff - ideally whoever installed it should have advised you - not the energy company. They have no idea nor do they care what or how you are using your leccy any more than a petrol station are interested in your vehicle or where you you use it) I had my landlord replace the air source system with a smaller unit in March last year as we believed the unit was too big for the property & the cause of the issue but my avg daily usage is now 17 units a day so it clearly looks like a meter issue rather than a heating system one (I suggest that it was nothing to do with the meter but how the system was installed, set up and being used). I'm at my wits end with how to deal with this now. I thought the ombudsman was meant to be impartial & fair 

I'm not trying to belittle your problem but TBA it's nothing to do with the ombudsman or even your energy company. except insofar as they should have cranked up your bills/direct debits however if you didn't give them readings and didn't check your bills and accepted estimated bills then I'm afraid that's down to you.
Likewise the fact that your landlord may have fitted a possibly inappropriate heating system or that it may have been on the wrong tariff or even may have been set up or operated inappropriately is nothing to do with the energy company or the ombudsman

Arbed31

So you're saying it's my responsibility to pore over paper bills to find out if my usage has increased & set my monthly bill accordingly? Not the electricity companies. Yes of course they had readings which it took them 4 years to adjust my payments from £80 to £140 a month. Like most people I trusted my supplier to set my payment in line with my usage. I should point out that when the new meter was fitted in 2016 my payment was dropped from £120 to £60 by them despite I must have owed them thousands by then because none of my monthly payments ever reflected my real usage which I wasn't aware was unusually high because every time I discussed the issue they claimed it was a bit high but nothing out of the ordinary. I've only recently after much badgering got a chart of my real usage for the past 9yrs & I actually used a consistent 45! Units a day for the first year of the new unit. Do you think £80 or even £140 4 years later covered that. Do you think £60 a month covers the 20 units a day from the fitting of a new meter plus some off the 6 years off arrears on the nearly double that usage previously. I don't because I've had to do the math. Do you also not think it's an electricity company's job when specifically asked is that normal or could something be wrong to tell you that 45 or 38 units a day on a three bed semi with 2 occupants, no swimming pool, jacuzzi or even tumble drier that in fact it's not remotely normal at least? where I'm telling them we're cold because we darent put the heating over 18 & only on the coldest of days because it costs too much. I appreciate you think I'm stupid because instead of poring over my bills I talked to them & got nonsense but they did nonetheless confuse the problem by setting my payments too low for all of those years. I don't know if the installation of the new heat pump interferes with the meter some way or why it appears my usage more than tripled around then but I do know it halved immediately after a new one was installed 

matelodave

Yes, it is your responsibilty to check your bills, in the same way that its down to you to check your bank statements - it's your money and up to you to look after it. It's always better to keep on top of stuff rather than waiting for a year or two and then trying to backtrack to see what went wrong.

If you sent in readings and didn't check your bills then how do you know if they were using them and not using estimates - when you check your bills, you can get them corrected and you can see that you are either ramping up excessive arrears or even credit and got it sorted out.

I don't and didn't suggest that you were stupid but had you checked your bills you could have seen that it was going awry and done something about it at the time - it takes long time to get into that sort of arrears.

rp1974

You let this roll on for years?.From what you posted its your usage,not the billing thats the issue.Seems the ombudsman shares this viewpoint.Usage is your sole responsibility,not your supplier,nor the ombudsman.The replacement heat pump using the same meter?,if so then would that not rule out inaccuracy as you claim?.Not stupidity,more naivety,you really haven't helped yourself though,keep things in writing/email going forward,dont rely on verbal agreements only.

Arbed31

OK. I take your point & do now mo it or my usage, now I know how in incompetent my supplier is but they do have a duty to look at your readings & set payments in line with real usage & it should not have taken them 4 years to adjust my payments. There is also the issue of none of my payments being set in line with usage for 9 years. I actually was not aware of the scale of the problem until I got the back usage chart off them because for many years I thought it was simply that they hadn't changed my meter from econ 7 despite being asked to multiple times but I can't see how setting me a payment of £60 a month on 20 units a day after 6 years of debt accrued is anything less than gross incompetence. This in turn led me to believe they'd taken the old meter out & found it faulty also. I've simply asked them & the ombudsmen to ask them to accept some responsibility for creating the debt by mismanaging my account plus the evidence that the meter was faulty because my usage halved overnight when I got a new meter fitted. I'm not denying that I have to do their job for them to prevent such catastrophes in future 

Arbed31

Actually I didn't let it roll on that long. After the 4 years it took to raise my payment & alert me to any issue I got a summons. I went & showed the representative prior to hearing all my evidence of trying to address a dispute & he said it couldn't go to court based on that. This was late 2015 when my conversations with them still hadn't got a new meter fitted or an admission that my usage was exceptional. In May 2016 my daughter suddenly died & a few wks after they threatened court again so I just set up a new payment with them & finally got a new meter as I couldn't deal with it all at that time. Since then I have monitored my usage, got a new heating system fitted as we thought it was that rather than the meter & been proven wrong by the figures so no I don't think I did this all on my own. I'm bashing my head against a wall everytime I speak to them

Arbed31

I think you're all confusing my usage halving being related to a new heating system being installed. That didn't happen til 2019. My usage halving was directly due to the new meter in 2016

Arbed31

And how is the billing not the issue. If you work out 20 units at 0.189 pence per unit plus standing charge & vat it's more than double the £60 they dropped my payment to on removal of the old meter never mind the arrears. My payments were never set to more than £140 & for most of those years moved around from 60 to 100 a month. It wasn't until 2018 they suddenly raised it to £315 which if I'd been billed that from the time my usage tripled would have been more accurate & confirmed something really wrong with the electrics in my house, meter or otherwise 

Gerry1

Arbed31 said:

Mine was demanding extra payment on top of the monthly dd I'd been paying with ridiculous estimations that had me using more electric in summer months than winter (I'm all electric so that's heating too) so they basically made it all up. I insisted on a monitoring or my actual usage from the date of my new meter installation & ended up getting £800 due to overpayment.

Arbed31 said:

I basically have over £9000 debt accrued over 9 Yrs since having an air source heating system installed by my housing association. I've shown the ombudsman that my supplier did not raise any alarms at my usage jumping from 12 units a day to 45 for the first year or continuing to sit at an avg of 38 for all years after, did not even raise my monthly payment for 4 years or take seriously my complaints or queries fibbing me off as a high user yet they refused my complaint of faulty billing because never did my payments cover my now apparent ridiculously high usage.