British Gas Smart meter billing mess up

Comingoutofthedark

Hi , I had smart meters fitted by British Gas in November 2018 , I already had Energy accounts with them I just wanted to get rid of the hassle of providing meter readings!! Everything seems to have run smoothly not much change in my bills / direct debit  for the first year. At the beginning of this year it dropped and I thought I had finally got a handle on not wasting electricity. It went down again in June and I logged into the app too check I was being billed for gas & elec it showed a bit of credit so assumed it was due to that.  Yesterday I received a massive bill and after contacting them via the chat function on the app they advised they have no received no meter readings for the smart meter since March 2019 so they have estimated. They haven’t contacted me about not receiving readings and I’ve not paid close attention to the bills as I had no reason to. I thought this would  come under the back billing rules , but they are saying the bill is correct as they've used estimates. The estimate in April is very low ) to the (only!) actual reading they have received from the meter in August is almost a years worth based on average use!! I have raised a complaint but that could take 21 days. Has any one had this happen? Or does anyone know if the back billing rule does stand in this case? All help gratefully received. 

Neil_Jones

A smart meter is no substitute for not reading the meters yourself on occasion and I dare say there is nothing to stop you submitting your own readings on occasion too.

You should really have noticed on your April bill that the readings were estimates and then you could have said something to them.  Back billing IIRC only applies if the supplier doesn't bill you at all, which doesn't seem to be the case.  That's going to be part of the problem - a bill is a bill whether its actual or estimate, and to be honest you should have been paying close attention - if you'd told them in June last year it had gone down you'd have been in better stead for today.  But you didn't and here we are.

Comingoutofthedark

Thanks for your reply the bill went down in January 2020 and the. June this year. Up until then it was in line with previous years the only difference was not having the hassle of submitting meter readings!  Yes I should have kept a closer eye but surely that then defeats the object of the smart meter which is marketed as ‘sends accurate readings so eliminating estimated bills’ and prevents inaccurate readings. However British Gas were aware since March 2019 they were not receiving meter readings from a smart meter that’s 18months surely in that time they had some sort of responsibility to raise this , ask for a reading , send a meter reader out? Or even arrange for an engineer to check the meter? 

Hasbeen

Comingoutofthedark said:

Hi , I had smart meters fitted by British Gas in November 2018 , I already had Energy accounts with them I just wanted to get rid of the hassle of providing meter readings!! Everything seems to have run smoothly not much change in my bills / direct debit  for the first year. At the beginning of this year it dropped and I thought I had finally got a handle on not wasting electricity. It went down again in June and I logged into the app too check I was being billed for gas & elec it showed a bit of credit so assumed it was due to that.  Yesterday I received a massive bill and after contacting them via the chat function on the app they advised they have no received no meter readings for the smart meter since March 2019 so they have estimated. They haven’t contacted me about not receiving readings and I’ve not paid close attention to the bills as I had no reason to. I thought this would  come under the back billing rules , but they are saying the bill is correct as they've used estimates. The estimate in April is very low ) to the (only!) actual reading they have received from the meter in August is almost a years worth based on average use!! I have raised a complaint but that could take 21 days. Has any one had this happen? Or does anyone know if the back billing rule does stand in this case? All help gratefully received. 

The back billing rules do not apply. The supplier has billed you.

The main advice given on this forum is to read your meters and give readings. Not to rely on estimates which are shown as an E on your bills.

Smart meters are no substitute for actually checking your own usage.
If you do not want the "hassle of providing meter readings" at least check your bills to ensure they concur with the meter.

And if you have a SMETS1 meter it will probably go dumb the next time you change provider anyway. so please check what you have.

Comingoutofthedark

Whilst I appreciate that is usually the main advice that is not the advice or experiences I am asking about. The British Gas website states that meter readings are not required with a smart meter but if you wish you can take note for your own records or words to the effect. 

Yes the supplier has been billing based on estimated readings and the bills have been paid by direct debit. the ofgem principles from their page is back billing rules cover ‘your supplier billing you using estimated readings instead of valid readings provided by you or a meter reader’  however with having a smart meter they haven’t requested a meter reading or sent a meter reader round, so would this also cover smart meters ( they apparently hold 13 months worth of data so should be accessible by the energy company) I wondered if anyone else had had a similar experience and what the outcome was. 

MWT

I would have though you should get the benefit of the back-billing rules as BG depended on their estimates instead of using the smart meter or an actual meter reading of their own for 2 years...

Without a functioning smart meter they should at least have read your meter once every 12 months to avoid exposing themselves to the back-billing rules.

Neil_Jones

Comingoutofthedark said:

Thanks for your reply the bill went down in January 2020 and the. June this year. Up until then it was in line with previous years the only difference was not having the hassle of submitting meter readings!  Yes I should have kept a closer eye but surely that then defeats the object of the smart meter which is marketed as ‘sends accurate readings so eliminating estimated bills’ and prevents inaccurate readings. However British Gas were aware since March 2019 they were not receiving meter readings from a smart meter that’s 18months surely in that time they had some sort of responsibility to raise this , ask for a reading , send a meter reader out? Or even arrange for an engineer to check the meter? 

I'm going to argue that the general fallback is that if the supplier does not get a reading from some auxiliary accessory to the meter (whether the meter itself provides a reading, you, a meter reader or the cat supplies one), then the next bill will have to be estimated.  Simple as.  No different to dumb meters.

Smart meter lack of readings aren't uncommon, usually because they can't communicate with where they send the data to.  This may be temporary, it may be permanent.  A temporary failure is probably nothing to worry about and will happen on occasion, but BG aren't going to drop everything and run round your house for lack of one meter reading.  As I say, there is nothing to stop you submitting your own readings.

Tell British Gas (by phone, not chat, since chat is just the poor man's first step and they're just there to filter out questions that are already answered on the website) that you've had a bill, all the readings are estimates, can somebody come and look at my smart meter.

Comingoutofthedark

MWT said:

I would have though you should get the benefit of the back-billing rules as BG depended on their estimates instead of using the smart meter or an actual meter reading of their own for 2 years...

Without a functioning smart meter they should at least have read your meter once every 12 months to avoid exposing themselves to the back-billing rules.

This is why I was asking if anyone had any experience surely if a smart meter account doesn’t receive readings from the smart meter for 18months it should raise a flag somewhere on the system? 

Comingoutofthedark

Neil_Jones said:

Comingoutofthedark said:

Thanks for your reply the bill went down in January 2020 and the. June this year. Up until then it was in line with previous years the only difference was not having the hassle of submitting meter readings!  Yes I should have kept a closer eye but surely that then defeats the object of the smart meter which is marketed as ‘sends accurate readings so eliminating estimated bills’ and prevents inaccurate readings. However British Gas were aware since March 2019 they were not receiving meter readings from a smart meter that’s 18months surely in that time they had some sort of responsibility to raise this , ask for a reading , send a meter reader out? Or even arrange for an engineer to check the meter? 

I'm going to argue that the general fallback is that if the supplier does not get a reading from some auxiliary accessory to the meter (whether the meter itself provides a reading, you, a meter reader or the cat supplies one), then the next bill will have to be estimated.  Simple as.  No different to dumb meters.

Smart meter lack of readings aren't uncommon, usually because they can't communicate with where they send the data to.  This may be temporary, it may be permanent.  A temporary failure is probably nothing to worry about and will happen on occasion, but BG aren't going to drop everything and run round your house for lack of one meter reading.  As I say, there is nothing to stop you submitting your own readings.

Tell British Gas (by phone, not chat, since chat is just the poor man's first step and they're just there to filter out questions that are already answered on the website) that you've had a bill, all the readings are estimates, can somebody come and look at my smart meter.

Appreciate your reply again, just to clarify it wasn’t one reading missed they say they haven’t received one since March 2019 so until August 2020 that’s 18months of no readings for an active smart meter account which should have raised a flag somewhere in the system. Especially as looking all the way back to the bill that covers the swap they may never have had a reading from the meter at all? 

Unfortunately as the bill came in yesterday and out of the two phone numbers I found one was a recorded message saying the office is closed and the other told me to hang up and try again I am stuck using the poor mans first step to try and someone looking into how this happened preferably before they try and take a direct debit I can I’ll afford. As I said before I was looking for advice/experiences with this kind of scenario as the whole point of me fitting the smart was so I didn’t have estimated bills again and is indeed how they are marketed you live and learn!! Next step access the damm thing to teach myself how to access the readings in anticipation of moving to another provider next year and I thought the dial meter I had previously was bad to read 🙄

Neil_Jones

Comingoutofthedark said:

Appreciate your reply again, just to clarify it wasn’t one reading missed they say they haven’t received one since March 2019 so until August 2020 that’s 18months of no readings for an active smart meter account which should have raised a flag somewhere in the system. Especially as looking all the way back to the bill that covers the swap they may never have had a reading from the meter at all?

I think the key thing here is if all your previous bills since that meter was fitted were done with estimated readings, then you should have noticed long before now (you've already said you took your eye off the ball with this)  They don't put capital E's next to the meter readings on the bill for fun or to make it look pretty.  This is how big bills and "billing issues" with energy occurs, and nine times out of ten its almost always the the same problem that is almost always caused by the same thing - meters not being read, so bills are generated with estimated readings, a real reading comes along and a "oh my God, am I lighting up the whole neighbourhood?" type thread follows.

Gerry1

I suspect that the best you'll be able to get is a payment plan to reduce any bill shock, and around £50 as a goodwill gesture, and even that may need pursuing via the ombudsman.

Make sure you get the clock ticking by registering a formal complaint, preferably via snail mail with a free certificate of posting.