Bill Problem With Scottish Power (after being transferred from Tonik)

frankinlondon

Hello
I was transferred from Tonik to Scottish Power last Oct. when the former went bust.  I supplied meter reading at the time.  Under Tonik, my monthly payment was £160 and I was in credit by a small amount.  I set up a direct debit for Scottish Power to take £160 per month.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a request from Scottish Power to supply meter readings (I guess my old smart meters are not compliant with their infrastructure !).  I did so and they have told me that I have used £300 of electricity and £800 of gas in the quarter !!!!!
I queried the bill and they admitted that the usage was unusually high.  They have suggested that my gas meter might be faulty and have offered to replace it.  Trouble is, I have a friend who is also an ex-Tonik customer with SP and exactly the same thing has happened to her.
I am loathe to go down the route of changing my gas meter and just want to switch supplier, but I need the £1000+ bill sorted first.  Have any other ex-Tonik customers had similar problems. ?
Any advice on the best way to proceed?
Frank

Phones4Chris

Make sure you've read the meters correctly, you can read these smart meters incorrectly for Gas by giving kWh instead of m3, and I think it's possible to give incorrect readings on the electricity.
I'm sure an expert reader will be along to explain how to do it correctly - I don't/won't have one!

Verdigris

If the gas meter is a Liberty Secure model, with a numeric keypad, you need to press 9. It will then display Volume M3 and then give the reading. You have to be quick, the numbers don't stay for long. If you miss it, just wait for it to cycle through and press 9 again.

tghe-retford

I think I know what is happening, coming from my own experience, at least for the electricity.

I'll take my previous to Tonik supplier as an example, Bulb asks you to submit readings using button 9 (IMP KwH) on the Liberty Secure meter. However, smart meter readings with Tonik were taken from a different reading (IMP R01), which you get when you press 6 four times. Which means if you submit readings from the IMP kWh reading to Scottish Power, they will not match the readings from what Tonik has given Scottish Power and that may explain the discrepancy. I have informed Scottish Power of this issue but I still haven't had an electricity bill generated as of yet. Once I have my other issue sorted that I posted about recently elsewhere, I shall have to get back on them to rectify this issue.

I can't answer about the gas, every supplier has used the Volume m3 reading as a smart read.

theoretica

SP is more expensive than Tonik was, and I use the vast majority of my gas over the winter so if 160 covered your Tonik bill over the year then it won't cover 3 heavy use months on a higher tariff.  I haven't got my bill yet, but am expecting much the same thing.

Verdigris

tghe-retford said:

I think I know what is happening, coming from my own experience, at least for the electricity.

I'll take my previous to Tonik supplier as an example, Bulb asks you to submit readings using button 9 (IMP KwH) on the Liberty Secure meter. However, smart meter readings with Tonik were taken from a different reading (IMP R01), which you get when you press 6 four times. Which means if you submit readings from the IMP kWh reading to Scottish Power, they will not match the readings from what Tonik has given Scottish Power and that may explain the discrepancy.

IMP kWh and IMP R01 will be the same as long as the meter has only ever been used on one rate, rather than separate day and night rates.

EggEdd

In the same boat FrankInLondon - When I checked with the final readings I logged with Tonik on leaving in Oct (The website is still live), SP had calculated an extra £1,000 of Gas. They have now reduced the massive debit amount and finally added the credit I'd accrued with Tonik. But, because of the cost difference in their rates, I'm now £200 in debt after three months
Cheers Scottish Power!!!
What I did: Checked my Tonik Energy readings, subtracted these from current readings, used an online calculator to work out the KWh (for gas) and multiplied by Kwh Rate, don't forget to add the daily service charge times days between readings. (I'm sure there must be a spreadsheet to download on here somewhere). 
Best of luck.