Erroneous readings from bust suppliers

heyhoo

rp1974 said:

To be honest I cant see how you will be able to sort the previous supplier issues now.
As EDF have now accepted your readings,is that including the overestimated debt from those previous suppliers,or are the overestimates from EDF seperate from that?.

EDF have billed me from Nov 2019-February 2021 and they have revised their initial reading from a massive overestimate (based on the previous suppliers overestimate) to a reasonable estimate which I accept. The problem is the debt on the account that EDF inherited, which was obviously based on inflated readings. I would like to know the readings that Solarplicity and Toto had and if they were estimated and the last time an actual accurate reading was recorded for this property. 

heyhoo

MWT said:

The best hope you have now is to file a formal compliant, point out that the final estimated reading from the defunct suppliers was patently excessive as proven by your now accepted meter readings, and suggest they calculate backwards to the date you bought the property based on  your usage over the same time period in the following year..

If they don't accept that take it to the Ombudsman where there is a good chance it will be accepted as fair.

Also tell them they need to suspend any attempts to collect payment for that period until the complaint is resolved...

That’s very helpful, thank you 

niktheguru

Make sure when you write your formal complaint and when you go to the ombudsman that you tell them and provide them with evidence of the date you purchased the property. They should definitely NOT be billing you for usage from prior to the property being owned by you. The problem you have it that those defunct companies WERE your supplier (unknown to you) when the property was in your ownership.

The best action will hopefully be that they will just extrapolate your current usage back till the time you bought the place. I doubt you saying you didnt live there for a few months will mean they wont charge you for that period. Mind you charging at current use will be significantly cheaper than paying the massive over estimations theyve been making.

What i didn't understand was how you were providing electricity meter readings to octopus. Were you emailing or phoning them in? or on their website. Surely if they werent your supplier there wouldn't have been any way to submit those readings for so long!!!

heyhoo

niktheguru said:

What i didn't understand was how you were providing electricity meter readings to octopus. Were you emailing or phoning them in? or on their website. Surely if they werent your supplier there wouldn't have been any way to submit those readings for so long!!!

It was through the octopus app. I submitted one or two but wasn’t that focussed on doing it regularly until after we moved in as the property had been empty, with barely any utility usage, and I’d been preoccupied with my child in hospital in another city. It was after we moved in that the app wouldn’t accept my readings. 

niktheguru

heyhoo said:

niktheguru said:

What i didn't understand was how you were providing electricity meter readings to octopus. Were you emailing or phoning them in? or on their website. Surely if they werent your supplier there wouldn't have been any way to submit those readings for so long!!!

It was through the octopus app. I submitted one or two but wasn’t that focussed on doing it regularly until after we moved in as the property had been empty, with barely any utility usage, and I’d been preoccupied with my child in hospital in another city. It was after we moved in that the app wouldn’t accept my readings. 

Yes but were you actually paying anything for electricity. Were you receiving electricity bills from octopus? Or were you just supplierless as preoccupied (understandably) with your major life events at the time? I just find it bizarre that octopus have gone scot free when they said theyd take over your gas and electricity, only took your gas and failed to notify you of the electricity transfer, were taking meter readings and potentially giving you bills.

Unless, they did tell you, but via online letter or post which you didn't see, you never received any electricity bills and it was just that you weren't paying attention because it wasn't at the forefront of your mind at the time.....in that case they cant take any blame.

(saying that, you should have registered with the existing suppliers when you bought the house and then transferred, as others have already said. and it is so so important to take and log meter readings when you move into a house, exactly for this sort of scenario. But you live and learn, and there's no way you'll make the same mistake again.)

Let us know how you get on with your complaint.