Empty apartment - BG trying to charge fortune

Robin9

The estimated read is in line with the ones OP took in April and May.

I wonder if there was a winter timer or a thermostat involved.

Reed_Richards

Something odd?  BG achieved a smart meter reading on 29 Sep 2020 but use an estimated reading for the final bill.
 

Gerry1

The OP still hasn't told us whether the meter is in a communal area or plant room, but that seems a strong possibility and hence that he's always been paying for another flat's usage.

And with a daily charge of 25.7859p and 18.53565p/kWh it was a mega-expensive tariff.

There are some questions that need to be resolved:-

• Why did the smart meter not send any monthly reads?
• Why was there no bill for seven months?  Do BG only send bills every 12 months even though it's being paid by monthly DD?

Sadly, the lessons to be learned are:-

• Do a meter 'sanity test' when moving in to a property.  Switch everything off and make sure that the red '1000 Imp/kWh' LED on the electricity meter never flashes.  Then switch absolutely everything on and check that the LED is flashing rapidly.  (Much the same if there's gas, just look at the figures in red or to the right of the decimal point.)
• Do a whole market search to get a competitive tariff.
• Never assume that a smart meter stays smart.
• Always check your account at least monthly.
• Always send a closing read when moving out.

The OP could consider raising a complaint with BG about the lack of smart meter functionality and monthly billing, which would have alerted him to the problem.  He could also warn the new occupier of a potential mismatch and suggest they do a meter sanity test and advise him of the result.  All a bit of a long shot, but there's nothing to lose.

mac.d

Gerry1 said:

• Why did the smart meter not send any monthly reads?
• Why was there no bill for seven months?  Do BG only send bills every 12 months even though it's being paid by monthly DD?

I helped someone out with a recent switch away from British Gas, and one of the reasons for it was because billing was a mess.  Not helped by it only being the gas meter that they were getting readings from, but for some reason, they didn't even take regular readings from it. Monthly meter readings were submitted for electric (the website wouldn't allow manual gas readings to be entered), yet the bills were a mess. They did send a few monthly bills, but would then for no reason leave a three month gap between bills.