Symbio Energy threatening me with court action

[Deleted User]

Gerry1 said:

Symbio are claiming that they have a Customer reading of 105043 on 3 April.

The OP claims a reading of 103391 on 7 April.

Unless the meter is going backwards, one of those readings must be wrong.

As previously suggested, a photo of the current meter reading may help to make things clearer.

The bill shows a customer reading of 105043.20. I am not aware of any supplier that asks for customer meter readings which includes the figures to the right of the decimal point. Smart meters provide this level of granularity and this reflected on any bills.

Of interest, this is what it says on the Symbio website:

If we receive the meter reading after the cut-off date, it will be considered in the next billing cycle. If the submitted meter reading is below or above the expected usage by 20%, we will request our customer to submit a meter picture as evidence and/or send a meter operator to obtain a physical meter read.

Swipe

I suspect it's the decimals on the readings, if sent to Symbio as so, which have caused all the confusion.

Robin9

Something very odd here - the OP hasn't even been a customer for 3 months.   That photo of the meter reading may well explain all.

Tallerdave

Symbio certainly accept and process to the first decimal place. I have a pointy needle meter so only have 0.1kWhs to enter.

Barlcays_account_holder

12/3

7/4

Barlcays_account_holder

[Deleted User] said:

Most suppliers will put a stop to Court Action if the issue is sitting with The Energy Ombudsman for adjudication. I am still struggling to understand why this matter has got so far so quickly. What is all this talk about a Final Bill? How long has the OP actually lived in this property and has he/she moved out?

Personally, I very much doubt that Symbio will take this claim to Court until it has received an EO Decision. If the Decision is in the supplier’s favour, then the complainant would be silly not to pay up. If the Decision is in the complainant’s favour, then the supplier will not succeed when it reaches a Court. 

There’s been several attempts to switch supplier, which Symbio has repeatedly blocked.  The latest switch date was 5/4.  I was not informed of this date until the 7/4, hence my meter reading on 7/4.

Swipe

Well, the meter photo clears this up. It looks like the OP typed the wrong digit (5 instead of 3) when entering their customer readings that were used on the bill, hence the whacky estimate. Any normal company would just reissue a new bill but this is Symbio, unfortunately.

Reed_Richards

If I were in this situation I would pay the money that I do owe so that the dispute is just about the money that I don't.  As it stands the OP owes money and the dispute is about how much.

[Deleted User]

Swipe said:

Well, the meter photo clears this up. It looks like the OP typed the wrong digit (5 instead of 3) when entering their customer readings that were used on the bill, hence the whacky estimate. Any normal company would just reissue a new bill but this is Symbio, unfortunately.

I still don’t see how the supplier has come up with the figures after the decimal point based on these photos.

Swipe

[Deleted User] said:

Swipe said:

Well, the meter photo clears this up. It looks like the OP typed the wrong digit (5 instead of 3) when entering their customer readings that were used on the bill, hence the whacky estimate. Any normal company would just reissue a new bill but this is Symbio, unfortunately.

I still don’t see how the supplier has come up with the figures after the decimal point based on these photos.

Symbio's estimates always have 2 decimals for some bizarre reason