UP Bills reissued going back years, gone from credit to debit!

Gerry1

Reed_Richards said:

But I could be wrong as I have struggled to find more than an outline of the back billing rules.      

The rules offer less protection than one might think, as this example illustrates.

[Deleted User]

Reed_Richards said:

Doesn't the billing clock start from a year ago?  So all charges incurred and DD payments made against them prior to a year ago are discounted?  What is then left to pay is the charges incurred in the last 12 months minus the DD payments made in the last 12 months?  That's not exactly the same thing that @[Deleted User] indicates.  But I could be wrong as I have struggled to find more than an outline of the back billing rules.      

Mea culpa: a poor use of words on my account. Let’s imagine the situation where someone had been paying £100 a month (the correct calculated payment) for 24 months but, despite lots of hectoring, no bill was forthcoming until today. The supplier applies the BackBilling rules and discounts one year’s charges amounting to £1200. If money paid into the account was ignored, then the consumer would be looking at £1200 credit. 

Where is the bill shock if the customer has actually paid £1200 for £1200s worth of energy? In this situation, I believe that the consumer would get nothing other than a small payment for poor billing.

If, as in the OP’s case, 2 payments of £107 were made followed by 10 payments of £40.76 in the write off period then this equates to a credit balance of £621.60. If the actual usage written off equated to £1284, then the write off would be £1284. - 621.60 or £662.40. V

However, the OP is still faced with a further 12 months of charges which, for sake of argument, comes to another £1284 - BUT……. The OP has only paid 12 x £40.76 or £489.12 leaving a debit balance £794.88.

Apologies, if my use of the term ‘paid to date’ was confusing. It would have been better to have said all the payments made within the write off period. This is how I understand BackBilling works. This is why the OP is looking at a debit balance of over £700. (He has been underpaying by c.£60 for the last 12 months).

matthewharmon102

Thanks for the useful comments. I wasn't aware of the back billing protection, but I believe that applies in my case, as the bills go back to 2019.

I regularly monitor my online account and submit meter readings every couple of months. To clarify, to my account has shown a small amount of credit, which I was fine with in case a bill was higher than usual (a cold month where the heating use was above average, for example). But it went from a small credit onetone monthtmonth to £1400 the next, it wasn't a gradual increase.

As for the bills I have now, what has been done is the amount owed spread across all the bills going back to 2019, so according to the bills, I have always been in debt and this has slowly increased.

Someone asked about estimated Vs customer reading on bills. As an example, my August 2021 bill has 2 customer readings and 1 estimated reading on it. The July bill has 4 estimated readings and 2 customer readings, that actually give 2 different amounts owed for the same period, but the amount I have been billed is different again.

I provided a reading on the day I moved in for both the gas and electric. The problem now is a don't have a record of what these were, and UP don't seem to have them either.

I have lodged a complaint via email but no response so far. I think I will give it until the rest of the week before escalating further. Any further advice is appreciated!

wild666

matthewharmon102 said:

Been with Utility Point for a few years, have always found them to be the most competitive when it comes to price.

We moved in October 2019 and took UP with us as they were till the most competitive. We were paying around £107 a month for dual fuel. after a few months, my direct debit amount changed to £40.96 a month. No idea why or what caused it, but my bills were paid, and all seemed well until July of this year.

I noticed my online account was reporting £1,400 of credit. I had been periodically submitting meter readings and was concerned that I was either reading the wrong meter (there are four flats in our building and the meters are all next to each other), or I had been overpaying and was owed a significant sum of money. I called to check, and was told i was around £900 in credit, but they agreed something wasn't right, so said they would investigate it and let me know and asked me to provide a photo of the gas and electric meter. I sent this to them, but I never received a call or email to say they had completed the investigation, but when I checked my account, it said I was £5.96 in debt. I assumed they had finished their check and continued to pay £40.96 for my June-July bill.

Unexpectedly, I got a call from their debt recovery team, saying that I owed them £734. which they were looking for me to pay, in full. I explained I am unable to pay that amount and questioned how this had happened. I was told my direct debits do not cover my usage. After some back and forth, it has gone back to the billing team, who are asking for photos of the meters and meter readings again. When I checked my bills, I have seen that every single bill, all the way back to 2019, has been re-issued with different readings, different amounts owed, and a debit amount that continually grows! This applies even to the higher direct debit amounts. It's like they have changed the bills to fit the debt amount. There is now no record of me being in credit at all, and, according to these new bills, I have always been in debt!

Can they re-issue every single bill to make it look like I am in debt? I have no idea what to do now!

Always give monthly meter readings and work out your usage by doing some maths, old meter, or getting the kWh and daily charge info from a bill. In the case of smart meters the electric reads kWh and gas meters cubed.
The electric would be as simple as finding the daily charges with VAT and taking that away from the previous reading then multiplying kWh left and daily charges, e.g. 300 kWh at 15p with a daily charge of 17p including VAT would be 15p * 300 and 17p * 30 or 31 to give the total. The gas is multiply by 1.02264 then by 40.1, this number can vary, then divide by 3.6 so 25 units would give 287.7 kWh you then multiply the daily charge by 30 or 31 and the kWh by 287.7 to give the total, you then add those two totals together and that is your monthly bill. I also read my meters weekly and keep the readings on a spreadsheet on the PC. 

matthewharmon102

Thanks all for the helpful tips, I think keeping my meter readings will be the way forward in the future!

Had a response from Utility Point, andwand theirotheir complaints team have actually been helpful! The person I spoke to said the same as some oftof you did, they they shouldn't be billing me past the12 month mark.

Long story short, when my account was set up, it only took the gas readings, despite me entering different amounts. Because there were no errors on my account as far as the system was concerned, it never flagged up for someone to look at. Had I not queried the massive credit amount, I suspect it may never have flagged up!

Because of the above issues, the system thought I was overpaying, so reduced my DD to reflect my usage.

UP have agreed to write off the debt older than 12 months, and have offered £50 compensation. It's something at least but I was hoping for more