Wrong Opening Meter Reading with Failed Supplier

ruaridhmac

Hi first time posting here - I have searched and found nothing which matches my specific query.

Earlier this year I switched from Octopus to the now failed Pure Planet.  No bills have yet been created so I have credit from 2 DD payments which I am assuming will moved to new supplier, not yet announced.

My issue is that it looks like my opening gas meter reading was incorrectly provided by Octopus to Pure Planet.  My final bill with Octopus is incorrect and they are not responding to my emails.

If the difference was small I would not be too bothered, as it would solve itself over time, but we're talking 198m3, which my calculation gives comes to roughly £60, which is roughly the amount that Octopus are chasing me for to settle the final bill.

I see I have 2 options:
1. keep chasing Octopus to use the proper reading, re-calculate my final bill and try and pass the new closing/opening reading to whoever is going to be sorting Pure Planets final billing, or
2. pay Octopus the final bill, leave it as is and see if it sorts over time, knowing that i've gained 198m3 at a lower price than i would have to pay going forward, i would have to make up meter readings in the meantime until until out consumption caught up as the meter is still lower than the Octopus's closing reading from a few months ago.  I'm not sure if this could be recommended though?

TBH I've had incredibly poor service from Octopus over the last year or so, they have been very unresponsive regarding the non-smart smart meter that they installed in Aug 2020, which never connected or worked from the day they installed it - every time i got in contact about it, i hit a dead end and nothing was done about it, so i'm not holding out much.  This is main reason I moved from Octopus, rather than anything to do with cost.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

QrizB

ruaridhmac said:

My issue is that it looks like my opening gas meter reading was incorrectly provided by Octopus to Pure Planet.  My final bill with Octopus is incorrect and they are not responding to my emails.

Hi and welcome.

Your statement above seems back-to-front. Normally you would provide an opening reading to your new supplier (PP), who would route it via the industry validation process to Octopus. Octopus would then bill you based on the closing reading they have agreed with PP.

Did you provide PP with an opening reading?

ruaridhmac

I actually provided the same readings to both Octopus (as closing) and PP (as opening), so I suppose I can't totally be sure who provided who with the incorrect reading.  My suspicions are with Octopus though as they have some spurious 'customer' readings earlier in the year which I did not provide and their estimated readings were way off.  The highlighted 'customer' reading seems to be the odd one:



The closing reading I provided was 1240, so no idea how they got to 1438

The way I read it though, admittedly quite a while back, was that the previous supplier provided a closing reading to the new supplier, but i may have mixed that up.

MWT

Agreed, you are chasing the wrong end of the problem.

Octopus don't get to change the meter reading without instruction from the gaining supplier, and you should have provided the meter reading to the gaining supplier anyway.

So if this is wrong, by more than 108m3 in the case of gas, you will need to get your gaining provider, or in this case the SoLR to open a dispute with the industry body that provides the validated reading for them both to use...

Petriix

What's the actual difference in unit prices? If they're broadly similar then it makes no real difference. 

[Deleted User]

Deleted_User said:

However it got there, the rogue reading on 26 July would explain why the mysterious industry validation has apparently rejected your reading for the transfer and substituted an estimate instead.

You can dispute the transfer reading, but don't have to. Since you'll be charged less in the end if you don't get it fixed, why not leave it alone? This also involves less hassle.

I wouldn't suggest making up future readings (to avoid submitting readings lower than the incorrect transfer reading). One option would be avoiding submitting readings at all until the meter goes past the transfer reading. Or just submit accurate readings - I'm not quite sure if anything "happens" if you do that ... perhaps others could comment.

Providing the industry validated reading is within prescribed limits, the both suppliers have to use it to open and close accounts. In the event, that an opening reading is higher than the actual meter reading then the consumer will only pay the standing charge until the actual meter index reading passes the agreed opening reading.

A few years ago, I transferred from E.oN to Ovo. The opening reading was out by a margin resulting in an over payment of £73 to E.oN. Ovo offered me two options: one, they could raise an Agreed Readings Dispute which might take up to 12 weeks, or I could just sit tight and Ovo would compensate me for the difference in unit prices. I paid just the daily standing charge for nearly 3 months, and Ovo credited my account to the tune of £2.34 (the difference in unit cost times the number of units). Clearly, E.oN benefitted by £70; however, Ovo concluded that the staff cost of an ARD would be greater.

For a ‘Read Dispute’ to be possible, there needs to be a big enough gap between the reading used and the reading you gave. This is called a ‘tolerance’. If the gap is too small, it’s known as being ‘within tolerance’.

The tolerance for an electricity reading is 250 kWh or more. 

For example if you submitted a reading of 01000 and the estimate used was 01300, there's a difference of 300 kWh and a reading dispute is possible. 

For gas meters measured in cubic meters (m3), the tolerance is 108 units.

For example if you submitted a reading of 00010 m3 and the estimate used was 00100 m3, the difference is 90 units and therefore within tolerance. 

For gas meters measured in cubic feet (ft3), the tolerance is 38 units. 

For example if you submitted a reading of 00360 ft3 and the estimate used was 00400 ft3, the difference is 40 units and a reading dispute is possible. 

A ‘Read Dispute’ is usually started by the new supplier, so if that’s us, get in touch to get the ball rolling!

ruaridhmac

Thanks everyone, I think i'm going to pay Octopus the final bill amount and leave as it, and not submit a reading until my meter catches up, which i assume will be sometime this winter.