Outfox the market. Back billing. Total mess

Curiousgirl1

I’m a little confused here. Has the back billing code been applied and if so what are OFTM saying is your correct gas usage for the last 12 months? 

dcreager

Curiousgirl1 said:

I’m a little confused here. Has the back billing code been applied and if so what are OFTM saying is your correct gas usage for the last 12 months? 

The usage is not in question.   It is how they remediate their mistake.   The back billing code, for what its worth, appears to not apply if you pay by direct debit.

dcreager

wild666 said:

People should really download their monthly bills, it only takes up a few kb on a PC per bill, a year worth of bills will be about 2 Mb. If the person notices that they are billed incorrectly M3 instead of ft.3 then they should inform their supplier of this ASAP. 
Even if the bill cannot be downloaded from the suppliers site there is a simple way to get the bills off the site using print screen and opening the saved screen in paint and cutting the bill part of the image and saving it in a document, it might take 4 or 5 shots to get the full bill off the site but it's worth it. It is unlikely that the option to download a statement isn't an option on todays bills but if it isn't then the option above is the way to do it.

I have to say I disagree,  Until February I had no concept of M3 or ft.3.   Why would I?   Regarding downloading bills.  I half agree and was annoyed with myself when Outfox deleted, however what sort of market is this?  Is it regulated?  Should I be worried about being scammed by my energy supplier?  sigh.  I'm sure regular posters to this forum are on top of these things but really?

[Deleted User]

dcreager said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

I’m a little confused here. Has the back billing code been applied and if so what are OFTM saying is your correct gas usage for the last 12 months? 

The usage is not in question.   It is how they remediate their mistake.   The back billing code, for what its worth, appears to not apply if you pay by direct debit.

BackBilling (BB) is covered in the Standard Supply Licence Conditions which apply to every supplier. If BB is applied to your gas account, then all charges from the date 12 month before the mistake was realised will be have been written off; however, as has been said previously, the supplier is allowed to keep all DD payments that you made during the charge write-off period. I can understand that you are annoyed that the supplier is now claiming back the refunds made during the period of write off which it paid back to you in error; however, putting to one side your particular case, all companies have the right to re-issue incorrect invoices and make a claim for up to 6 years for any money refunded in error.

On reflection this appears to have been the application of the wrong conversion formula to your volume to kWh conversion. For example, if you had used 1000 metered units (cubic feet) then this would have converted to 31513kWhs. Without the 2.83 multiplier, you will only have been billed for 11135kWhs.

Given that most of us select a tariff based on an annual consumption of, say, 12000kWhs/year at 4p/kWh or £480 per year plus standing charge, then I am surprised that an annual bill for 4240kWhs at £169 plus standard charge with refunds to follow didn't trigger a slight suspicion that something was amiss with your account. I am sorry if you felt that this was an insult. 

Curiousgirl1

dcreager said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

I’m a little confused here. Has the back billing code been applied and if so what are OFTM saying is your correct gas usage for the last 12 months? 

The usage is not in question.   It is how they remediate their mistake.   The back billing code, for what its worth, appears to not apply if you pay by direct debit.

Billing code would should still apply. As @[Deleted User] says the one years usage is worked out from the date on the first correct bill then all payments made in that year are deducted, including any refunds you have had as that is just a payment reversed & that gives your balance. Anything over that is removed. They are not going to take off the payments & ignore the refunds. 

The problem may be that as you were only being billed for roughly one third of what you were actually using you possibly had the heating on a lot thinking you were being billed correctly so using a lot more than you would have had you been billed correctly. 

Hope that makes sense. 

If you can post your reads from when the mistake was realised & 1 year prior, we can work out how much gas you actually used in that year to see if it comparable to your bill. 

MWT

Curiousgirl1 said:

Billing code would should still apply. As @[Deleted User] says the one years usage is worked out from the date on the first correct bill then all payments made in that year are deducted, including any refunds you have had as that is just a payment reversed & that gives your balance.

Have a read through the link I posted a page or two back.

They don't just go back a year, they are entitled to go back to the start of the account and reallocate all the payments from the beginning and reverse any refunds made.

Only once all those payments have been used up does the 12 month back-billing side of things come into play, and of course reversing the refunds will usually leave a large balance owed anyway, on top of the remaining unbilled usage during the last 12 months...

This is another reason why it is a bad idea to overpay via DD each month and just get a refund periodically, as you are leaving a hostage to fortune if there eventually turns out to be a mistake which has caused under-billing to occur 

QrizB

MWT said:

This is another reason why it is a bad idea to overpay via DD each month and just get a refund periodically, as you are leaving a hostage to fortune if there eventually turns out to be a mistake which has caused under-billing to occur 

It's a peripheral benefit of switching suppliers every couple of years, too; you periodically reconcile your accounts and wipe the slate clean.

Curiousgirl1

MWT said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

Billing code would should still apply. As @[Deleted User] says the one years usage is worked out from the date on the first correct bill then all payments made in that year are deducted, including any refunds you have had as that is just a payment reversed & that gives your balance.

Have a read through the link I posted a page or two back.

They don't just go back a year, they are entitled to go back to the start of the account and reallocate all the payments from the beginning and reverse any refunds made.

Only once all those payments have been used up does the 12 month back-billing side of things come into play, and of course reversing the refunds will usually leave a large balance owed anyway, on top of the remaining unbilled usage during the last 12 months...

This is another reason why it is a bad idea to overpay via DD each month and just get a refund periodically, as you are leaving a hostage to fortune if there eventually turns out to be a mistake which has caused under-billing to occur 

Yes, they re bill the account correctly for the whole period, work out the 12 months correct usage, deduct any payments/refunds paid in that 12 months whatever the balance is then, is the balance, anything over that is removed. So in effect, paying the same as what they already have prior to the 12 months & then a bill for correct usage for the last 12 months 

MWT

Curiousgirl1 said:

Yes, they re bill the account correctly for the whole period, work out the 12 months correct usage, deduct any payments/refunds paid in that 12 months whatever the balance is then, is the balance, anything over that is removed. So in effect, paying the same as what they already have prior to the 12 months & then a bill for correct usage for the last 12 months 

The reversal of the previous refunds, impacts on that last 12 months though, so it will negate the most recent payments leaving the last 12 months mostly unpaid, hence the total the OP is seeing...

They don't just work backwards from the most recent 12 months.

oliverbrown

wild666 said:

Even if the bill cannot be downloaded from the suppliers site there is a simple way to get the bills off the site using print screen and opening the saved screen in paint and cutting the bill part of the image and saving it in a document, it might take 4 or 5 shots to get the full bill off the site but it's worth it. It is unlikely that the option to download a statement isn't an option on todays bills but if it isn't then the option above is the way to do it.

Or even easier, use the print option and save as pdf.