People’s Energy to British Gas

Dumpling65

My elderly mother was switched from people’s energy to British Gas . She was paying £80 a month to people’s energy and has received a refund of £293 which has gone directly to British Gas.
Her first British Gas bill has arrived and it’s £1626 ! 

I know prices are rising but this seems very high ! She lives on her own in a very well insulated 3 bedroom house and nothing has changed since the switch . The worry is making her ill and  I would like to be able to help but don’t really know where to start? Any advice would be really appreciated.

LADYXXMACBETH

Same as me sort of. My bill has gone from £105 a month with PE and now it's £278 a month with BG. 
My grandma just got a bill from her energy company for the 3 months of £1567. So it sounds like it's pretty normal. My grandma has her heating on all the time as she's 96 

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Dumpling65 said:

My elderly mother was switched from people’s energy to British Gas . She was paying £80 a month to people’s energy and has received a refund of £293 which has gone directly to British Gas.
Her first British Gas bill has arrived and it’s £1626 ! 

I know prices are rising but this seems very high !

People's Energy went bust in September. It's likely that your mother's first bill covers all her energy use since then, in which case £1626 could be about right.

Do you have a copy of her bill? Can you tell us the meter readings BG have used to produce it? Are they (A)ctual readings or (E)stimated?

Dumpling65

Thank you.
I do have a copy of the bill she has had a smart meter installed and they are on the smart meter readings.
It says she has used 3030 gas units and 1054 electric units ?
I read the smart meters on the 12th Feb and the readings were up 87 on the electric and 73 on the gas ?
the bill is dated with an opening balance from the 3rd Nov 2021.

QrizB

Dumpling65 said:

Thank you.
I do have a copy of the bill she has had a smart meter installed and they are on the smart meter readings.
It says she has used 3030 gas units and 1054 electric units ?
I read the smart meters on the 12th Feb and the readings were up 87 on the electric and 73 on the gas ?
the bill is dated with an opening balance from the 3rd Nov 2021.

If those gas units are meter units (cubic metres), not kWh, then yes, she has used about £1600-worth of energy since People's Energy went bust.

The bill will show the conversion of cubic metres into kWh; 3030 cubic metres is around 34000kWh.

I guess your mother likes to keep her house warm and toasty?

Dumpling65

Gosh that’s scarey that her monthly payment will go from £80 to £400? Or am I just not understanding! 

She’s on blood thinners so she has to have the heating on quite a lot but all her radiator thermostats are set at 2 .
is British Gas really that much more expensive?

QrizB

Dumpling65 said:

Gosh that’s scarey that her monthly payment will go from £80 to £400? Or am I just not understanding!

Before we get too worried can I just double-check something? You wrote:

I read the smart meters on the 12th Feb and the readings were up 87 on the electric and 73 on the gas ?

The meter readings were up that much since which date?

Can you share the meter readings themselves, including the start and end readings (& dates) from the bill?

And do you have the closing readings from People's Energy?

Dumpling65

I took the meter readings on the 12th February, the British Gas bill is dated until 1st Feb .
the meter readings on the 21st September were gas 09025, electric , 14085.
the British Gas bill ( Nov -Feb ) has gas meter readings as 06861-09891 , and electric 14311-15365 ?

QrizB

Dumpling65 said:

I took the meter readings on the 12th February, the British Gas bill is dated until 1st Feb .
the meter readings on the 21st September were gas 09025, electric , 14085.
the British Gas bill ( Nov -Feb ) has gas meter readings as 06861-09891 , and electric 14311-15365 ?

Yes then, on the face of it your mother really has used 3030 cubic metres (34000kWh) of gas in three months. If correct that's quite an impressive feat, almost 400kWh/day - more in a day than we've been using in a week.

Using another 73 cubic metres over 11 days from 1st to 12th of Feb is a much lower rate of gas use, only 75kWh/day. It does make me wonder whether BG's 06861 opening reading is correct. Do you know where BG got it from? Can you get a copy of PE's closing bill and see if they've used the same number?

For electricity, 1054 is much more reasonable (12kWh/day) and not that different to your 11-day reading (8kWh/day).

Dumpling65

Apologies for the delayed reply , I have been trying to get a copy of mums last people’s energy bill but am unable to access it .
what’s really confusing me is that I have meter readings taken on September 21st and gas was 09184 and electric 14231.
tge readings on the British Gas bill start with 06861 ( gas) and14311 electric? 

It does seem the gas one is incorrect?

MWT

Dumpling65 said:

Apologies for the delayed reply , I have been trying to get a copy of mums last people’s energy bill but am unable to access it .

Can you access any of her previous PE bills?

Anything that would show she had previously paid a bill with the meter reading higher than the opening BG reading would help.

Just trying to eliminate the possibility that she had been billed on low estimates for some time, hence BG being given an estimated reading for the point of transfer which was too low...