Shell Energy

Lizzyr80

Hi All

I'm trying to help my partner out as he has received some massive gas bills.  Basically he was with Green Energy, and they moved him over to Shell Energy and onto their flexible 6 tariff on the 27th September 21.  They based the opening read on a deemed read, (apparently an actual read from Green) at the time he was living alone and only really used the gas for hot water and the hob.  They then changed the deemed read based on a customer read he gave on the 9th December 21.  I moved in on the 9th October and we were having the heating on for a few hours a day when we were in the house so the gas usage had gone up.  They reversed the deemed read so instead of the opening read being 7608 they changed it to 7299, similar on the electric.  They won't change it unless we can supply 2 supporting reads taken 7 days apart, obviously this isn't a true reflection of his use at the time of opening the account.  The bill is currently at over £2000 (Gas and Electric) and I've just spent over an hour and a half on the phone to them.  They've asked me to send photos of the meter with the current reading which I've done and I'm monitoring our daily usage at the moment.  Readings online that my partner have submitted are based on 4 digits but the meter actually has 5 digits and I don't know if this is part of the issue.  So instead of 08810 as it reads they are being input as 8810.  This is all before the charges go up again and he's now being projected a £8000 a year gas bill which is ridiculous.  He was paying £80 a month with Green we are now paying £496.00 a month roughly on D/D's and a projected annual usage of 84,000kwh.  Any advice would be appreciated as even Shell have told us our gas usage seems excessively high.

MWT

It seems that they are treating the meter as imperial (cubic feet/ 4 digits) instead of metric (cubic metres/5 digits).

The net result is that the amount used is multiplied by 2.83 resulting in the crazy numbers you are seeing.

Send them the photo you have there is confirm it is metric and get the bills adjusted.

Even after that his use looks very high, so the next point will be that opening meter reading, what is the reading on his last Green bill and was it actual or estimated?

Lizzyr80

Hi MWT

Thanks for your reply.  It was Deemed so agreed between both energy suppliers.  The first proper reading was based on an estimated reading on the 01/10/21, my partner didn't give an actual reading until the 09/12/21 as I don't think he was ever asked by Green Energy to supply a closing actual reading.

MWT

Lizzyr80 said:

Hi MWT

Thanks for your reply.  It was Deemed so agreed between both energy suppliers.  The first proper reading was based on an estimated reading on the 01/10/21, my partner didn't give an actual reading until the 09/12/21 as I don't think he was ever asked by Green Energy to supply a closing actual reading.

He should still have a final bill from Green, the bit I'm trying to establish is if both Green and Shell are using the same reading for the point where Shell took over...

If so then at least he is only paying for the energy once, but if it is an estimated reading there may still be an element of catch-up billing going on if the reading was not close to the actual meter reading at the time.

The aim here being to establish what his realistic annual usage might be, instead of a wild calculation based on a catch-up bill after low estimates...

Lizzyr80

MWT said:

Lizzyr80 said:

Hi MWT

Thanks for your reply.  It was Deemed so agreed between both energy suppliers.  The first proper reading was based on an estimated reading on the 01/10/21, my partner didn't give an actual reading until the 09/12/21 as I don't think he was ever asked by Green Energy to supply a closing actual reading.

He should still have a final bill from Green, the bit I'm trying to establish is if both Green and Shell are using the same reading for the point where Shell took over...

If so then at least he is only paying for the energy once, but if it is an estimated reading there may still be an element of catch-up billing going on if the reading was not close to the actual meter reading at the time.

The aim here being to establish what his realistic annual usage might be, instead of a wild calculation based on a catch-up bill after low estimates...

We have the final bill from Green.  The actual read was 7608 so Shell are trying to charge us for Energy already used.