Octopus want £3300 as my next direct debit!

tigercat8

I was transferred to Octopus Energy in September 2021 after Avro went under. My energy usage is about £50 a month, I'm a low energy user. It has taken Octopus until now, March 2022 to send me a bill after many times of asking. There was some discrepancy over my transfer readings apparently. Today I have an email telling me I'm £3300 in debt and they're going to take this in my next direct debit. How the heck do I proceed? Do I cancel the DD and then try and rectify it?? HELP

Ultrasonic

In the first instance you phone them to discuss and try to get this resolved. Making it very clear how obviously wrong their calculation is. Assuming your initial and current meter readings show this to be the case. Check that they are billing your for the right supply (check your meter serial numbers match the bill).

When is the DD payment due? 

rhedyn

If you have trouble getting through on the phone you can also tweet to OctopusEnergy as they seem to be very responsive even on the weekend and will help escalate.

razord

It would help if you gave us more detail on the meter reads you know are valid... maybe one from a year ago with Avro if you know it, then your first meter read with octopus, and your current read today.

pochase

What do you use for heating? 50£ pm month sounds extremely low.

Also were you in debt with Avro?

Did you pay anything since you changed over to Octopus?

Ultrasonic

pochase said:

What do you use for heating? 50£ pm month sounds extremely low.

Also were you in debt with Avro?

Did you pay anything since you changed over to Octopus?

£50 was certainly possible, particularly for an older fix that was still running when Avro went bust. My average DD to Pure Planet was under £50 when they went bust and this covered my use. At current prices the payments do need to be higher but for me I'm still talking just under £100. Not saying you're wrong to question the OP but just making the point it's not obviously wrong for a true low energy user.

kazwookie

Do you know what your meter reading was on change over from the old company, also do you have any photos of this reading and your meter serial number?

Then like others get on the phone or tweet to them, email the photos and reading to them, check the reading on the bill is the same starting reading as you have your old reading, if that make sense.

Be very proactive before they try and take the dd payment.

Have you paid anything since the change over at all?  if so has this been allowed for on your bill?  if you haven't paid anything have you been setting aside ££ 50 to 80 per month to allow for when the bill caught up with you?

tigercat8

tigercat8 said:

I was transferred to Octopus Energy in September 2021 after Avro went under. My energy usage is about £50 a month, I'm a low energy user. It has taken Octopus until now, March 2022 to send me a bill after many times of asking. There was some discrepancy over my transfer readings apparently. Today I have an email telling me I'm £3300 in debt and they're going to take this in my next direct debit. How the heck do I proceed? Do I cancel the DD and then try and rectify it?? HELP

Hi all. I am so grateful for all your replies. Since my initial post I have dug out a paper bill (an endangered species nowadays) from Avro with a meter reading. Thankfully it shows that my transfer reading that Octopus have is way out and completely wrong. I will be on the phone to them tmrow asap to try and sort this and hopefully it will provide proof that they have billed me wrongly. I am just amazed that, having taken 6 months to come to this conclusion, they didn't flag up that there was something amiss. And they haven't been taking DDs either so I've been putting money away in readiness (not £3k tho I hasten to add!) Mant thanks again all.

wild666

£50 per month is certainly possible, I was paying Avro £48 per month and that included me putting 20% extra onto the yearly usage totals. I only used the heating once per week when the daughter was down doing the cleaning in winter.
Do you have all your bills downloaded from the Avro site and the usage on the bills say C, customer reading, meaning you gave them readings every month.

Even now my monthly bills are under £48 but after April it will be just over £53 per month. It means that before I use anything my monthly bill is going to be nearly £23, my SC with Avro was £10.42, 16.8p per day for each utility.