Over billed Utility charge

Winnie1970

I believe I have been overcharged by Shell energy by one hundred thousands units (electric). Does anyone know of anybody that can look into it please. Shell energy are not being helpful. 

[Deleted User]

Hi,

more details please, up date readings and readings from about a year ago.

Can you post a link to photie of meter?

pochase

100,000 KWh is on the old SVT over 20,000£. Have they really send you an invoice for that much money?

Is your new meter reading 100,000 units higher than you expect or what has happened. You need to give a bit more information here.

MWT

Winnie1970 said:

I believe I have been overcharged by Shell energy by one hundred thousands units (electric). Does anyone know of anybody that can look into it please. Shell energy are not being helpful. 

The most useful thing you can do is give us a list with dates of your meter readings over the period you think this overcharge happened (please note if the readings are estimates or actual).

A very large error like this can occur where there is a higher estimated reading followed by a lower subsequent actual reading, fooling the system into thinking the meter has 'gone around the clock'.

Robin9

Are the bills based based on your meter reads ?  Some modern meters are very difficult to read - watch out for the decimal point and ignore the numbers (often in red on some digital meters) after the decimal point.  The old clock ones where the clocks go in different directions can also be misread.

Gerry1

If you have an old rotary pointer meter it's very easy to misread it.  If the next dial is showing 7, 8 or 9 the reading won't be the nearest figure but one lower.

You might think this shows 95794 but it's actually 94694.  The pointer on the 1,000 dial hasn't quite reached 5 because the pointer on the 100 dial still has to go past 8, 9 and 0.  Similarly, the pointer on the 100 dial hasn't quite reached 7 because the pointer on the 10 dial still has to go past 0.

If you misread the first dial then the reading could be 10,000kWh too high.

(Note that even the experts make mistakes: the last black dial should be labelled '1kWh per div' !)

MattMattMattUK

You have to question why someone thought it was sensible to vary the direction of the numbers on each dial, it seems like it was designed to make it hard to read. 

Gerry1

MattMattMattUK said:

You have to question why someone thought it was sensible to vary the direction of the numbers on each dial, it seems like it was designed to make it hard to read. 

No, it's inherent in the mechanical design, meshing cogwheels must rotate in opposite directions

.

MWT

MattMattMattUK said:

You have to question why someone thought it was sensible to vary the direction of the numbers on each dial, it seems like it was designed to make it hard to read. 

Oddly perhaps, but I've never found those meters difficult to read, as long as you look at the next lowest dial to see which side of 0 it is, they are pretty straightforward.

MattMattMattUK

MWT said:

MattMattMattUK said:

You have to question why someone thought it was sensible to vary the direction of the numbers on each dial, it seems like it was designed to make it hard to read. 

Oddly perhaps, but I've never found those meters difficult to read, as long as you look at the next lowest dial to see which side of 0 it is, they are pretty straightforward.

Several years ago (before I started my own business), I did quite a lot of work in UI and as a general rule reversing the scales/direction of measurements in an overall UI was a bad idea (as was breaking convention, but that is a separate issue). As an example in a cockpit every dial goes from low to high in a clockwise direction. Airspeed, altimeter, fuel, climb/vspeed meter etc. might have a different starting position (top, bottom, bottom left corner to bottom right corner etc.) but I do not think I have ever seen one that goes not rise low to high, clockwise. 

I guess it is less important when you are actually reading a measurement eg. in general use you do not actually read an analogue dial, it is a different process as far as the brain works for a speedometer, airspeed indicator, fuel meter etc. 

Gerry1

Back in the day rotary dial meters were never read by Joe Public, only by trained meter readers, so the drawbacks inherent with the mechanical design were of no consequence.