Warning! SSE attempted to cheat me, despite having a Smart Meter installed

slizovskiy

Hi, I have gas with SSE and I have a smart meter installed a few months ago.  I was surprised to receive a bill with HUGE April gas spending (when my cheap contract ended).
This spending was NOT according to my smart meter readings. They have put an ad-hoc figure for my 1-st April readings!  
I had to contact them via Whatsapp support to get the bill reissued.   They tried to cheat me by approx 80 pounds... 

jbuchanangb

I will be keeping a close eye on them. I was on a low cost fix with them until 1 April. They have applied a debit to my account without issuing a statement to explain how it was calculated. I have a photo of the meter taken on 31 March. I switch supplier away from SSE on 8 April and provided meter reading to my new supplier, and have a photo of the meter on that date. Still no statement from SSE. At least when you contacted them they have recalculated your bill.

Robin9

More details please. 

The readings from your last bill - please inc the letters A C  or E or wording like Smart , Our Read, Meter Read

Although they may once have been Smart are they actually communicating to SSE ?

slizovskiy

Absolutely clear case:  I have a smart meter data on my SSE app. It clearly shows a £51 bill for April, while they quoted £120 for April  in the Bill. They have accepted their fault when challenged.  My warning is:  Check you BILL!

Robin9

This really ought to be sort of thing that you can go Direct to OFGEM about without having to go through SSE's complaints procedure.

Perhaps then OFGEM might get get a better picture of the state of the industry 

MattMattMattUK

slizovskiy said:

Hi, I have gas with SSE and I have a smart meter installed a few months ago.  I was surprised to receive a bill with HUGE April gas spending (when my cheap contract ended).
This spending was NOT according to my smart meter readings. They have put an ad-hoc figure for my 1-st April readings!  
I had to contact them via Whatsapp support to get the bill reissued.   They tried to cheat me by approx 80 pounds... 

If I am reading your post correctly what they inadvertently tried to do was in a roundabout way trying to do you a favour. If you had a huge amount of gas charged at the old, lower rate then on your next bill you would have less gas charged at the new higher rate, so you would have saved money overall.

molerat

Robin9 said:

This really ought to be sort of thing that you can go Direct to OFGEM about without having to go through SSE's complaints procedure.

Perhaps then OFGEM might get get a better picture of the state of the industry 

Why would they want that ?  It would mean they might actually have to do something proactive about the state of the industry rather than bolting the stable door which is much easier.

jbuchanangb

I was supposing that SSE used a very low reading for end March, in order to carry March gas usage over in April, when it would be charged at higher rates.

Robin9

jbuchanangb said:

I was supposing that SSE used a very low reading for end March, in order to carry March gas usage over in April, when it would be charged at higher rates.

Tongue in cheek - is it just possible that the communications failed in March and SSE used an estimate at the end of March, communications magically came alive again in April ?