Seemingly crazy SSE gas bill.

Gerry1

Oh dear, sounds like you may have been set up and 'monetised' by Spark.  They concentrated on the rental market.  Their website stated:-

• It’s ideal for landlords: We help to reduce the costs associated with void properties.
  

• It makes sense for you: We’ll pay an admin fee for each property to help cover the cost of dealing with utilities.
  

Great for landlords, not so great for the tenants who didn't get the cheapest rates on the market (guess who funded those admin fees given to the landlord?)

Probably not much better with SSE.  Their customer service was so bad they agreed that complaints could be referred to the Ombudsman after six weeks rather than the usual eight.

Do you know the kWh rates and daily charges you are paying and whether they are more expensive than the Standard Variable Tariff?  As a rookie, you may well have been paying over the odds and may still be doing so.

theoretica

If the 5560 was an estimate then the real usage should be apportioned out back to the previous real reading, so you don't pay all of the jump at the current rates, but some at the old rates.  But do sort out the units question!

GeoffreyDee

QrizB said:

GeoffreyDee said:

I'm going to sound ridiculously naive here, which is unfortunate ...

Don't sweat it, we were all young once.

• Your previous reading of 05560 - is that one *you* took, or is it one of SSE's estimates?
• The current meter reading of 09098 - you took this one personally, and have a dated photo?
• When you moved into the property (October 2019?) and took over the energy accounts, what was the opening reading? Is that shown as an Actual reading or an Estimated one?
  
• Next to the meter, is there a sticker that says when it was fitted?
  

And finally for now ...

• You also have an electricity account? Do you have readings for that, too?

Thanks for being kind. I feel exceedingly stupid. 

The previous reading is an estimate. I have established this by finding a little (e) written next to the number on the website. Because this coincided with a meter check visit (maybe safety? functionality? I should have asked the SSE person rather than assume their task) I thought it was a official record by someone who had actually looked at it. 

I took the current reading personally and have a dated photo. I have also set up an excel spreadsheet to take daily readings from today forward. It's in an awkward place in the bottom corner of a  storage cupboard but needs must. 

I do not think that the records from Spark (the first supplier we used) have been carried across in any way I can access. And I would have been far too clueless at the time to have carefully checked everything. When I did arrive at the flat we were fifty pounds in debt on the prepayment electricity meter so I couldn't turn the lights on until I figured out what as going on.  The order of suppliers was Spark -->  (50 quid cash incentive) Bulb --> (they went insolvent) so taken over by SSE/Ovo.

The electricity we have is a prepayment meter key, which was sent out by Bulb. If we use it up, lights go off (better than getting wacked with multi grand bills I guess) 

I will take a look for a fitting date on the gas meter. 

GeoffreyDee

theoretica said:

If the 5560 was an estimate then the real usage should be apportioned out back to the previous real reading, so you don't pay all of the jump at the current rates, but some at the old rates.  But do sort out the units question!

Just one other thing. I've got the most recent paper bill in front of me now. The bill says that we owed SSE £578.11. 163 units. 1833.59 kWh. Estimated reading 5560.  A nasty amount for sure, but I have saving and there are three of us in the flat. We could split it three ways and deal with it right away. I was finally trying to just get it solved after many pointless phone and twitter DM conversations with SSE who would stop talking to me if I told them my real name instead of saying that I was ''The Occupier'' . 

I finally managed to get an online account synced to my gas meter number by putting ''The Occupier'' in the name section rather than my name. So I was ready to get my debit card out and at least pay off the first few hundred pounds. Then I thought it would be sensible to input a fresh meter reading, so I did. Then the amount jumped to £3700 immediately. I sat looking at the screen in a confused way for a few moments because it seemed so outlandish that the difference between estimated and real readings could be £3100 or a multiple of 6X. According the to bill I am on SSE's cheapest overall tariff.  

QrizB

GeoffreyDee said:

The order of suppliers was Spark -->  (50 quid cash incentive) Bulb --> (they went insolvent) so taken over by SSE/Ovo.

This puzzles me. Bulb didn't go bust, they're still trading under Special Administration. Exactly what prompted your switch to SSE?

GeoffreyDee said:

Then I thought it would be sensible to input a fresh meter reading, so I did. Then the amount jumped to £3700 immediately.

From 5560 to 9098 is 3538 cubic metres, roughly 39,800 kWh at the same conversion rate you posted.

39800kWh at the current capped variable tariff of around 7.4p/kWh is £2945. However SSE should have cancelled all your previous bills (back to the last known reading) and recalculated on this basis, which would mean that a lot of your use should be charged at the previous rate of around 4p/kWh - just over half the current price.

What date did you switch to SSE? What meter reading did SSE open your account on, and where did it come from?

Edit: I don't think you've said when you moved in. If it was Sept/Oct 2019, I'm not sure how you've used 40,000kWh in that entire time (sure it's possible, but unlikely for three hardy young lads in a flat; my family of four in a 3-bed semi have used barely 60% as much in the same time). Are you absolutely certain you're reading the correct meter? Does the serial number on the meter match the one on the bill?

tpeppers

QrizB said:

Edit: I don't think you've said when you moved in. If it was Sept/Oct 2019, I'm not sure how you've used 40,000kWh in that entire time (sure it's possible, but unlikely for three hardy young lads in a flat; my family of four in a 3-bed semi have used barely 60% as much in the same time). Are you absolutely certain you're reading the correct meter? Does the serial number on the meter match the one on the bill?

Two of us in a 4 bed detached have used over 18,000kwh of gas in 12 months, so it's certainly high but not impossible. (We have since taken measures to reduce this quite a bit...!!) 

GeoffreyDee

I've found something which may be useful and could help clarify some stuff. Because Martin Lewis (the man, the legend) popped up on my twitter feed saying I needed to take a photo of my meter on the last day of March this year, I did actually take a photo that day. So I have a meter reading from 7 weeks ago. That meter reading is 8990 (08990 with the zero at start included). 

And yesterday's reading was 9098. So between the 31st of March and the 23rd of May, my meter reading went up from 8990 to 9098.
How do I convert this into gas used? And then price?

  If I can use that as a sane benchmark for use then I'd have a fighting chance of showing SSE that something weird is happening if there is a massive gap between our real usage and their theory about our real usage.

I think that would have been a fairly typical window of usage for us guys - most radiators off almost all the time, but lads having hot showers a couple of times a day and doing lots of washing up. I got the keys to the flat June 2019, but it has been empty or inhabited by only two of us at least a third of that time (covid sent students home, I went to work in the highlands for months)

tpeppers

GeoffreyDee said:

I've found something which may be useful and could help clarify some stuff. Because Martin Lewis (the man, the legend) popped up on my twitter feed saying I needed to take a photo of my meter on the last day of March this year, I did actually take a photo that day. So I have a meter reading from 7 weeks ago. That meter reading is 8990 (08990 with the zero at start included). 

And yesterday's reading was 9098. So between the 31st of March and the 23rd of May, my meter reading went up from 8990 to 9098.
How do I convert this into gas used? And then price?

  If I can use that as a sane benchmark for use then I'd have a fighting chance of showing SSE that something weird is happening if there is a massive gap between our real usage and their theory about our real usage.

I think that would have been a fairly typical window of usage for us guys - most radiators off almost all the time, but lads having hot showers a couple of times a day and doing lots of washing up. I got the keys to the flat June 2019, but it has been empty or inhabited by only two of us at least a third of that time (covid sent students home, I went to work in the highlands for months)

Gas prices went up enormously since 31st March, so this photo is golden in proving that the bulk of your gas was used prior to prices increasing. Hopefully SSE will accept that and reduce the price they are charging you. 

GeoffreyDee

GeoffreyDee 

And yesterday's reading was 9098. So between the 31st of March and the 23rd of May, my meter reading went up from 8990 to 9098.
How do I convert this into gas used? And then price?

Alright it looks like that means I used 108 units of gas, which an online conversion calculator is telling me means 1227.2 kWh. Running that at 4.02p standard tariff (from the bill before the price hike) and standing charge at 29.31p per day (for 49 days) gets to a total in the region of £64. 

 If that reflected the average use for the entire time I have lived at this property I'd expect to be looking at a bill in the region of £1400. Which is a painful lesson in planning ahead and not being stupid, but hugely different than the £3700 staring back at me in red from my SSE account screen. A payment plan between the three of us and a dig into savings and it would be sorted. Well over double that usage per week since June 2019 is not credible I think. The flat was empty for June, July, August 2019, empty December 2019, down to two people March-October 2020 (minus the guy who uses the heating!), empty July August, most of Sept 2021. So those months ought to have nothing beyond standing charge.

Might this imply that the starting point that SSE had was wrong? 

Mstty

GeoffreyDee said:

GeoffreyDee 

And yesterday's reading was 9098. So between the 31st of March and the 23rd of May, my meter reading went up from 8990 to 9098.
How do I convert this into gas used? And then price?

Alright it looks like that means I used 108 units of gas, which an online conversion calculator is telling me means 1227.2 kWh. Running that at 4.02p standard tariff (from the bill before the price hike) and standing charge at 29.31p per day (for 49 days) gets to a total in the region of £64. 

 If that reflected the average use for the entire time I have lived at this property I'd expect to be looking at a bill in the region of £1400. Which is a painful lesson in planning ahead and not being stupid, but hugely different than the £3700 staring back at me in red from my SSE account screen. A payment plan between the three of us and a dig into savings and it would be sorted. Well over double that usage per week since June 2019 is not credible I think. The flat was empty for June, July, August 2019, empty December 2019, down to two people March-October 2020 (minus the guy who uses the heating!), empty July August, most of Sept 2021. So those months ought to have nothing beyond standing charge.

Might this imply that the starting point that SSE had was wrong? 

Are you factoring in that heating has potentially been off and the weather mild and that energy users use only 20-30% of their energy Apr-Sep?