Am I asking too much from Shell Energy?

MWT

kroggy said:

So now I have the basis for the Direct Debit Recall as I have definitely been overcharged.  I am still working out the credits, I think they do not reconcile because they too use different dates,amounts and even the amount of amounts.

That is not a basis for a recall under the Direct Debit guarantee, as long as they have taken a payment in line with the DD agreement it is irrelevant what the bill shows as the amount owed, the bank will only care about the process of informaing you about the DD that is to be taken, not the billing basis for the amount.

If the estimated use on the first bill is wrong, it will get corrected on the next bill based on your actual meter readings, if you ever get to the next bill of course.

kroggy said:

I have explained to you before the reason I posted is that I wanted to establish if Shell Energy used reads for everyone on the same day of the month, we have established that they don't so there is no legitimate reason for them not to change my read period to 1st to end of month which is what they agreed in two separate calls to two separate people.

That is also a non-sequitur, just because they don't bill everyone on the same day, it doesn't mean they are willing/able to change your billing date to the 1st of the month.

You do have some valid concerns, as the CS staff should not be agreeing to do something and then not do it, but the mistake is probably them agreeing to change the date, rather than failing to change the date. 

RogerBareford

kroggy said:

RogerBareford said:

kroggy said:

RogerBareford said:

kroggy said:

RogerBareford said:

kroggy said:

As a result of these issues I have four months of energy being disputed, I asked they they issue two bills, one up to the tariff change and one thereafter, instead they have produced a single bill which is so complex that I would need a top 3 auditing firm to comprehend and again it has gone past the reads by 7 days.

I think your exagerting how complicated the bill is. If you post a copy on here with all your personal details removed then someone will be able to explain it to you so you can understand it and then learn how to understand bills in the future.

I think you mean exaggerating, the bill is only complicated because they insist on adding this estimated week.

You have clearly made up your mind to blame the victim and take the side of Shell Energy, so no thanks I will not spend hours redacting and uploading a bill only for you to attack me further.

I have asked others and they go glass eyed when looking at the bill, the layout is the layout, I am not going to get Shell to change that, all I want is for the bill to run from 1st of month to end of month, I moved in on the 1st of month, I asked to be billed from 1st of month to end of Month and Shell Energy said it would be no problem.

It is clear that email is just a waste of time because by the time they reply a new bill has been sent and there is a whole new inaccurate bill of diarrhea to deal with.

What makes it diarrhea?

When I get the next bill the start of the bill will be an estimated read, so it will either need to be corrected or Shell Energy will be stealing from me.

At the same time they will add another 7 day period with an estimated read and the whole cycle will start again.

So previously all I ever needed to do was take a photo of my read which the 3rd party app converts to a read, I could submit that read to my supplier and I would get a bill for what I submitted.  NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

I really do not understand why this is so hard for Shell, so I have to conclude they are doing this to deliberately provide estimated reads so they can make money in rounding or whatever.

The abrasive and borderline hostile attitude of Shell Energy Staff just makes things worse.

I have had energy companies with call a centre in South Africa, India and the Philippines, I would always prefer a UK call centre but at least some of these were friendly and courteous with a willingness to help or with the ability to escalate to someone more experienced.

I think this is another area where Shell Energy fails, there does not appear to be a senior person to escalate to or a CEO's office, the staff seem almost willing for you to take to the Ombudsman.

Strange way to run a company and over time it will ruin their reputation.

Obviously they do not give a damn at the moment because we can't jump (yet) but I will dine out on telling my circle of their shortcomings and word will get out. 

It would take 5 minutes to blank out personal information on a picture of the bill and upload it then people could go through it and help you understand it. Nobody is "blaming the victim" i just think your wasting a lot of time posting on here and getting worked up about something that doesn't matter. So what if they don't bill you based on calendar months it makes no difference whatsoever, they could bill you once a year and it wouldn't matter because at the end of the day you pay for what you use.

Attempting to get them to change their billing system so it bills you on different days won't change anything so it's a waste of your effort.

What you need is someone who understands your bill to explain it to you and to check for errors so any issues you have can be resolved.

I am not sure if you are an employee of Shell Energy or just like winding people up on forums but please do not reply to any more of my messages.

I am not going to be providing my bill which has all kinds of personal information including the amounts used.

If I am wasting my time then it is my time to waste, please use the IGNORE function so you do not get notified of my messages and please do not reply to them.

I am not asking them to change their billing system, it is clear from other users that they do not bill every customer on the same day.

I moved in on the first, my reads are for a month from the first I expect to be billed from the first for 30 days not 37 days.

As for your last sentence I am quite capable of understanding my bill, I have had bills from almost all of the suppliers on the market over the years, I have been able to verify these with my own spreadsheets.

In the past I have had suppliers who play this USE ESTIMATES game so they can round up and make extra money off each customer.  It was my spreadsheet that highlighted this and they did stop it once I brought it to their attention.

To be honest I just want what seems to be normal, a bill based on my reads, a bill that runs on the anniversary of when I moved in.

You said in your OP that "they have produced a single bill which is so complex that I would need a top 3 auditing firm to comprehend" which suggests you don't understand you bill so that's why i suggested you post it on here and remove personal information ("amounts used" is not personal information). If you are capable of understanding you bill then i don't see what the issue is?

You also seem confused about estimates because even if they estimate too high then when they make the next bill with actual readings it will all correct itself, they also will not bill for the same period twice. So there is no way they can use estimates to make extra money.

If you don't actually want help and don't want people to reply who are trying to help you then i don't understand why you posted on here.

What I don't understand is how they have structured this bill. because is it not a credit of the old bills but a big mixture of credit amounts that I can't reconcile to the old bills.

So what I can show after trying to focus on the amounts charged in the new offal bill is that they made these estimated reads despite having an email that detailed the two sets of dates and two sets of reads to use for a new bill.

As I said they did not use the reads I provided but instead used estimated reads, so today in building this spreadsheet to try to audit this mess I discovered two things about these estimated reads

1. The closing electricity read they used was around 30 units UNDER what I had provided
2. The closing Gas read they used was around 100 m3 OVER what I had provided

So I have been overcharged massively

I have explained to you before the reason I posted is that I wanted to establish if Shell Energy used reads for everyone on the same day of the month, we have established that they don't so there is no legitimate reason for them not to change my read period to 1st to end of month which is what they agreed in two separate calls to two separate people.

As I said, providing my actual data will identify me, the data is freely accessible to energy companies, to some of their employees or agents abroad, to OFGEM and to 3rd parties like Morrison Data Services.

One number is one thing, but the moment you provide a few and the dates and you are found.

So now I have the basis for the Direct Debit Recall as I have definitely been overcharged.  I am still working out the credits, I think they do not reconcile because they too use different dates,amounts and even the amount of amounts.

But you havn't actually been overcharged anything. Your still with Shell energy so the solution is to make sure you supply readings several days leading up to the next billing date and then the next bill correct everything.

When you get an incorrect estimated reading on one bill it will be corrected automatically when you get the next bill with actual readings.

In regards to the billing date maybe the system automatically chooses the billing date based on when you moved in and that can't be changed in the system so it could be irrelavant what other people's dates are.

The people you spoke to could have just been speaking rubbish as they havn't been trained properly by Shell.

Robin9

With respect @Kroggy you do not appear to have convinced any of the various people that have commented on you that you are paying each and every month for 37 days instead of 30/31 days. Are you really saying for a meter read on say May 1st you were billed from April 1st to May 7th and again for a meter read on June 1st you were billed from May 1st to June 7th ? I think you were billed from May 8th to June 7th. Convince me please ?