Vulnerable neighbour charged £1154 for gas by SSE

Hargreaves1910

Hello thanks for the help and sorry for the delay in answering. I now have his paperwork for the last year which he luckily kept.

So, the meter is imperial.

The last real meter reading I could find was 3705 dated 21/07/2021.

Up until the latest real one last week all the others were estimated and he has made quite a lot of substantial  payments between then and the £1154 last week.

rjmachin

Did you notice whether the meter said "hundreds or cubic feed" or just "cubic feet"?

If it said "hundreds of cubic feet", then the bills from 21/07/2021 to 25/08/2022 looks to be around £10,800 if the entire period was at the rates you initially mentioned.

If it says "cubic feet", then the same period would be £108, which seems low.

QrizB

rjmachin said:

Did you notice whether the meter said "hundreds or cubic feed" or just "cubic feet"?

This is a red herring. Imperial meters measure single cubic feet but the ones and tens digits are in red and aren't reported. The meter reading is always hundreds of cubic feet.

If it said "hundreds of cubic feet", then the bills from 21/07/2021 to 25/08/2022 looks to be around £10,800 if the entire period was at the rates you initially mentioned.

This is the most likely situation.

Edit: but note comment below re. KWh not £.

stewie_griffin

rjmachin said:

Did you notice whether the meter said "hundreds or cubic feed" or just "cubic feet"?

If it said "hundreds of cubic feet", then the bills from 21/07/2021 to 25/08/2022 looks to be around £10,800 if the entire period was at the rates you initially mentioned.

If it says "cubic feet", then the same period would be £108, which seems low.

I assume you mean 10,800 kWh and not £s 😂

Hargreaves1910

The meter is in cubic feet.

I've noted his readings and payments:

28/11/20      No reading            Paid £    52.18

28/01/21      3507E                           £  136.40

10/05/21      3641E                           £  168.04

21/07/21      3705 (actual reading)   £    93.43

04/11/21      3733E                           £    65.89

28/01/22      3864E                           £  201.83

16/02/22      4314E                           £  774.70

14/05/22      4792E                           £  524.01

04/08/22      5252E                           £1154.20

The actual reading for the August date was 4042 which I passed on to SSE by phone.

Looking at the January and February bills for 2022, the February one was "revised". Just why I haven't got a clue, my head is going round in circles now but somehow I think they have overcharged him a huge amount.

QrizB

Hargreaves1910 said:

The actual reading for the August date was 4042 which I passed on to SSE by phone.

He's had a year of estimated bills, and the estimates are high.

Looking at the January and February bills for 2022, the February one was "revised". Just why I haven't got a clue, my head is going round in circles now but somehow I think they have overcharged him a huge amount.

From 21/07 to 04/08, they've billed him for a total of 1547 hundred cubic feet. That's roughly 45000kWh.

Your actual reading, however, shows that he's only used 337 hundred cubic feet, around 13000kWh. So he's been overbilled by 32000kWh.

The tariff will have changed twice in that period, but if we approximate it as 4p/kWh that's a £1280 overbill.

Have they issued an updated biill since you gave them the reading? Does it show your meter reading, and that they've re-estimated all the intermediate readings?

Hargreaves1910

No updated bill.

I've set up an online account on his behalf and the latest meter reading is on there. But as for anything else there's nothing, it just says Balance £0.0 which has just got to be wrong but where do I go from here?

They make it so incredibly hard for anyone to get in touch with them.

QrizB

From the info you've posted previously, he's on quarterly billing.

If you can't get any sense out them before November, it *should* all come out in the wash with his next bill.

Norman_Castle

Hargreaves1910 said:

Even I had trouble hearing as I spoke to a very quiet woman.

I often have to tell people working in customer services I can't hear them and the problem is normally solved by them adjusting either how the phone is being held or their microphone position.

Hargreaves1910

A quick update. We sent another actual reading a few weeks ago but today he received another bill saying he is now £1751 in debt. No mention of any meter readings, it just says meter readings aren't available, it's like they've ignored them and carried on basing their figures on the estimated readings.
I'm at a loss where do we go from here?