Please help - estimated gas bill ten times what it should be

PrudentEllie

Please could the moderators move this if I have put it in the wrong place - I have tried to put it in the right place but am still very shaken by the behaviour of OVO and of the man with whom I spoke this morning - he slammed the phone down on me....

I have just spoken to someone at OVO to ask them to alter my insanely high direct debit, particularly on Gas, where they say I (alone, disabled, ill, probable brain tumor, in queue to have MRI), live mostly in one room, and they allege that I use 11,533 kwh of gas per year - when I don't have the gas central heating on for six months of the year, do cold washes in the washing machine, and used a magnificent total of 10 kwh gas over the last six months as I was so terrified by all the stuff in the media about 'don't use gas!!!'.  Now that I have put the heating on for a couple of hours (literally) a day in order to help my legs move a bit more easily, then it uses up one or two units a day - for once in my life I managed to note and photograph the meters (the electricity meter's behaviour is another thing).  If they bothered to look on my OVO account they would see that this would take seven to more than ten years to rack up - and with everyone economising now I think it would take even longer.

I spoke to a man, G****, from OVO, on a bad line, I had to ask him to turn the sound up as I couldn't hear him (I have very acute hearing, the sound was turned down at his end, proved by when he eventually turned it up) - and he proceeded to tell me a load of malarkey about how they had had no gas readings for the last umpty years and had no proof that I'd used what I said.  He also managed to say that I had never been asked to take readings and also that I should take monthly readings and it was my fault that they had no readings - and I said I am on my account now and  there are all the meter readings - whenever I had been asked to take a reading I had tried to do so - which had happened only a couple of times ever - and I had photographed it and sent them photos and my neighbour had photographed it on occasion - so that assertion of his was totally untrue. 

I've just discovered that a load of their 'readings' have been estimated - apart from my meter readings - they had originally said that they had no trouble sending a man to read the meters because I was so ill and on the 'at risk' or whatever they call it list.

G said it was because of the estimated readings that their idea of my consumption of gas was so high and it was my fault(!!!!)... He originally said that he would send me an email - any ideas if that will happen?  Hmmmm.....

He then said that meter readings would only be accepted by their computer on the 31st of the month - no exceptions.  Thinking about it after he slammed the phone down on me (I was and am always polite) this means that for September, February etc they are presumably not accepting any meter readings at all as those months don't have 31 days in them.  Crazy!

Please help - OVO have always been dreadful but this really is beyond dreadful - they have taken the amounts that I have used and multiplied them by ten or more and are raiding my bank account and I am in debt! 

Oh yes, reading old posts, my gas meter is clearly numerical and is easy to read - OVO just couldn't be bothered and appear to have lied to me over and over and over.  

What can I do please?  The man I spoke to this morning says my account is £255 in credit.  They want to increase my direct debit to be £185 a month to cover the insane amounts that they allege quite falsely that I use.  

I have taken the precaution of photographing the pages of my online account and have taken screenshots too - they patently are totally untrustworthy - but what can I do?  Can I appeal to the ombudsman?

Many thanks for any help -

Ellie

Robin9

Could you give us some of those meter readings please /

Are you aware that gas meters do not read in kWh directly  - modern ones  read in m3 and then conversion factors of 11.2 -  that may explain a confusion..

11,533 kWh a year is not high - mine has been off for over 6 months as well and I expect this year to be about 15,000 kWh

PrudentEllie

Thanks Robin9, here you are

 Gas

Date	Reading	Type
1 Oct 2022	18697	Manual
8 Jun 2022	18687	Manual
31 Mar 2022	18615	Manual
1 Oct 2021	17877	Estimated
1 Sep 2021	17836	Estimated
1 Aug 2021	17809	Estimated
1 Jul 2021	17780	Estimated
28 May 2021	17731	Estimated
1 May 2021	17556	Estimated
16 Apr 2021	17622	Manual
1 Apr 2021	17445	Estimated
1 Mar 2021	17275	Estimated

1 Feb 2021	17103	Estimated
1 Jan 2021	16905.2143038	Estimated
1 Dec 2020	16725	Estimated
1 Nov 2020	16572	Estimated
6 Oct 2020	16532	Manual
1 Oct 2020	16469	Estimated
1 Sep 2020	16419	Estimated
1 Aug 2020	16389	Estimated
1 Jul 2020	16360	Estimated
1 Jun 2020	16322	Estimated
1 May 2020	16257	Estimated
31 Mar 2020	16145	Estimated

15 Mar 2020	16061	Estimated
29 Feb 2020	15983	Estimated
31 Jan 2020	15798	Estimated
31 Dec 2019	15602	Estimated
30 Nov 2019	15422	Estimated
31 Oct 2019	15279	Estimated
30 Sep 2019	15190	Estimated
31 Aug 2019	15146	Estimated
31 Jul 2019	15118	Estimated
30 Jun 2019	15087	Estimated
3 Jun 2019	15054	Manual
31 May 2019	15009	Estimated

As I am so ill and disabled (and Green!) I try every which way to save energy - and as I am in debt I do too, as I have had to basically pay for my own health care for the last few years until recently.  My house is insulated as much as I can get it, with insulation in the loft, double glazing on all windows, draft excluders, and what was (a dozen years ago) horrendously expensive insulation on all the insides of the external walls (under the wallpaper) which has warmed the rooms immensely.

I've been looking at my kwh usage on the gas meter since I turned the gas on for an hour or two a day, the thermostat is set low and only has to raise the temperature for about two degrees for three hours at present and it uses only a kwh and a bit per day - I've been taking photographs of the meters.  Everything else in the house is electric (and I am careful with that too). 

Thanks for your help...

PrudentEllie

Oh yes, the gas meter says kwh, and it does read in numerals, but it is as far as I know over 25 years old, when I got gas here.  I've just seen a readout that might simplify things, here goes... this removed all the estimates that had got into the other lot I copied... I've never seen so many readings before

Gas reading history

If you think one of your previous readings was wrong, contact us (opens in new window) 

and we'll update your account.

Hide estimates

Date	Reading	Type
1 Oct 2022	18697	Manual
8 Jun 2022	18687	Manual
31 Mar 2022	18615	Manual
16 Apr 2021	17622	Manual
6 Oct 2020	16532	Manual
3 Jun 2019	15054	Manual
11 Mar 2019	14739	Manual
28 Feb 2019	14711	Manual
13 Dec 2018	14282	Manual
8 Jun 2018	13811	Manual
3 Oct 2015	10206	Manual
11 Apr 2013	05857	Manual
11 Sep 2012	04509	Manual
20 Mar 2012	04052	Manual
23 Sep 2011	03130	Manual

Thanks again

Ellie

BooJewels

Please help - OVO have always been dreadful but this really is beyond dreadful - they have taken the amounts that I have used and multiplied them by ten or more and are raiding my bank account and I am in debt! 

Unfortunately, that might actually be true - as @Robin9 has said, the meter itself measures your gas by volume, but you pay  for it by how much energy it provides when burnt.  So you read the meter in [probably] metres cubed - m° - but are charged in the energy value of kWh.  Which as Robin said, is a conversion factor of over 11.  There's also a slight variable in this too, as the particular gas you've been supplied can vary in how much energy it delivers, this is called the calorific value, so it always varies a smidge too.

So, for example, if your meter reading showed 100 gas units used - that would be something like 1120kWh of energy using Robin's x11.2 conversion (I tend to use 11.4) at 10.3p per kWh = £115.36 bill for 100 units + your daily standing charge.

So I'm afraid, it's very possible that the chap advising you was correct on that.  As Robin said, give us some of your actual numbers and we'll work it out for you.

Leon_W

The gas meter will either be metric or imperial.  It will be marked either m3  (meter cubed) or ft3  (Cubic Feet)  Meters do not measure Kwh (Kilowatt Hours)

Presuming it's metric, if you take your own readings and not the estimated ones, the OCT 20 reading and the OCT 22 reading.  

OCT 22 ........ 18697
OCT 20......... 16532

That means, over TWO years you've used 2165 m3 of gas.  Multiply this by 11.2. = 24248 Kwh in Two years. About 12000 annually therefore.

Which is about £1200 in todays money + Standing charges.  Which OVO seem to agree with.

BooJewels

Using your last full year of gas readings (Oct to Oct) - if it is a metric meter (the numbers are suggestive that it is) - is 820m³ = 9294kWh = £1,063.65 including your standing charge at the post October prices - but that's using my own spreadsheet, using north west prices - elsewhere in the country is likely to be slightly higher.    So your monthly DD for gas would likely be set at around £90+ - more if you have a debit balance to clear too.

I need to be somewhere, so can't work out more just at the moment, but I'll come back.

Coffeekup

As last October's gas usage was estimated I went from October 2020 meter readings to October 2022.
Which give a meter reading of 2165 unit's across the 2 years, so / 2 years and you have 1082 averaged across both years.

So if your meter reading count is 1082 for the year, multiply that by 11.2 for quick math and you use 12,180 kWh's of gas a year (assuming you have a metric gas meter).

Assuming you're on the government set rate of gas which is around 10.4p per kWh... That will cost £1,250 a year before vat which is another £60 on top of that so £1,310 all in for gas for the year.
Then there is the standing charges which is another £100 added to the £1,310 totalling £1,410 for a year's usage of gas

BooJewels

I think you're closer @Coffeekup - the second post appeared whilst I was already typing.  Using half of 2 years readings as an annual average gives rise to an average annual bill of £1370.28 = a monthly DD for gas alone of £114 - so the £185/month they've quoted for both fuels sounds plausible.

Coffeekup

PrudentEllie said

I've been looking at my kwh usage on the gas meter since I turned the gas on for an hour or two a day, the thermostat is set low and only has to raise the temperature for about two degrees for three hours at present and it uses only a kwh and a bit per day - I've been taking photographs of the meters.  Everything else in the house is electric (and I am careful with that too). 

Thanks for your help...

That is 1 unit on the meter, assimilation you have a metric meter unit a rough conversion is 1 unit * 11.2 = 11.2 kWh's used... Multiply that by you unit rate which I guess is around 10.4p = £1.16.

PrudentEllie

BooJewels and Robin9, thanks for your help - I've just been and wobbled my way out to the meters again and photographed them and taken notes of the readings - you are right, the gas meter does say m3 (trying to type cubed) - I'm so sorry to have made that mistake!!!  At no point has OVO ever told me that this difference existed - but now I know!

The reading on 1 Oct was 18697 and today it is 18717 - meaning I've used 20 cubic metres of gas in just under two weeks.... which means I'm going to be turning the heating off again except for drying washing.... 

A lot of angst could have been saved had the man I spoke to actually said this - he just kept on changing what he was saying about estimates and saying the computer could only take meter readings when submitted on the 31st of a month - which still sounds completely nutty!  They still have as my energy plan one that was in date in May 2022 - which seems very odd since their computer should have changed it.

I don't know if anyone has replied during the last twenty-five minutes - my internet went down for some reason.  Thank you all so much for helping.