Avro Bill

Andyboy114

Hi,

I automatically transferred to Octopus once Avro went under and now after investigating, it turns out Avro had been under billing me during the final year. Octopus are now looking to recover £1350. As I was with Avro over a year ago, would this qualify as back billing? 

The frustrating thing is had found this out lay year, the DD payments could have been adjusted to pay, now going to struggle to pay this. 

Any thoughts appreciated.

pochase

The back billing rules apply only to licensed suppliers, and Avro does not have a license any longer. That means no back billing rule.

I believe here the normal 6 years for recovering debt apply.

Andyboy114

Thanks fur your reply, you reckon I'm going to have to just stick this one up then? What a nightmare

pochase

Is the new final bill correct and you have really used the energy? Than you will need to pay it.

You can try to get a payment plan from Octopus.

[Deleted User]

Andyboy114 said:

Hi,

I automatically transferred to Octopus once Avro went under and now after investigating, it turns out Avro had been under billing me during the final year. Octopus are now looking to recover £1350. As I was with Avro over a year ago, would this qualify as back billing? 

The frustrating thing is had found this out lay year, the DD payments could have been adjusted to pay, now going to struggle to pay this. 

Any thoughts appreciated.

I am not sure that all the blame sits with the supplier. If a supplier is billing on estimates then it usually means that the consumer hasn’t been providing meter readings. Under Licence Conditions, a supplier has to use a customer-provided reading for billing purposes unless it considers it to be wrong. In such a situation it should ask for another reading.

On statements, the supplier usually annotates the meter readings that are being used with a ‘C’; ‘A’; ‘S’ or ‘E’. The latter should raise a Red Flag in the consumer’s mind.

Checking energy statements should be the norm: the OP has learned the hard way.

On the subject of checking. I would want 100% certainty that the reading that Avro is using to close its account (that is, the reading used on the Final Bill) is the same as that which was used by Octopus to open the SoLR account.

Andyboy114

[Deleted User] said:

Andyboy114 said:

Hi,

I automatically transferred to Octopus once Avro went under and now after investigating, it turns out Avro had been under billing me during the final year. Octopus are now looking to recover £1350. As I was with Avro over a year ago, would this qualify as back billing? 

The frustrating thing is had found this out lay year, the DD payments could have been adjusted to pay, now going to struggle to pay this. 

Any thoughts appreciated.

I am not sure that all the blame sits with the supplier. If a supplier is billing on estimates then it usually means that the consumer hasn’t been providing meter readings. Under Licence Conditions, a supplier has to use a customer-provided reading for billing purposes unless it considers it to be wrong. In such a situation it should ask for another reading.

On statements, the supplier usually annotates the meter readings that are being used with a ‘C’; ‘A’; ‘S’ or ‘E’. The latter should raise a Red Flag in the consumer’s mind.

Checking energy statements should be the norm: the OP has learned the hard way.

On the subject of checking. I would want 100% certainty that the reading that Avro is using to close its account (that is, the reading used on the Final Bill) is the same as that which was used by Octopus to open the SoLR account.

To be fair I had been submitting readings albeit infrequently throughout the year. I would check that the account was in credit, but wouldn't look beyond that. My final Avro bill included a £440 credit which was transferred to Octopus, it's just such a massive difference in figure that's galling.