Utilita - wrong amount of credit + smart meter

Sambrown196

Hi all, 

Utilita recently decided they were upping my DD by £39, I called to reduce it back down to £100 as with the £400 I’ll still be in credit every month with that. I noticed they thought I was £16 in credit, whereas I made it to be just over £150 so I enquired as to why. The lady on the phone said just one second, I need to sort something on your account and then came back and said she’d updated my readings and I was actually £101 in credit. I explained my workings out which she agreed but said with the updated readings I actually owed them just over £50. Obviously I queried this as I have a smart meter and she could not for the life of her actually explain why this is. 

Myself and my partner have recently moved into our first house and Utilita took us on from the previous people and they’ve been really good, but I can’t make sense of this and I’m not sure if it’s down to experience so thought I would ask here. I understand my bills are very good compared to some, so please don’t take this as me complaining… I just don’t understand it.

Here’s my bills vs what I paid 

March 91.73 / 92 

April 74.72 / 75 

May 80.53 / 81 

Jun 73.70 / 100

Jul 65.67 / 50

Aug 64.63 / 100 

Sep 69.86 / 100 

Oct 62.57 / 139 

Bills: 583.41

Paid: 737

= 153.59 credit

Is the smart meter absolutely useless, or should I not be expecting accurate bills? Can they just take £50+ off me like that? 

Many thanks, 

Sam

[Deleted User]

Sorry, but to a casual reader your bill information is meaningless without a breakdown of the tariff that you are on in terms of standing charge and units etc. The way most smart meter billing works is like this:

Credit/Debit Balance carried forward

Charges for units used: X units at £0.aa per unit

Standing Charge: Y days at £.bb per day

Charges = unit costs plus standing charge costs

Plus 5% VAT

TOTAL CHARGES = £

Amount paid during bill period: £

New Credit/Debit Balance = Old Credit/Debit Balance - Amount Paid - TOTAL CHARGES

ariarnia

it would be helpful if you could give us the actual readings and your unit rates if thats easier than copying several bills into a message. 

your tariff information should be on your online account and hopefully so should your meter readings. or you could download the bright app and see what your smart meter has been reporting there (you use the code printed on your in home device). theres a tab to display monthly readings and you could just take a screen shot of the table at the bottom with the numbers for each month. 

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername

I'm wondering if the OP is looking at the In Home Display unit thinking it's the smart meter, and thinking this is what the bills should be?

[Deleted User]

OP - how are Utilita dealing with the £400?  Several suppliers are refunding this money to your bank account, so you can't include it in your direct debit calculation if that is the case.

When the CS advisor updated your readings, this might well have brought your credit down because it would be like being billed for half a month (the time between the last reading on your last bill, and the time of the most recent reading they could use) and looking at your numbers, £50 or so seems quite possible for that.

If you're only £100 in credit and wanting to only pay £100 DD - with winter coming up where the monthly bills could easily be more than £200 (they were nearly £100 for you last winter, which was mild, and prices have gone up a lot since then), is it really that surprising that you might be slightly under at the point of your annual review (which is what they mean by £50 in debt - they weren't saying you owe them £50 right now)?

Sambrown196

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername said:

I'm wondering if the OP is looking at the In Home Display unit thinking it's the smart meter, and thinking this is what the bills should be?

No, I am looking at my PDF bills on the Utilita app. I understand the smart meter display is an estimate and rarely check it. 

There may be some confusion as this bill says September, however I named the months as the month I paid it.. my dodgy listing, so apologies. 

As far as I can tell the amount used is the amount charged and that’s ‘the bill’. 

[Deleted User]

So those readings are all marked with 'R' - which means that they are accurate readings from your smart meter, no estimation done.  That's one possibility removed.

Sambrown196

[Deleted User] said:

OP - how are Utilita dealing with the £400?  Several suppliers are refunding this money to your bank account, so you can't include it in your direct debit calculation if that is the case.

When the CS advisor updated your readings, this might well have brought your credit down because it would be like being billed for half a month (the time between the last reading on your last bill, and the time of the most recent reading they could use) and looking at your numbers, £50 or so seems quite possible for that.

If you're only £100 in credit and wanting to only pay £100 DD - with winter coming up where the monthly bills could easily be more than £200 (they were nearly £100 for you last winter, which was mild, and prices have gone up a lot since then), is it really that surprising that you might be slightly under at the point of your annual review (which is what they mean by £50 in debt - they weren't saying you owe them £50 right now)?

It says on the app they are crediting it straight off you bill. That’s why I included it in my DD calculations. We both work FT so are out of the house for the majority of the day and last year both houses either side of us (terrace) were unoccupied so we had no “shared warmth” shall we say which I think made it seem colder. Both sides are now occupied and I can tell they’ve both had their heating on a fair bit already. Last months and this months bill will not require such a high DD as the bills will still be less than £100 and I don’t expect November to be much higher due to being away on holiday, I can amend the DD as required further into the winter season. 

If your suggestion is correct ref the £50 loss, if I call again at the end of the bill period next week and they re-submit, could I see the credit go back up? 

[Deleted User]

Sambrown196 said:

[Deleted User] said:

OP - how are Utilita dealing with the £400?  Several suppliers are refunding this money to your bank account, so you can't include it in your direct debit calculation if that is the case.

When the CS advisor updated your readings, this might well have brought your credit down because it would be like being billed for half a month (the time between the last reading on your last bill, and the time of the most recent reading they could use) and looking at your numbers, £50 or so seems quite possible for that.

If you're only £100 in credit and wanting to only pay £100 DD - with winter coming up where the monthly bills could easily be more than £200 (they were nearly £100 for you last winter, which was mild, and prices have gone up a lot since then), is it really that surprising that you might be slightly under at the point of your annual review (which is what they mean by £50 in debt - they weren't saying you owe them £50 right now)?

It says on the app they are crediting it straight off you bill. That’s why I included it in my DD calculations. We both work FT so are out of the house for the majority of the day and last year both houses either side of us (terrace) were unoccupied so we had no “shared warmth” shall we say which I think made it seem colder. Both sides are now occupied and I can tell they’ve both had their heating on a fair bit already. Last months and this months bill will not require such a high DD as the bills will still be less than £100 and I don’t expect November to be much higher due to being away on holiday, I can amend the DD as required further into the winter season. 

If your suggestion is correct ref the £50 loss, if I call again at the end of the bill period next week and they re-submit, could I see the credit go back up? 

If that's what they are doing then you're possibly right to include it - but remembering to exclude it after a few months when it stops.

All that about shared warmth and being on holiday etc. are not taken into account.  They can't be - how would the supplier know your future plans?

You shouldn't be amending the DD as required further into the season.  That's not the point of a fixed DD.  The idea is you choose a number now that works unless there is something major changing (like the increases in unit price or the discovery that your readings are not following their estimates).

If you're trying to change your DD all the time to match your spending, you shouldn't be on a fixed DD.  You need to be on a variable DD, but I don't know if Utilita offer that.

If you called after some more days of usage, I would expect your credit to go down, not up.  If you called a few days after your direct debit payment, I would expect it to go up (but of course if you've used more than your DD between now and then it wouldn't)..

[Deleted User]

I have re-read the OP’s post and I am struggling to understand what the problem is re this £50 credit.

The PDF bill shows a debit balance. When the charges are added to this debit, the revised debit balance is £83.08. This is covered by the payment of £100 which leaves a credit balance of £16.92.

Any credit due under EBSS (£66/67) would not be applied to the bill above. It would be applied to the October bill.

ariarnia

[Deleted User] said:

I have re-read the OP’s post and I am struggling to understand what the problem is re this £50 credit.

The PDF bill shows a debit balance. When the charges are added to this debit, the revised debit balance is £83.08. This is covered by the payment of £100 which leaves a credit balance of £16.92.

Any credit due under EBSS (£66/67) would not be applied to the bill above. It would be applied to the October bill.

the op is saying that since march they have paid more than the bill each month and the 'extra' should mean a credit of £150 left in the account. the months where there payment was much higher than the bill look like june august and september so if the numbers are right they should have had more 'balance carried forward' on that september bill.