Sse electric bill for shop excessively high?

tightauldgit

rowdy75 said:

Yeh I know I really need to get all the bills they have sent and chew through all the data but today and the run up to Christmas is extremely busy so I haven’t had time today to sort through it all.

What I will say though is the salon is maybe taking away some of your concentration. Speaking to the wife today about it she says the last dd was around £150, but it changes month on month and it will go up this time of year as the heaters will be on etc, so don’t get carried away with the £150 a month dd being to low.

The bills of another business in another property with different usage and a different supplier are completely irrelevant to the issue at hand just focus on working out exactly what energy you are using at the property in question and what you should be paying for it.

Maybe an obvious first question but how long have you been in the property and when you moved in did you make sure to tell them that you were a new tenant and wanted to start a new supply contract? Is it possible that part of the issue is outstanding debt from the previous tenant which should be nothing to do with you? 

rowdy75

@chrysalis yes we keep all the bills as it’s a business so we have to anyway.

I am quite sure the meters are separate, they are both smart meters, and from what we can see, but might be wrong as could be looking at the wrong reading, we aren’t using any night time units. This appears to be backed up by sse as they have already questioned why we have not been using any night time units.
The salon is open late a couple of nights of the week, so I would assume anything being used in there would show in the gift shop if there was any conflict between the two meters, and turning power off in either shop does not affect the other.

And to answer the question about how long we have been in both shops, the salon we opened in April 2007.
The gift shop we opened at the beginning of November 2021.
The gift shop was previously leased by a florist. She left after the first lockdown, leaving the premises with an estimated repair bill by the surveyor that went in of £116,000 pounds. She also left arrears to the energy company but this was dealt with by the landlord and a meter reading was given to sse at the point we took the lease on for the shop.

rowdy75

I have just looked through my emails, I have a message from the landlord to sse that he has forwarded to me, stating that the date I took the shop on was 29/10/2021.
day meter reading at that point was 37265
night meter reading 22952

ariarnia

rowdy75 said:

The gift shop was previously leased by a florist.

i can see a couple of ways this could have been messed up (thats not all the suppliers fault) 

florists can use quite a lot of energy as cut flowers need to be kept cool or even chilled so big fridges can be in back rooms. they would be on 24 hours and obviously energy prices were lower so people weren't being as careful. so they might have expected given the history of the property for your bills to be higher so the lower readings coming in might have been flagged as unexpected in the system. which might be why they asked for manual readings and changed out the meter in the first place. 

then if you have only been giving one reading (didn't realise there were two rates on the meter) then that would also cause problems. so they would then automatically estemate the readings. which the computer would do based on historical use. which would be higher than your use. 

hopefully sending them a picture of the meter (showing both screens sparky told you how to access) would be the first step. then regular readings (if your smart meter isnt properly sending readings). 

rowdy75

There is a large built in fridge at the back of the property but it was disconnected and only used for storage (I renovated the property for the landlord after the florist moved out) It is a very old stone building and very cold so they didn’t use the fridge, or heating but I think you could be right in that they estimated based on previous use. I did use a lot of power tools and work lamps while renovating so this might also be a factor in their estimate, but given that this has been going on for a year and they can see our actual usage from the smart meter they should be able to generate accurate bills by now.

Jyana

rowdy75 said:

I have just looked through my emails, I have a message from the landlord to sse that he has forwarded to me, stating that the date I took the shop on was 29/10/2021.
day meter reading at that point was 37265
night meter reading 22952

These opening reading from last year also help us understand things more. From the bill you have put up, it appears that the estimated figures on that are coming from the new meter due to low readings on it, if they were still using the old meter for estimated readings then the figures on that bill would be much higher than 11375 or 1703.

But I think you need to stop thinking that they can read your smart meter. Yes I know the customer support people are saying they can see it whenever you call them, but the important thing is that your billing cannot and that is why this issue keeps going on and on, instead of being finally sorted once and for all.

ETA missed a word

BooJewels

If you have a takeover point for your account with date and meter readings, that's a really good start.  If you then have the closing index for the removed meter, with date and opening readings for the new meter and now your current meter readings, it will be very easy to ascertain your actual usage for yourself - well, we can help you with those.   You have the data points you need to sort this out.   I think you'll need to send these to SSE along with photos of the current meter and that card with the meter changeover and some calculations and list of your payments etc. - we can fine tune that for you if you want help.

What I can't fathom just now (I'm starting to now confuse myself), is how the daytime meter read at the end of October 2021 was 37265 - and their estimate is now 11352 for 8/11/2022.  Do they think the meter has gone around the clock in the intervening year?   That would be 7,4087 kWh for 375 days - that's 197.57kWh per day - at the unit price of 21.1p and a SC of 101.46p per day, plus 20% VAT - that's a bill of £19,215.40 - just for the day rate.    You haven't got the meter crossed with the local mega supermarket have you?  I'd be surprised if your 375 day usage was more than about 1500kWh.

My son once got a bill for over £20k for his flat, where his usual month was between 60 and 70 pounds, rang his supplier up and they just went "oops, that's clearly not right" and sorted it within the day and sent a correct bill.  So this doesn't pass even the most cursory of plausibility tests.

ariarnia

BooJewels said:

What I can't fathom just now (I'm starting to now confuse myself), is how the daytime meter read at the end of October 2021 was 37265 - and their estimate is now 11352 for 8/11/2022.  Do they think the meter has gone around the clock in the intervening year?   That would be 7,4087 kWh for 375 days - that's 197.57kWh per day - at the unit price of 21.1p and a SC of 101.46p per day, plus 20% VAT - that's a bill of £19,215.40 - just for the day rate.    You haven't got the meter crossed with the local mega supermarket have you?  I'd be surprised if your 375 day usage was more than about 1500kWh.

i was thinking they were saying 11352 was the new meter (maybe from 0). i can't pick out from the thread when it was actually changed. i think 3.5 months ago? so that would be estemating about 3.2k a month or 100 a day. but honestly theres been so many numbers on this thread about differnt things that i can't keep it straight.   

rowdy75

Absolute joke shambles of a company.
After speaking to me at home asking if my wife can speak to them on the phone, me telling them I’ve authorised this three times and then being told they will have to report a security breach as they have already spoken to her, they always text or email my wife! Even though they have my mobile number and email address and the account is in my name!

They have now emailed my wife again last night to say the meter reading I provided (I sent a text photo of the meter and reading as requested by them) does not tally with their estimates and they haven’t been given a meter reading for over a year! Despite being given meter readings by phone call, text and email every time we have received a bill from them, and they have themselves installed a smart meter in July of this year.
Absolutely inept.

markin

Do you now have a smart meter, But still have the old storage heaters meter?


Could this situation be made worse by the SSE account being transferred over to the OVO system?

Haven't accounts had to be reset before?