Sse electric bill for shop excessively high?

rowdy75

I will be at the shop on Saturday where the paperwork is. 

Therefore I can’t be more specific yet and I am speaking in layman’s terms. Trying to charge £7500 for an actual bill of £800, where they are trying to charge me for 3000 units instead of 325 units, in layman’s terms, is 10x too much.

And yes, 1.71 is out of contract charges, they have never allowed us to pay contract rate charges because the first bill they gave us was for £9500 and should have been £800 but energy suppliers don’t let you take out contract agreements, or revoke them without telling you, if they deem your arrears are too much. And every bill since has been for a ridiculous amount, but hopefully all sorted out now as £400 was paid yesterday and a lower monthly rate of £95 to be paid to cover the actual energy use of £55 a month and the remaining £400 from the current bill.

I am just wondering, when I have all the facts in my hand, if it’s worth contacting the energy ombudsman as the amount of stress they have caused, and a quick google search shows this is by no means an isolated case, does not fill me with confidence that I am not going to get another bill for £8000 three months down the line when it should be £800, and another visit from debt collectors for money we do not owe.

MattMattMattUK

rowdy75 said:

I will be at the shop on Saturday where the paperwork is. 

Therefore I can’t be more specific yet and I am speaking in layman’s terms. Trying to charge £7500 for an actual bill of £800, where they are trying to charge me for 3000 units instead of 325 units, in layman’s terms, is 10x too much.

I would be surprised if a salon uses as little as 325kWh* a month, let alone over a five month period. Lighting will not use much, but the other equipment, especially anything that uses heat will consume quite a lot. 3,000kWh does sound a lot more realistic, but you will need to see the bill to see if that is estimated or actual as well as establishing actual usage. 

*I am making the assumption that "unit" is kWh as it is almost unheard of for energy to be billed in any other amount accept for users with multi-megawatt supplies. 

rowdy75 said:

And yes, 1.71 is out of contract charges, they have never allowed us to pay contract rate charges because the first bill they gave us was for £9500 and should have been £800 but energy suppliers don’t let you take out contract agreements, or revoke them without telling you, if they deem your arrears are too much. And every bill since has been for a ridiculous amount, but hopefully all sorted out now as £400 was paid yesterday and a lower monthly rate of £95 to be paid to cover the actual energy use of £55 a month and the remaining £400 from the current bill.

Out of contract charges are much higher than contracted charges, however I think there is a need to properly establish usage, it seems hugely unrealistic that a hairdresser could use only £55 worth of electricity a month, especially at commercial rates. 

rowdy75 said:

I am just wondering, when I have all the facts in my hand, if it’s worth contacting the energy ombudsman as the amount of stress they have caused, and a quick google search shows this is by no means an isolated case, does not fill me with confidence that I am not going to get another bill for £8000 three months down the line when it should be £800, and another visit from debt collectors for money we do not owe.

When you have all the facts in hand come back and let us cast an eye over them, but they do not seem to all add up as currently presented, likely because you only have limited, second hand information. You can go to the Ombudsman if you want, but I am not sure it is worth the effort. Firstly because a debt collector is not the first port to call for debt collection, there would have had to be a lot of previous letters ignored before that happens, so either there is an issue with your post/emails being delivered or those letters have been ignored. They key will be to establish if your usage actually equates to £800 per quarter and, if it does, establish why the energy provider thinks it equates to £8,000 per quarter. You may need the Ombudsman to do that, you may be able to resolve the issue easily and far quicker by communicating with your energy provider, or transferring to another one, commercial providers are still accepting new customers. Also having a smart meter installed may be a good idea, so the energy provider gets regular readings. 

rowdy75

Why are you talking about the hairdressers usage?

Alnat1

Your electrician is your tenant? Hmmmm.......

[Deleted User]

Hi,

you refer to £7500/800, 3000/325, 10x too much, but still haven't given actual meter readings, usage, tariff.

Re the 10x too much, who supplies the meter readings, can we get photie of meter please?

Chrysalis

rowdy75 said:

Yes we have checked the meter every night and every morning. A little bit of daylight. Sse finally answered the phone to my wife after being on hold for an hour and a half. The debt collector was going to talk to them as she could clearly see they have got it very wrong, and the £9900 bill with a letter taking us to court if we didn’t pay it was clearly wrong.
Throuhout the year we have had bills for 9.5k, 16k, 7.5k and so on, but my wife was told they can see the smart meter reading and we owe £800 and the reading they were trying to charge us for 10x as much. Because of their constant balls ups they have always said we owe thousands when we don’t, they have even tried saying we haven’t paid them a penny in the year we’ve been open when we clearly have. Therefore they haven’t put us on a contract and have been charging 1.71 a unit, plus standing charge, night rate standing charge, and vat on top.

The operative on the phone said this is outrageous and will put in a complaint, and that we are actually using £55 a month.

So, the debt collector was looking to take £7500 of stock from the shop, a lot of it isn’t even our stock and we get paid a percentage from the people that sell in there, so sse and their f up would have ended up costing us £15000 as we would have then owed people for their stock. Scumbags.

If you keep taking readings why arent you supplying them here or giving us tariff details?  Its hard to say if a bill is right or wrong purely on the £ of the bill.

rowdy75

I do appreciate all your help guys, but there does seem to be an amount of skim reading and some of you are not reading what I write properly. Maybe that’s my fault as I am stressed and typing quickly, but the basic facts are it is the gift shop that has used 325 units since July (yes kWh) and sse have been trying to charge for 3000kwh over that period. Which seems to be the case with every bill they generate.

As I have said, we only really use the electric for LED lighting, and have been very careful with consumption since the first bill was wrongly estimated so 325kwh over that period is about right according to the electrician.

Every step of the way with them has resulted in hours spent on the phone trying to correct their mistakes. This has always ended up with an operative on the phone saying they have made a mistake, they will put a note on the system, blah blah but the next bill is always wrong, even though they can see the actual smart meter reading when they are spoken to on the phone.

With regard to the debt collectors, my wife recieved one text message from sse saying they would instruct debt collectors back in July. No other correspondence other than massively over inflated and incorrect bills that have been discussed on the phone, and they have my email but I have not received any emails from them.
My wife phoned them after she was sent the text. The reason they sent that is because they took two lots of the £350 monthly dd in two days. My wife phoned them and was told the only way they can stop that is by cancelling the direct debit agreement.

Jyana

rowdy75 said:

I will be at the shop on Saturday where the paperwork is. 

Therefore I can’t be more specific yet and I am speaking in layman’s terms. Trying to charge £7500 for an actual bill of £800, where they are trying to charge me for 3000 units instead of 325 units, in layman’s terms, is 10x too much.

And yes, 1.71 is out of contract charges, they have never allowed us to pay contract rate charges because the first bill they gave us was for £9500 and should have been £800 but energy suppliers don’t let you take out contract agreements, or revoke them without telling you, if they deem your arrears are too much. And every bill since has been for a ridiculous amount, but hopefully all sorted out now as £400 was paid yesterday and a lower monthly rate of £95 to be paid to cover the actual energy use of £55 a month and the remaining £400 from the current bill.

I am just wondering, when I have all the facts in my hand, if it’s worth contacting the energy ombudsman as the amount of stress they have caused, and a quick google search shows this is by no means an isolated case, does not fill me with confidence that I am not going to get another bill for £8000 three months down the line when it should be £800, and another visit from debt collectors for money we do not owe.

I don't understand why this has been dragging on for a year, or why you have not insisted on getting yourself on to a tariff before now. Surely it is just a matter of agreeing what your opening meter reading was when you took over the shop, and applying that to your account? Then correct bills would be given when you provided the meter readings each month/quarter, or are you not giving meter readings to them? 

Jyana

rowdy75 said:

I do appreciate all your help guys, but there does seem to be an amount of skim reading and some of you are not reading what I write properly. Maybe that’s my fault as I am stressed and typing quickly, but the basic facts are it is the gift shop that has used 325 units since July (yes kWh) and sse have been trying to charge for 3000kwh over that period. Which seems to be the case with every bill they generate.

As I have said, we only really use the electric for LED lighting, and have been very careful with consumption since the first bill was wrongly estimated so 325kwh over that period is about right according to the electrician.

Every step of the way with them has resulted in hours spent on the phone trying to correct their mistakes. This has always ended up with an operative on the phone saying they have made a mistake, they will put a note on the system, blah blah but the next bill is always wrong, even though they can see the actual smart meter reading when they are spoken to on the phone.

With regard to the debt collectors, my wife recieved one text message from sse saying they would instruct debt collectors back in July. No other correspondence other than massively over inflated and incorrect bills that have been discussed on the phone, and they have my email but I have not received any emails from them.
My wife phoned them after she was sent the text. The reason they sent that is because they took two lots of the £350 monthly dd in two days. My wife phoned them and was told the only way they can stop that is by cancelling the direct debit agreement.

It's more that we're not getting the information we're asking for in order to understand the situation clearly. Without bill figures, meter reads, etc, we're kind of in the dark here.

rowdy75

Jyana said:

rowdy75 said:

I do appreciate all your help guys, but there does seem to be an amount of skim reading and some of you are not reading what I write properly. Maybe that’s my fault as I am stressed and typing quickly, but the basic facts are it is the gift shop that has used 325 units since July (yes kWh) and sse have been trying to charge for 3000kwh over that period. Which seems to be the case with every bill they generate.

As I have said, we only really use the electric for LED lighting, and have been very careful with consumption since the first bill was wrongly estimated so 325kwh over that period is about right according to the electrician.

Every step of the way with them has resulted in hours spent on the phone trying to correct their mistakes. This has always ended up with an operative on the phone saying they have made a mistake, they will put a note on the system, blah blah but the next bill is always wrong, even though they can see the actual smart meter reading when they are spoken to on the phone.

With regard to the debt collectors, my wife recieved one text message from sse saying they would instruct debt collectors back in July. No other correspondence other than massively over inflated and incorrect bills that have been discussed on the phone, and they have my email but I have not received any emails from them.
My wife phoned them after she was sent the text. The reason they sent that is because they took two lots of the £350 monthly dd in two days. My wife phoned them and was told the only way they can stop that is by cancelling the direct debit agreement.

It's more that we're not getting the information we're asking for in order to understand the situation clearly. Without bill figures, meter reads, etc, we're kind of in the dark here.

Yes, skim reading. I’ve mentioned a couple of times we have a smart meter and you have asked if we provide them with meter readings.I’ve also said that we do, and the telephone operative can see our smart meter reading and they have clearly made a mistake, yet it is the same story every time.

You also ask why it’s dragged on a year, I have said they keep getting every bill wrong. I don’t know why it’s dragged on a year, because they are inept?

And a tariff was agreed but because they keep getting it wrong and claiming we owe thousands they just cancel it and put on out of contract rate.