Sse electric bill for shop excessively high?

rowdy75

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

Hair:

Read today: ?

Year ago: ?

Tariff: ?

Stdg Ch: ?

Gift:

Read today: ?

Year ago: ?

Tariff: ?

Stdg Ch: ?

Please provide details as near to 12 months as possible.

I will do, but the meter has been changed from the one that was there 12 months ago.
Also, the salon is completely separate meter, and the supplier is a different company so apples and oranges.

Jyana

Ahh okay. And did they do any tests on the old meter to see if it was recording reading incorrectly, or have you accepted the readings from that meter as correct for the time you had it in the shop?

I think it's probably best to wait until Saturday and see what's on the bills before speculating at present. Without seeing what was on these high bills, it's practically impossible to advise any further.

[Deleted User]

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

ariarnia

op. i promise i've read the hole thread  

not going to comment about the usage because others are doing that fine. 

i will say tho that you can escalate the problem to the ombudsman if you want to. it has to be 8 weeks from the first time you complained (i'm guessing about an incorrect bill). 

if you do that you WILL need to have the info that people have been asking for here and you WILL need to be more clear about what the problem actually is and why its taken you so long from first having the text about debt collection to following up now (the ombudsman is impartial and only considers the evidence you give so you will need to be able to set out in a logical and clear way what happened with evidence. a simple timeline without a lot of narrative helps) 

if this is something you want to do then we can help. but if people are coming here saying they dont understand whats happening or with questions then thats a good way to think about what might cause problems for the ombudsman. 

rowdy75

Deleted_User said:

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

Yes pretty much. Although my first post was more in panic as the debt collector was there looking to take £7500 worth of stock, the majority of which is not even ours, and was hoping for a response from people that had gone through similar experiences with sse.

They have the correct reading and adjusted it, but as you say I fear this is just going to be an ongoing battle with them!

[Deleted User]

rowdy75 said:

Deleted_User said:

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

Yes pretty much. Although my first post was more in panic as the debt collector was there looking to take £7500 worth of stock, the majority of which is not even ours, and was hoping for a response from people that had gone through similar experiences with sse.

They have the correct reading and adjusted it, but as you say I fear this is just going to be an ongoing battle with them!

I can see that - there's a very different tenor on the first page and on the posts following the 90 minute phone call.

I guess it might be useful when you get there, is to get photographs of the meter so we can see if there is some unusual arrangement of the decimal point, or to look back at the bills and see if they are marked as 'estimated' on the wrong readings (unusual if it is exactly 10x but not unheard of) - there have been issues historically where suppliers have seen a reading and thought "that looks low, I bet they've put the decimal point in the wrong place".  It more often happens the other way around, that the customer misreads (or mistypes), but not always.

If they have been getting actual meter readings (either smart or because you supply them), and the bills don't show this, you can refer to the licence condition that effectively requires a supplier to use readings given by a customer - if they think the readings are wrong, they are supposed to send a data collector to check them rather than just overwriting with something else. I don't think this condition is restricted to domestic supply.

MattMattMattUK

rowdy75 said:

Deleted_User said:

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

Yes pretty much. Although my first post was more in panic as the debt collector was there looking to take £7500 worth of stock, the majority of which is not even ours, and was hoping for a response from people that had gone through similar experiences with sse.

A "debt collector" cannot take anything unless you agree and are very often just aggressive characters in high vis jackets with official looking letters. A Bailiff or High Court Enforcement Officer can take items, but a legal process must be followed first which starts with a CCJ or High Court action and can escalate from there, they are generally far more professional and less pushy than a so called debt collector. None of them can take stock which is not owned by the legal entity they are pursuing (unless it is the legal owner seeking recovery), it is advisable that you, your wife and anyone else working there knows the difference between the three. 

rowdy75 said:

They have the correct reading and adjusted it, but as you say I fear this is just going to be an ongoing battle with them!

Resolve the issue, make sure the reads are accurate, change suppliers. There is probably no point overall, but it is more likely to give you peace of mind than anything else. 

rowdy75

MattMattMattUK said:

rowdy75 said:

Deleted_User said:

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

Yes pretty much. Although my first post was more in panic as the debt collector was there looking to take £7500 worth of stock, the majority of which is not even ours, and was hoping for a response from people that had gone through similar experiences with sse.

A "debt collector" cannot take anything unless you agree and are very often just aggressive characters in high vis jackets with official looking letters. A Bailiff or High Court Enforcement Officer can take items, but a legal process must be followed first which starts with a CCJ or High Court action and can escalate from there, they are generally far more professional and less pushy than a so called debt collector. None of them can take stock which is not owned by the legal entity they are pursuing (unless it is the legal owner seeking recovery), it is advisable that you, your wife and anyone else working there knows the difference between the three. 

rowdy75 said:

They have the correct reading and adjusted it, but as you say I fear this is just going to be an ongoing battle with them!

Resolve the issue, make sure the reads are accurate, change suppliers. There is probably no point overall, but it is more likely to give you peace of mind than anything else. 

I don’t know if she was a debt collector or a high court enforcement officer, but she was looking at the stock and handed a hand written letter to my wife. She was very sympathetic though and could see something was clearly wrong and that we have been trying to resolve the issues we have been having. My wife was only on the phone to sse last week and no mention was made regarding debt collection or court order.

MattMattMattUK

rowdy75 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

rowdy75 said:

Deleted_User said:

I've been reading this and I can't see what the problem is.

You have got a bill that is too high, because the reading was too high.

The supplier has said "yes, the reading was too high, we are putting your bill back down".

This would appear to be problem solved?

Or is it simply "this has happened more than once, so it might happen again"?  In which case the answer is "yes, but there's not much you can do other than change supplier, keep ringing up each month to correct the readings, or write with a formal complaint".

Yes pretty much. Although my first post was more in panic as the debt collector was there looking to take £7500 worth of stock, the majority of which is not even ours, and was hoping for a response from people that had gone through similar experiences with sse.

A "debt collector" cannot take anything unless you agree and are very often just aggressive characters in high vis jackets with official looking letters. A Bailiff or High Court Enforcement Officer can take items, but a legal process must be followed first which starts with a CCJ or High Court action and can escalate from there, they are generally far more professional and less pushy than a so called debt collector. None of them can take stock which is not owned by the legal entity they are pursuing (unless it is the legal owner seeking recovery), it is advisable that you, your wife and anyone else working there knows the difference between the three. 

rowdy75 said:

They have the correct reading and adjusted it, but as you say I fear this is just going to be an ongoing battle with them!

Resolve the issue, make sure the reads are accurate, change suppliers. There is probably no point overall, but it is more likely to give you peace of mind than anything else. 

I don’t know if she was a debt collector or a high court enforcement officer, but she was looking at the stock and handed a hand written letter to my wife. She was very sympathetic though and could see something was clearly wrong and that we have been trying to resolve the issues we have been having. My wife was only on the phone to sse last week and no mention was made regarding debt collection or court order.

A lot of the "debt collector" types make a real effort to look as if they have official capacity when they have no more recovery powers than you or I, they certainly would not arrive with a hand written note, although they may audit stock, if you choose to let them, you can tell them to leave at any time and failure to do so is trespassing. They will not have been an official bailiff or a HCEO as they make it very clear who they are, in what capacity they are visiting and where their authorisation comes from (CCJ, High Court Writ, etc.). 

Robin9

Jyana said:

I think it's probably best to wait until Saturday and see what's on the bills before speculating at present. Without seeing what was on these high bills, it's practically impossible to advise any further.

Ditto - I'll wait till Saturday

PS I'm not sure but isn't the Ombudsman soley for Domestic Users