My Letting Agents illegally switched my Gas Supplier, now I am dealing with Mafia SSE

HLeung

EssexHebridean said:

HLeung said:

EssexHebridean said:

I think the OP's biggest issue when presenting the case is going to be not having looked at the bills for 2 years to realise that they weren't paying for any gas - IMO they would do better to work out a plausible argument on that rather than being tempted into lying about tariffs that they "might have been interested in" - when as Pochase says that is easily dealt with by pointing out that had they had any interest in other tariffs sooner they would have discovered the transfer sooner, also!  Personally I'd suggest that when dealing with the Ombudsman being truthful is probably the best way to go - as getting caught out in a lie is unlikely to help one's case much! 

EssexHebridean

I had been very open and honest about my experience. As mentioned in another thread, if I had stayed on with Octopus, and having been paying the same fixed monthly payment to Octopus, I would soon come to notice that my account balance had gone into negative and I would probably felt compelled to investigate and check out better tariffs. The fact that I was not aware of the switch, and my monthly payment had gone into paying for just the electricity and including supplementing for the rise in electricity prices only, my account balance never really hit negative balance! But by the time I discovered in July2022 it just meant my excess credit with Octopus was a lot less because of the electricity price increase. 

I understand all that - and I do understand your reasons for being a bit "off the ball" as well as you stated previously. As I said in the post you have quoted though - I would be incredibly cautious of being in any way untruthful about the tariffs you may have "been interested in" (I appreciate that you haven't as far as I have seen at least made any suggestions that you were considering doing so!) allowing that it is highly likely that the supplier has a pretty solid argument that had you investigated such tariffs it would have "given the game away" that you were in fact no longer supplied by Octopus. 

When I was initially considering taking a complaint to the Ombudsman some time ago, one of the best pieces of advice I was given on the subject was "Keep it simple, open and honest, and ensure that all relevant evidence is included" I did - and in spite of an appeal from the supplier, the ruling went in my favour. 

Thank you for your advise. I appreciate that. I have documented pretty much everything as I stated in my original post plus all the email correspondence on my submission to the Energy Ombudsman. 

The real issue for me is not understanding how the opening estimate reading could be used by SSE as official reading, that they are free to use that reading, assuming being approved? by who? As I was not aware or involved in that process. 

The real loss for me is opportunity costs, the opportunity to have clarity and control to my gas account, which I thought I had all along, and real loss of opportunity to manage my cash flow to support the huge energy increase. 

HLeung

Gerry1 said:

Glancing back through the thread I can't see any confirmation whether the OP has a metric (m3) or Imperial meter (ft3).  However, a bill seems to have been calculated for an Imperial meter.  If it's actually a metric meter but it's billed as Imperial, then the calculated kWh usage will be 2.83 times the correct value.

Both Octopus and SSE use the same formula; 

Gerry1

HLeung said:

Gerry1 said:

Glancing back through the thread I can't see any confirmation whether the OP has a metric (m3) or Imperial meter (ft3).  However, a bill seems to have been calculated for an Imperial meter.  If it's actually a metric meter but it's billed as Imperial, then the calculated kWh usage will be 2.83 times the correct value.

Both Octopus and SSE use the same formula;

That's not much consolation if they're both wrong and you're being seriously overcharged !

Once again, is your meter Imperial (ft3) or metric (m3)?

HLeung

Gerry1 said:

HLeung said:

Gerry1 said:

Glancing back through the thread I can't see any confirmation whether the OP has a metric (m3) or Imperial meter (ft3).  However, a bill seems to have been calculated for an Imperial meter.  If it's actually a metric meter but it's billed as Imperial, then the calculated kWh usage will be 2.83 times the correct value.

Both Octopus and SSE use the same formula;

That's not much consolation if they're both wrong and you're being seriously overcharged !

Once again, is your meter Imperial (ft3) or metric (m3)?

Gerry1 said:

HLeung said:

Gerry1 said:

Glancing back through the thread I can't see any confirmation whether the OP has a metric (m3) or Imperial meter (ft3).  However, a bill seems to have been calculated for an Imperial meter.  If it's actually a metric meter but it's billed as Imperial, then the calculated kWh usage will be 2.83 times the correct value.

Both Octopus and SSE use the same formula;

That's not much consolation if they're both wrong and you're being seriously overcharged !

Once again, is your meter Imperial (ft3) or metric (m3)?

imperial

HLeung

pochase said:

The information you are getting from Octopus does not make any sense.

Here is a link from Octopus describing how the process works.

https://octopus.energy/blog/handover-meter-readings/

Important here is 

Your supplier can't send you a final bill til your handover meter reading is confirmed.

So if they have not accepted the reading for the switch as they are saying, have they closed the gas account or not.

Have you downloaded the bills from Octopus so you can see what they have done? You should look at the bills and not at what a support agent tells you.

For example it is not the new supplier that submits the reading to the old supplier, it is an independent data collector.

Octopus can't just ignore the submitted reading from the data collector, you have been told nonsense. 

Hello @pochase

I had gone back to Octopus to question about the switch over readings and why SSE had such a different number. 

They now explained to me that all the readings submitted to the energy suppliers have to be approved by and against the National Database for Gas, who has to agree with the numbers. So according to Octopus, the 2 gas readings ( March 2020 and May 2020) I submitted to Octopus before the switch in July 2020, both were rejected by the National Database for Gas for what ever the reasons, Octopus did not understand why but Octopus had accepted them and had billed me on those readings. 

Then when it comes to the switch, SSE used an estimate might just try to find a number that was approved by the National Database for Gas, however, 6677 [E] was still way too low, as my Opening  reading with Octopus in June 2018 was only 6897.0. So that's like SSE was going back to even before I moved into this flat!!!!

So anyhow, regardless, I think fundamentally something and someone is very wrong, and Octopus advised me that SSE should only charge me from July 21 onwards, since I did not receive any bills before July 22 and by the back-billing regulation, SSE can only back charge no more than 12 months from the first bill. 

Octopus had stopped charging me gas since May 2020. But if SSE is using an opening way below what I last paid Octopus, that means I am getting charged twice.