HELP!! Trying to sort my elderly mums electricity bill

janejsb

I am wondering if someone could give me some advice please. OVO energy took over my mums energy from SSE 19 months ago & since then the smart meter hasn’t sent any readings therefore my mum has been on estimated bills. It has only come to light as my mum thought she had received a scam email saying she owed over £1100 & I started looking at her bills. I’ve printed all her bills from 2020 where she was standing over £500 in credit! What puzzles me is that the estimated bills are only around 200 units different from what the meter is saying which I find a bit coincidental. Over the last 19 months she has spent approximately 4 months away from the property so her bills over that time should have been small. I have spent hours on the phone with OVO trying to sort this out & they are adamant what the meter is saying is correct. An engineer is coming out towards the end of the month to replace the meter but I wondered if there is a way to interrogate the smart meter to see how this figure has been accrued? 

My mum lives in a small 1 bed flat on her own & is apparently she is using more electricity than my 3 bed semi with 4 adults living in it! 

Any advice will be gratefully received as I don’t know what else I can do.

Many thanks
Jane

Dolor

I have spent hours on the phone with OVO trying to sort this out & they are adamant what the meter is saying is correct. 

The last thing that you should agree to is a meter change. If the meter is faulty, then it needs to be checked before it is dumped in a skip.

Torry_Quine

You really should have been sending in readings if the Smart meter wasn't. This could very well be a catch up bill
 You need to get the bill with the last actual trading and compare to the trading now and then work out what is owed to her or by her

lohr500

Do you have a previous bill showing an Actual read, rather than an estimate? It should have an A against the reading number. If so, what date was that bill and what is the actual reading now?

What unit rate and standing charge has she been on for each of the bills you have and what are the dates of those bills?
How much has she been paying per month?
Do the bills show any government contribution for last year and early this year to help with the energy crisis?

If you have all the above data then it should be possible to calculate roughly what value of electricity she has used and how much she should be in credit or debt. If you share the data here, we can help with the calculation. 

Also, make sure you get a final reading off the meter that is going to be replaced and also the start reading for the replacement meter. It might not start at zero.

CSI_Yorkshire

janejsb said:

 I’ve printed all her bills from 2020 where she was standing over £500 in credit! 

If her monthly payments haven't changed much from this point then she is likely in a large amount of debt.  Prices have changed substantially since 2020.

janejsb said:

What puzzles me is that the estimated bills are only around 200 units different from what the meter is saying which I find a bit coincidental. 

You're complaining that their estimates are pretty accurate?  Seems like a strange thing to be worried about.  Normally people complain that the estimates are way too high.

Robin9

janejsb said:

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My mum lives in a small 1 bed flat on her own & is apparently she is using more electricity than my 3 bed semi with 4 adults living in it! 

.........................

Many thanks
Jane

That's quite possible - are you looking at the "average" 2900/3000 kWh figure for electricity use in a gas heated house?

Have you now sent that reading to OVO and got a revised bill.?

As CSI has said  - prices have gone up considerably since 2020 -  think trebled.  Has your mum altered her DD in that time ?

janejsb

Thank you everyone for your replies & advice. I will be there when the meter is changed! With all bills being estimated I took a meter reading on 12th July which was 5637 & took a reading on 4th August which was 5744 (usage 107 units). I will be submitting a manual reading on 12th August. I’ve attached meter reading history, just wondered if I can see a breakdown of how these figures were achieved on the smart meter? I just find it puzzling how you can go from 00298 on 6/5/22 to 05349 on 3/5/23. That’s 5051 units in a year approx 420 units per month! 

Dolor

Are you reading the smart meter properly. All smart meters have 4 registers.it is easy to get confused:

https://octopus.energy/blog/how-to-read-your-meter/

CSI_Yorkshire

janejsb said:

 I just find it puzzling how you can go from 00298 on 6/5/22 to 05349 on 3/5/23. That’s 5051 units in a year approx 420 units per month! 

I find it more puzzling how the reading went from 27852 on 12-Apr-21 to 00224 on 28-Jan-2022.

5000 units in a year is not unusual for a property with electric heating (although is on the higher end).

What do you mean "a breakdown of how these figures were achieved"?

If you want something broken down over shorter periods of time, try the Hugo, Loop or Bright apps and see if they show anything.  Although as I don't see any 'smart' readings at all in your list, they might not have any data.

lohr500

Was there a meter change at some point between 12th April 2021 and 28th January 2022? It looks like it from the numbers on the bill.

Assuming there was and the readings are accurate then ;

If you take the readings from 18/01/21 to 12/04/21, that's 841 units over 84 days = 10.0 units per day.

Likewise if you take the readings from 28/01/22 to 31/07/23 that's 5503 units over 549 days = 10.0 units per day.

For your 12th July to 4th August readings, it works out at 4.65 units, and for the 3rd May to 31st July it works out at 4.65 units.
But both these time frames are in the warmer parts of the year, so perhaps your mum was using less electrical heating. And possibly covering some of the periods when she wasn't at the flat.

If her flat is heated by electricity and also her hot water, then a yearly average of 10 units a day doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

As per my original question, do you know what the unit price has been for the electricity over the period of the bills?

I'm puzzled though because you billing shows only one estimated reading. All the others are manual which I presume suggests readings have been acquired via the smart meter or a meter reader. Customer readings I think would show as Customer.
Your original posts says that she has been on estimated readings only.

janejsb

27852 to 00224 was when OVO took over from SSE. The smart meter hasn’t sent any readings to OVO since they took the account She’s not got electric heating, I’m just wondering if there is an appliance maybe pulling too much power. I’ll have a look at the apps as suggested. Wish she just had an old fashioned meter🤣. 

Thank you everyone for your advice, hopefully it will be sorted soon.