British Gas £700+ overcharge

joben_jones

I tried to be concise with this post, but turned in to a bit of a ramble. So have summarised at the top, then gone on a bit below. Thanks for reading.

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Summary

• BG overcharged us nearly £800 for electricity
• They made a wildly incorrect estimated meter reading
• Then cemented this reading as if it were an actual figure during an account system change

Main question

• Do I go to BG politely, cap in hand, and ask for a refund?
• Or kick up a fuss and expect more, due to the financial distress this has caused?

I don't know what our rights are here. But if we had provided an incorrect reading to them and denied them of money, we could be prosecuted for fraud. That they can just do this, which wouldn't have been noticed if I'd not done some digging, seems ridiculous.

I've always been a bit naïve with utility bills, I don't check them that often, as I assume these big companies are thorough, and that things will obviously be correct. Have learned this time, and will be sure to pay closer attention in the future.

Secondary question

When we were on People's Energy, we had to submit meter readings because they were a small company, and didn't have the system set up to take smart meter readings yet. Or something like this, I forget now.

This is not the case with British Gas, and looking at our early statements from them, they were taking Smart Meter readings from us.

• So why would things change, and they start making estimated readings, and asking us to manually submit them meter readings? What's the point of a smart meter if we have to do this, and why would they previously have taken the smart meter readings, then stop doing so?
• And, how can an Estimated meter reading by BG, somehow get converted into an Actual reading and transmitted back to our meter as if it were fact? This wouldn't be able to happen if it were an old skool meter with mechanical dials turning around

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Story

We were moved to British Gas at the end of '21 after People's Energy went under.

Earlier on this year, British Gas informed us our monthly DD was changing from ~£46/month to ~£404/month.

Their reason was that our DD had been too low for many months, so we owed them ~£1600, plus our monthly usage was ~£250 worth.

Some time during the period in which we were apparently paying much too little for our energy, British Gas moved us over to a new account system. This meant we were unable to see any of our statements in our account prior to 16th Nov 22 - the first statement which had the large charges/usage mentioned on them.

After doing some closer reading of this statement, I noticed a 'Legacy Account Adjustment' for £987.29, with no other explanation. I asked them about this on the phone, but they explained they weren't able to see what It was for, as it was a different team who had access to the old accounts.

They transferred me to the other account dept. and I asked them to send us our old statements, they said they would but it never happened. 

Now, the account has been updated and we do have access to the old statements, so I've managed to identify the issue.

There is a clearly incorrect estimated meter reading on 15th Nov 22, which means they assumed we used 2202kWh of electricity in 6 weeks. I did some rough calculations, and this would be equivalent to us running our oven 24/7 during this entire period.

As a reference, attached are some screenshots of statements, showing ~500kWh usage the previous year over a 3 month period in winter (Nov 21-Mar 22). And the one showing 2202kWh in 6 weeks (Oct 22-Nov 22). 

Interestingly on the 15th November 22, the last entry on the old account system, this was classified as an ESTIMATED meter reading. On the next statement from the new account system, the next day 16th November 22, this same reading is classified as an ACTUAL meter reading. And all subsequent readings, both estimated and actual, continue up in a regular and predictable fashion from this new baseline.

It seems as if this incorrect reading was taken as fact in the transfer to the new account system.

Attached are some screenshots of statements showing the issue, plus a crude line chart showing the spike in our meter readings.

So, what is our course of action here? This seems to clearly be a mistake from BG. We're going to be leaving them imminently as we'd like to move to a green provider, but want to get this sorted before we do so.

Thanks appreciate any advice,
JJ

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Side note

We had thought for a while that, during a energy crisis, £46/month seemed a bit too low a DD. But as mentioned above, a bit naïve and just just figured that we were giving readings, so they would be taking this into account ad adjusting accordingly.

We had received two statements from them with "We will regularly review your payment amount of £46.42 to make sure you're on track to cover your expected energy use." and they'd clearly not done so, to get 6 months down the line before they decided to 'rectify' the issue.

I've since seen a post on the MSE website warning of surprise BG bills, as despite the above text on their statements, they were only actually reviewing charges/usage every 6 months, so customers were in line for some shocks.

Again, will be sure to check utility bills myself a bit more diligently in future.

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Dec 21 - Mar 22
502kWh in 3 months




Oct 22 - Nov 22
2202kWh in 6 weeks




First statement on new account system
5615 estimated reading from day before now an actual reading




Crude line chart

Robin9

What does your meter read today ?

apologies If I've missed it in the ramble.

QrizB

Robin9 said:

What does your meter read today ?

Yes, this is the missing piece of the puzzle.

Your BG bills haven't included an actual reading since the 23rd of September last year. They've all been estimated.

As @Robin9 says in their signature, "never pay an estimated bill". When BG billed you in November last year, did you notice the estimate, supply an actual reading and ask for a correction?

[Deleted User]

The ‘bottomline’ is that estimates are just estimates. The fact that an estimate has been used on a billing system change does not cement it in.

It is possible that your smart meter comms hub has become disconnected from the smart meter network: it happens. I would mail BG and ask them to get the DCC to investigate. If necessary, the DCC will carryout a remote comms hub reset. If this fails, the supplier will have to send out an engineer to carry out a manual reset.

I would also send BG photos of the smart meter readings (the photo needs to show the meter serial number) and ask it to amend your bills. Until this issue is resolved, you will need to provide monthly meter readings.

joben_jones

Thanks for the replies,

Sorry if this wasn't clear in my long post, I did mention it, but perhaps was lost in the length.

All the meter readings, both estimated and actual, since this error have continued up from the 5615 baseline, in a regular fashion. The screenshots I posted aren't the only bills we have, there are others since this date, up to now, which have actual meter readings on them

This is the data from the statement which created the line chart in my first post. You can see how the estimated readings they were coming up with after this error (orange), are significantly higher than what our actual usage was, and it takes a while of them to start adjusting down their estimations, presumably based on what we were actually submitting to them. But also how all the actual meter readings just continue on from 5615 as a starting point, after 16th Nov 22.

E=estimated, A=actual, S=smart meter reading



So as I said, it's as if this erroneous meter estimate from 15th Nov 22, was turned into a concrete meeter reading the following day with the account transfer, then all the actual readings have continued up from this level somehow.

brook_heather

I suggest you sign up for the Bright app and go back and examine your daily smart meter readings between 22/09/2022 and 16/11/2022 - Bright should be able to pull the previous 13 months of data though it does look like your smart meter stopped communicating during this period.  This should tell you whether there was high usage each day or whether there was a "blip" in a single day that caused the high usage and would be a possible fault in the smart meter.

[Deleted User]

joben_jones said:

Thanks for the replies,

Sorry if this wasn't clear in my long post, I did mention it, but perhaps was lost in the length.

All the meter readings, both estimated and actual, since this error have continued up from the 5615 baseline, in a regular fashion. The screenshots I posted aren't the only bills we have, there are others since this date, up to now, which have actual meter readings on them

This is the data from the statement which created the line chart in my first post. You can see how the estimated readings they were coming up with after this error (orange), are significantly higher than what our actual usage was, and it takes a while of them to start adjusting down their estimations, presumably based on what we were actually submitting to them. But also how all the actual meter readings just continue on from 5615 as a starting point, after 16th Nov 22.

E=estimated, A=actual, S=smart meter reading



So as I said, it's as if this erroneous meter estimate from 15th Nov 22, was turned into a concrete meeter reading the following day with the account transfer, then all the actual readings have continued up from this level somehow.

Who is providing the meter readings annotated with an ‘A’?

Is the meter reading for 18/09/2023 (annotated ‘A’) correct?

joben_jones

Dolor said:

Who is providing the meter readings annotated with an ‘A’?

Is the meter reading for 18/09/2023 (annotated ‘A’) correct?

The Actual readings are ones where we have read the meter and manually submitted them on the BG website, yes 18/09/23 was correct.

brook_heather said:

I suggest you sign up for the Bright app and go back and examine your daily smart meter readings between 22/09/2022 and 16/11/2022 - Bright should be able to pull the previous 13 months of data though it does look like your smart meter stopped communicating during this period.  This should tell you whether there was high usage each day or whether there was a "blip" in a single day that caused the high usage and would be a possible fault in the smart meter.

Thanks, didn't know about this service. Have signed up but getting errors at the mo, will keep trying

QrizB

joben_jones said:

All the meter readings, both estimated and actual, since this error have continued up from the 5615 baseline, in a regular fashion.
E=estimated, A=actual, S=smart meter reading

So your meter is not sending smart readings, and hasn't done so since September 2022? You are submitting manual meter readings? And your latest manual meter reading is 06840? [Edit: answered above, while I was typing.]

Are you sure you are reading the correct register on your meter?

Can you post a photo of your meter?

Edit to add:

joben_jones said:
And, how can an Estimated meter reading by BG, somehow get converted into an Actual reading and transmitted back to our meter as if it were fact?

This is not possible. First there is no known mechanism for your supplier to change the index reading on your meter remotely. Second, your meter does not appear to have been smart (connected to the smart meter network) since September 2022.

[Deleted User]

joben_jones said:

Dolor said:

Who is providing the meter readings annotated with an ‘A’?

Is the meter reading for 18/09/2023 (annotated ‘A’) correct?

The Actual readings are ones where we have read the meter and manually submitted them on the BG website, yes 18/09/23 was correct

If it has been used for billing as it should under Licence Conditions you are worrying unnecessarily. All estimates (other than those used for tariff changes) become irrelevant when an actual or smart reading is provided.

When changing suppliers or billing systems, the reading used by the old/new supplier/ billing system HAS to be the same so that you don’t double pay.

Edit: As you gave an Actual reading of 5615.2 on the 16/11/2022 then the estimated reading of 5615 the day before want that far out.

Looking at 2 actual/smart readings about a year apart, you seem to be using c.3700kWh of electricity per year which isn’t extravagant.

joben_jones

QrizB said:

So your meter is not sending smart readings, and hasn't done so since September 2022? You are submitting manual meter readings? And your latest manual meter reading is 06840?

Are you sure you are reading the correct register on your meter?

Can you post a photo of your meter?

Yes, we've been submitting manual readings for about a year. I don't know why, they've just been emailing us every now and then since we were moved over to the new account system, asking us for a reading. 

We've had a busy year so have just been doing that when we get asked, haven't had much time to think about it beyond this.

This is our meter;





So just to recap for clarity;

• For reference, we used 502kWh over a 3 month period in winter 2021-22.
• They say we used 2202kWh in 6 weeks in winter 2022.
• This is a huge amount of energy for a domestic household, equivalent to running the oven 24/7 for 6 weeks. And enormously more than a longer, comparable time period the previous year.
• Also, all other readings before and after this error, progress at a steady rate

So I'm certain that this is an error.

However, all the actual meter readings after this error, continue up from the figure in the erroneous estimation. As if the incorrect figure was cemented in as fact during the account transfer process.