Octopus Energy - Back billing Help

richr874

QrizB said:

Even if you meet the qualifying factors for back billing (and it's not clear that you do), I think your supplier are allowed to allocate any money you've paid into your account in the past 12 months against the historic bill.

If your historic energy use was £4.5k-worth (and we don't know unless you check the bill), but you've been paying £200 a month into your account, they allocate £2400 of recent payments against the historic use and leave you that much behind.

Which is why it's so important that you check the historic bill and see if you agree with their calculations.

Thanks, appreciate this, do you know if they are likely to split the payments between Gad & Electic though so rather than £195 being offset against it e.g. £120 would be & £75 against Gas?

richr874

Reed_Richards said:

Ofgem say:

You can’t be charged for gas or electricity used more than 12 months ago if you have not been correctly billed for it, or informed about it via a statement of account, before.

You have not been correctly billed for electricity used more than 12 months ago but Octopus might argue that as your bills indicated that they were based on estimated readings then the statement of account contained in your bills effectively informed you that you were not being billed correctly.  If the readings were estimated then you knew (or should have known) that they were not correct and could actually be higher than the estimates.  Indeed you could have read your meter to find out if the estimates were correct.
 
Do you have a case for back-billing?  Yes.  Will you win the case?  Possibly, possibly not. 

I think your best argument is that Octopus got a final meter reading from your old meter when it was removed so had the necessary information to give you an accurate bill then.  To delay doing so until 15th August 2023 was negligent so you should not be charged any greater amount for electricity used before 15th August 2022.  Octopus would have to estimate the 15th August 2022 reading, or perhaps you could do your own estimate and suggest that.  

Thanks for your comment.

That is exactly my thinking. I have confirmation and proof they read my meter 26th October 2022. Yet didnt raise a bill till Jan 24, although i have read about informing you via statement could count as informing (15th August) not sure i have an argumemt on being informed 15th August as there is not physically a statement anywhere either, purely at email with a higher balance with no dayes mentioned, nothing physically shows on my online account till Jan 24.

Even if we went with 15th August 23 though.

My bill is as follows:

26th September 2021 - 30th September 2021 - £1,268.94

1st October 2021 -1st April 2022 - £1,340.26

2nd April 2022 - 30th September 2022 - £1,408.39

1st October 2022 - 26th October 2022 - £275.39

Total Bill for Elec - £4,292.98.

Thanks again for your help.

Reed_Richards

richr874 said:

My bill is as follows:

26th September 2021 - 30th September 2021 - £1,268.94

1st October 2021 -1st April 2022 - £1,340.26

2nd April 2022 - 30th September 2022 - £1,408.39

1st October 2022 - 26th October 2022 - £275.39

Total Bill for Elec - £4,292.98.

Thanks again for your help.

You are unlikely to have used £1,268.94 worth of electricity in 4 days so I presume the 26th September 2021 reading was an estimate (a huge underestimate) and the 30th September 2021 reading was, somehow, accurate.  Thereafter all the bills could be based on estimated readings up until your old meter was removed on what seems to have been 26th October 2022.  The only reason for the splits is because the tariff changed.

You may not have realised but you use a lot of electricity compared to the average.  And electricity prices have risen a lot in the past few years so you should expect to be paying more per month than you used to.

If I were you, I would keep asking Octopus to explain why it took them so long to send you an accurate bill.  I don't see that they can have a good explanation for this so you might be able to shame them into letting you off paying some of it.          

Qyburn

QrizB said:

Even if you meet the qualifying factors for back billing (and it's not clear that you do), I think your supplier are allowed to allocate any money you've paid into your account in the past 12 months against the historic bill.

If your historic energy use was £4.5k-worth (and we don't know unless you check the bill), but you've been paying £200 a month into your account, they allocate £2400 of recent payments against the historic use and leave you that much behind.

I think they can only allocate a credit balance. Not reverse payment of recent bills, assign the payment to an old bill, then demand that the recent bill be paid again.

QrizB

OP you've given us the billed sums for the period. What are the associated meter readings? Are they marked as Estimates or Actual?

richr874

QrizB said:

OP you've given us the billed sums for the period. What are the associated meter readings? Are they marked as Estimates or Actual?

All estimates apart from the 26th October 2022 one which is actual reading.

QrizB

richr874 said:

QrizB said:

OP you've given us the billed sums for the period. What are the associated meter readings? Are they marked as Estimates or Actual?

All estimates apart from the 26th October 2022 one which is actual reading.

And is the reading used for 26th September 2021 the same one they used when previously billing you up to that date?

If it is, they've billed you for the right amount of electricity.

How much did they bill you for this period the first time around, if anything?

richr874

QrizB said:

richr874 said:

QrizB said:

OP you've given us the billed sums for the period. What are the associated meter readings? Are they marked as Estimates or Actual?

All estimates apart from the 26th October 2022 one which is actual reading.

And is the reading used for 26th September 2021 the same one they used when previously billing you up to that date?

If it is, they've billed you for the right amount of electricity.

How much did they bill you for this period the first time around, if anything?

Before this i was with Avro, i got an email on 1st October 2021 saying Octopus had taken over and i tried to access my Avro account and it was completely shut.

Therefore there's no way i can back this up that it has carried on from Avro correctly. I think some of this debt could technically be from Avro, but Octopus have put a meter reading in at 26/09/2021 to make sure all energy relates to them. Not sure if this is how it should be done...i was just fairly certain i was falling behind with Avro (My hundred's, not thousands) based on my own calculations back when i was with them but when transferring to Octopus everything has balanced back to virtually £0. I am surmising though and this is going back 3/4 years. With no access to Avro's bills or me having a meter reading around September/October 2021 I can't be sure.

Reed_Richards

Whatever meter reading Octopus used on 26/09/21, that reading must have changed hugely in the 4 days to 30/9/21 because they have billed you £1,268.94 of electricity for just 4 days of use.  That amount of usage is not possible in a domestic setting.  

MWT

Qyburn said:

QrizB said:

Even if you meet the qualifying factors for back billing (and it's not clear that you do), I think your supplier are allowed to allocate any money you've paid into your account in the past 12 months against the historic bill.

If your historic energy use was £4.5k-worth (and we don't know unless you check the bill), but you've been paying £200 a month into your account, they allocate £2400 of recent payments against the historic use and leave you that much behind.

I think they can only allocate a credit balance. Not reverse payment of recent bills, assign the payment to an old bill, then demand that the recent bill be paid again.

They are allowed to reverse any balance refunds made to a customer and reverse the application of the DD payments made and then reapply them to the correct ongoing account balance month by month, it is only where there is a need for an additional payment for use more than 12 months ago that the 'back-billing' rules would cut in.

The DD payment is not 'protected' merely because it was applied to a more recent bill than it should have been.