Electricity bill - please help me understand this mess

Yorkie006

Hi,
long story short, British Gas messed up my electricity account when they migrated to the new billing system.
I have a working smart meter but for some reason they ignored the actual readings and made up their own (completely wrong, of course). I did complain about it as soon as I noticed in early December but only just got a response from them a few days ago.
The trouble is, I have no idea what they did as the whole situation is a complete mess. Loads of cancelled bills, reversal of payments etc.
I took some screenshots etc but really don't understand what's going on or if I'm being changed correctly.
All bills issued from May to December 2023 have been cancelled and replaced. Starting balance in April was £151.59 in credit.
I got a refund of £30.19 in December and they took payments of £7.60, £27.94, £108.09 and £30.87 between May and today. My online account is showing a debt of £67.22 (this payment will be taken in March).
Can someone please make sense of this? I can't get my head round it. I realise there's a lot of information to go through so a bit thanks to anyone who helps.

Link to all transactions as listed in online account: this is the most confusing piece of info:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DwmS3Gg2bTc7B3afrcNSF3q1HWjoir0up8Goazrkvic/edit?usp=sharing

elsien

Have you worked out from the actual readings how much you think you owe?

Brie

you need to look at the actual use and what the tariffs are for those periods and work it out from there.  If you're not able to do so post things on here and someone will be able to do it for you.

NorfolkCanary

Yorkie006 said:

Hi,
long story short, British Gas messed up my electricity account when they migrated to the new billing system.
I have a working smart meter but for some reason they ignored the actual readings and made up their own (completely wrong, of course). I did complain about it as soon as I noticed in early December but only just got a response from them a few days ago.
The trouble is, I have no idea what they did as the whole situation is a complete mess. Loads of cancelled bills, reversal of payments etc.
I took some screenshots etc but really don't understand what's going on or if I'm being changed correctly.
All bills issued from May to December 2023 have been cancelled and replaced. Starting balance in April was £151.59 in credit.
I got a refund of £30.19 in December and they took payments of £7.60, £27.94, £108.09 and £30.87 between May and today. My online account is showing a debt of £67.22 (this payment will be taken in March).
Can someone please make sense of this? I can't get my head round it. I realise there's a lot of information to go through so a bit thanks to anyone who helps.

Hello,

As Brie says, we need the actual readings to be able to help.

Do you have readings (in kWh) from May and December? or present?

Do you know what tariff you were / are on?

We can then calculate (at least approximately) what the bill for the period(s) should be

Yorkie006

Okay, you all misunderstood.
What I wanted is help understanding all the confusion with cancelled/replaced bills. I know what the readings are/were (I have a smart meter). The trouble is that British Gas issued multiple bills last year that were subsequently cancelled (in February this year), payments were taken from my bank account at the time but those payments were not refunded (apart from one refund in December) and the payments are not showing as received anywhere on the replacement bill.
That's why I included the list of all bills/payments/reversed payments to see where the money went. As far as I know, my account should be in credit but instead BG insist that I owe them money. I have no idea how they came to that conclusion.

t0rt0ise

Yorkie006 said:

Okay, you all misunderstood.
What I wanted is help understanding all the confusion with cancelled/replaced bills. I know what the readings are/were (I have a smart meter). The trouble is that British Gas issued multiple bills last year that were subsequently cancelled (in February this year), payments were taken from my bank account at the time but those payments were not refunded (apart from one refund in December) and the payments are not showing as received anywhere on the replacement bill.
That's why I included the list of all bills/payments/reversed payments to see where the money went. As far as I know, my account should be in credit but instead BG insist that I owe them money. I have no idea how they came to that conclusion.

Don't worry about all the cancelled bills. You just need to work out how much you should have paid yourself, then trawl through your bank account and add up how much you paid and see if the two totals match.

EssexHebridean

Yorkie006 said:

Okay, you all misunderstood.y
What I wanted is help understanding all the confusion with cancelled/replaced bills. I know what the readings are/were (I have a smart meter). The trouble is that British Gas issued multiple bills last year that were subsequently cancelled (in February this year), payments were taken from my bank account at the time but those payments were not refunded (apart from one refund in December) and the payments are not showing as received anywhere on the replacement bill.
That's why I included the list of all bills/payments/reversed payments to see where the money went. As far as I know, my account should be in credit but instead BG insist that I owe them money. I have no idea how they came to that conclusion.

Without the useage figures, we can’t have any idea either. How much you owe/whether you owe anything at all entirely comes down to a combination of what you have paid and what you have used. Just looking at/ seeing half the equation doesn’t help. 

Scot_39

Firstly I think the problem is they may be confusing you even further by trying to resolve your billing across the timesclaes when they have been operating 2 seperate -  old and new account systems - for your billing.



From the visible info in your post 

The online bill at the bottom -  showing £67, in debit - you did note / spot it is covering ONLY Apr to Nov 23 - so not the period covered by last 2 payments as these are Jan and Feb 2024 related - probably those being on New System account and a manual correction - the Apr to Nov an attempt on the old - would be my guess for the billing summary at the bottom  -  includes the sum of your first 2 -  £7.60+£27.94 = £35.54 as shown.

It's a bill for note only 6 months total usage - Apr through Oct (to 7th Nov) claiming use of £254.35 = roughly £42 per month - well below Ofgem cap level which would be more like £450 over 6 months for DF DD electric.

Note also the 20th Feb bill amount in list of bills doesn't match net credit or debit on that partial bill - despite the bill dates matching - so maybe that includes other billed amounts since Nov - and payments in Jan / Feb,  rebate in Dec to add to £227.


You only list 4 payments and 1 refund.  What about other months ?


Suppliers have a duty to provide accurate bills. If you report or they spot an issue - e.g. After a meter reading visit or phone in - or a review after accounting system change in your case - they can and will reissue hopefully but not always more accurate new bills and delete old - as they are viewed as no longer correct.

Sadly A few posters have ended up with an even more complex / long serious of bill adjustments in the past - and those with online only billing who hadn't been regularly downloading their statements / bills - have often been left only with the undeleted final revision versions available.   Although you can probably request copies of all past bills - by SAR (subject access request) if necessary.

So if that's you - you will have to go back to last possibly good bill - Apr 23? and the total bill for Feb  - and look at meter readings etc?

Others who regularly download have ended up with enough detail to enter all bills and payments, billing cancelled and replacements, deductions and refunds and summarise these along with corresponding actual / estimated readings in a spreadsheet or tabulate by hand.

Some have had to go back years having mistakenly trusted suppliers to bill accurately - even without other disruptions like accounting system or meter changes.

Your billing also covers 4 cap periods from Apr to Feb - so potentially 4 different SC and 4 different power unit kWh rates.  Electricity pricing is highly regional.  Hopefully differences will be small - but my rates have swung over 2p / kWh even under epg 2500 fix - and next Q one regions SC is changing 14p iirc.  But if on svt that can be derived from old Ofgem tables available on line.

Anything is possible and although it shouldnt happen and for many it doesnt - others seem to fall through cracks for whatever reason when such disruptions take place - possible errors reported here with BG move (and other suppliers new systems) 
- meter readings actual vs estimated - especially after transfer to new system no longer smart but estimated has been reported by others here too (*)
- DD payments not taken at all as bank details not transferred
- payments taken being missed / not credited to new account
- wrong meter ?  I would check meter serial numbers / mpans on bills
- old system credit reported here several times not transferred over to new system account immediately etc.

Sadly I have learned to keep records and review bills regularly - having had and other family having had issues with poor billing over several suppliers over last decade or so. 

My sister partner had over £1000 credit not transferred automatically when BG moved his flat's account over  to new billing - they almost immediately tried to up his DD payments by £100s per month - was how he spotted account problem - before first bill issued even - but they did fix in the end.


Do you have any recent bills matching your current actual readings ?  Was that the trigger for Dec rebate ?

matelodave

As said above, you've had around four changes of tariff over that period so unless you have kept the bills/readings when they changed its going to be pretty difficult to work out exactly what you bills should have been.

Even when you've got a smart meter its still a good idea to read the meter once a month and especially when there are tariff changes to ensure that the billing is using the correct tariff and using the correct meter readings.

I always download my monthly bills and save them as PDF files just in case of this sort of problem. Its also useful when an energy company goes bust.

I may be sad but I've got 13 years worth of monthly PDF bills covering around nine suppliers , five of whom went bust but I can easily go back and work out what I should have paid to whom and I've got my own evidence to use if it goes pear shaped.

Gerry1

matelodave said:

I may be sad but I've got 13 years worth of monthly PDF bills covering around nine suppliers , five of whom went bust but I can easily go back and work out what I should have paid to whom and I've got my own evidence to use if it goes pear shaped.

That's wise, not sad.

BG overcharged me for several months' usage for a period before I joined them.  I'd been with Neon Reef but left them well before they went bust (and had then been with other suppliers) before moving to BG.

But quite some time after BG became the SoLR for NR they quietly changed my starting date.  No explanation, the only clue was an earlier start date tucked away on a bill.  Fortunately I'd kept all the paper bills, so it was easy to spot !

BG corrected their mistake and deleted all previous bills, just as in the OP's case.  However, BG couldn't stop their computer making the same mistake four times in all.  Eventually BG made a one-off payment equal to the overcharge.  I insisted on £100 compo for all the aggro and waste of time, and I won.  But I do wonder how many former NR customers have been overcharged by BT and never noticed.

Yorkie006

Hi,
okay, these are my actual readings:

1st January 23        15385
8th April 23              15555
11th June 23           15663
1st July 23              15689
13th July 23            15704
1st August 23          15734
7th September 23   15795
7th October 23        15837
7th November 23    15917
30th November 23  15936
19th December 23  15973
1st January 24        16003

I'm a low energy user, I always pay by monthly variable DD, standard variable tariff. I was in credit until September 23 due to the £400 government payments (the bill payment of £7.60 was the first payment taken out of my bank as the credit run out). Then there was a payment of £27.94 and another payment of £108.09.
My balance was £151.59 in credit on 8th April 23.

BG issued an incorrect bill that resulted in the £30.19 refund. The bill they issued for period of 11th May to 7th November had opening reading of 15616 but end reading of 15689 for 7th November (this reading is an actual reading for 1st July but somehow they got it all mixed up). As a result of this incorrect bill, they cancelled all the previous bills (the last correct bill they left was for period ending 7th April 23) and issued the refund.
Eventually they corrected this bill in February 23 and reissued the bill meaning I supposedly owe them £67.22.
They also issued a bill in for period of 7th November (incorrect opening reading of 15689 instead of correct reading 15917) to 30th November 15936 (correct reading) - total of this bill £77.14, followed by bill for 30th November 23 to 1st January 24 (total of this bill £30.95). For some reason the payment for £77.14+£30.95 was taken at once (£108.09).
When they eventually corrected the opening reading for the new system, they corrected the final reading on old system for the bill up to 7th November but never corrected the opening reading for the bill from 8th November to 30th November. Meaning the final reading (15917) on old system was higher than the reading they used as opening reading (15689) on new one. Therefore I believe I'm being charge twice for the same usage.


So, I used 448kWh from 8th April 23 to 1st January 24. Reading 16003-15555=448.
I was in credit of £151.59 on 8th April and then paid £7.60 + £27.94 + £108.09 - £30.19 (refund received) = £265.03. According to BG I still owe them £67.22.

According to my calculations my bill for that period should be about this:
268 days x standing charge of 53.356p/day so around £143 + 448kWh of electricity (let's say 27p/kWh on average so about £120 = total of £263.
So, do I really owe BG money or did they get it wrong?

Note: I'm taking part in the PeakSave scheme so the amounts will be a few £ off as a result (I did not want to complicate the situations by including the small discounts I received).