Charged imperial on a metric meter

Wannabe1to

I have just discovered that I have been charged imperial on a metric meter since 2013! It would seem that Npower, who changed the meter over, did not register it on the national database and therefore I have been billed wrongly for over 10 years. I read my meter every month but was unaware of the differences. The only reason I found out was because my sister sent me a screen shot of her bill to see if I could reduce costs by switching. It turned out I was paying less per kWh and had used far less units of gas but had still paid a lot more. I then noticed her bill had a m3 and mine ft3 so I googled what the letters meant. How the heck did this happen and how on earth do I get back all the probable thousands of pounds I’ve overpaid? One sad person I tell ya 😔

housebuyer143

Happens easily as you said. Same thing happened to me but you might find it's not been 10 years. Your meter will have been changed by your supplier who will have updated their system most likely and the problem comes when you move supplier because they don't know it's metric.

I found out very quick when my bill was 4x higher on changing supplier and told them the problem and they fixed it. 

You need to track down your bills from as far back as you can go, especially the time you changed supplier after the meter change and see the calculations they have been using. If you don't have them I believe the company doesn't need to hold them for that long so you probably will be unable to recover all these costs tbh. Even if you can prove it, you are going to have an uphill battle, especially with the companies you are no longer with. 

Keep_pedalling

Didn’t you notice a huge jump in cost when the meter was changed?

Reed_Richards

This happened to me when I switched supplier, in 2012 I think.  I already had a metric meter but the new supplier decided to treat is as imperial.  I noticed quite quickly because my bills went up so much and the error was rectified when I reported it.

Wannabe1to

I didn’t notice tbh because I switched to outfox the market which did make my monthly bill go down then I moved to people’s energy and then avro who all no longer exist which is typical. I have one bill from people’s energy in 2018 who asked me for a serial numbers when I joined  and when I sent them they said my gas was registered to another address and then wanted photos. I sent these to them and thought nothing more of it. Unfortunately I didn’t have the knowledge to know there were different meters and charges and that’s why it’s happened for so long. Had I not seen my sisters bill I would still be in the dark. I have roughly worked out that Octopus may owe me £1700 since I was moved to them from Avro in late 2021. As the gas has increased over the years with inflation etc I have been blindsided by this too. I feel a fool tbh but how was I suppose to know unless someone had showed/taught me about it. 

Wannabe1to

It’s so upsetting to know that I was changing suppliers to help with the cost and all the time it was because I was being charged wrongly. How is a person suppose to know there’s an imperial meter and a metric one? I have struggled and struggled to pay the bills and spoke to everyone of my suppliers about it along the way and not once was this thought of or brought up. I feel so upset and have cried a lot to think I have literally been robbed of my hard early money. I did all I could, read my meter every month and paid the bill switched using MSE website tool and still have been let down. 

Reed_Richards

Reading your bill carefully enough will tell you whether you are being billed in metric or imperial units.  And if you look at your meter that will tell you what units it is measuring so what the right answer should be.  But it's easy to miss that your supplier has got it wrong; I didn't notice until I saw that my bill had gone up.

Have you kept all your old bills from all those different companies so you can look back and see if they all got it wrong?  In my case the error was nothing to do with a change of meter, just a change of supplier.

Wannabe1to

No I have no bills as they were all paperless sent as emails. I still don’t see how I could be at fault to know whether my meter was imperial or metric. If you don’t know you don’t know. All I did was read the numbers and send them in to get an accurate bill. I as a consumer should surely be protected from this happening. 

housebuyer143

Wannabe1to said:

It’s so upsetting to know that I was changing suppliers to help with the cost and all the time it was because I was being charged wrongly. How is a person suppose to know there’s an imperial meter and a metric one? I have struggled and struggled to pay the bills and spoke to everyone of my suppliers about it along the way and not once was this thought of or brought up. I feel so upset and have cried a lot to think I have literally been robbed of my hard early money. I did all I could, read my meter every month and paid the bill switched using MSE website tool and still have been let down. 

Honestly, don't blame yourself too much. The people at the utility companies don't have a clue either. When I was trying to get to the bottom of my issue all they would say is "we will test the meter". 
The meter wasn't the problem and I had to investigate it myself and tell them the problem which shouldn't be the way it's done. I don't think most people know there are two different meters.

I would focus then on recouping your money from octopus as I think you don't have a chance with the others tbh. I would take it all the way to the ombudsman if you need to, because octopus should be able to easily convert all your old bills to metric and know exactly what you should have paid. It will take them time but it's not impossible or even that hard to do. You will just need to speak to someone outside the call centre so a formal complaint should hopefully get the ball rolling. Octopus are not at fault so I doubt you can get compensation, but you should at least be able to get the over payments refunded to you in the long term and they should immediately change your meter info now so all future bills are correct 

Wannabe1to

housebuyer143 said:

Wannabe1to said:

It’s so upsetting to know that I was changing suppliers to help with the cost and all the time it was because I was being charged wrongly. How is a person suppose to know there’s an imperial meter and a metric one? I have struggled and struggled to pay the bills and spoke to everyone of my suppliers about it along the way and not once was this thought of or brought up. I feel so upset and have cried a lot to think I have literally been robbed of my hard early money. I did all I could, read my meter every month and paid the bill switched using MSE website tool and still have been let down. 

Honestly, don't blame yourself too much. The people at the utility companies don't have a clue either. When I was trying to get to the bottom of my issue all they would say is "we will test the meter". 
The meter wasn't the problem and I had to investigate it myself and tell them the problem which shouldn't be the way it's done. I don't think most people know there are two different meters.

I would focus then on recouping your money from octopus as I think you don't have a chance with the others tbh. I would take it all the way to the ombudsman if you need to, because octopus should be able to easily convert all your old bills to metric and know exactly what you should have paid. It will take them time but it's not impossible or even that hard to do. You will just need to speak to someone outside the call centre so a formal complaint should hopefully get the ball rolling. Octopus are not at fault so I doubt you can get compensation, but you should at least be able to get the over payments refunded to you in the long term and they should immediately change your meter info now so all future bills are correct 

Thanks for that I do feel foolish but everydays a school day and now I’m forearmed. I have just noticed outfox is still trading and I’ve managed to sign into my old account! I have a leaving statement on there which showed a metric charging so I would say the error occurred when I changed to people’s energy to whom I did send photos of my meter to but I have one bill for them that does show they charged me imperial. I have raised a complaint with octopus last week and the ombudsman have said they have 8 weeks to look into it then they can step in so here’s hoping. Thanks. 

Reed_Richards

Wannabe1to said:

...I have just noticed outfox is still trading ....

Surprising but true.

Wannabe1to said:

.... I would say the error occurred when I changed to people’s energy to whom I did send photos of my meter to but I have one bill for them that does show they charged me imperial.... 

Well that's good news as the error doesn't go back as far as you had originally feared.  It's the same thing that happened to me, you changed supplier and the new supplier got it wrong.

Nobody (I think) is saying you were at fault or foolish but if you had been a detective you could have found enough clues to know that something had gone wrong,  But we're not all Hercule Poirot!