No billing from Octopus for 13 month - Help please

goldieds

Hi All,

Looking for some advice/options/prior experiences please.

We moved house in April 2023, kept the energy supply with Octopus.

When we moved i contacted them, gave them meter readings for old and new places and was told nothing more to do, they would leave the DD as is and re-asses in a few months.

Unbeknownst to me they cancelled the direct debit. A week or so ago i had an email from them putting what looks like 13 months of bills on the account and taking my balance suddenly from +£500 to -£2000.

I've spoke to them over the phone and they seem to have acknowledged their mistake and raised a complaint.

Today i've had an email through offering me a £350 reduction in the amount on the account

This was made up off;

£130 for not billing for the 13 months

And £110 each for gas and electric billed use from more than 12 months ago.

My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable.

But i am also well aware thats likely not how things work in the real world.

Can anyone shed some light on what my options are and what i should be aiming to get out of them. I accept i'm going to have to pay some of the bill but to me a 50/50 split would seem reasonable

goldieds

As an extra - i want to get a DD set back up as soon as possible, i'm expecting this to run for a while and dont want to owe any more, is there any issue in me setting that back up in the short term

mebu60

goldieds said:

My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable.

Their problem that you failed to spot no money was coming out of your account for 13 months and that you weren't receiving notifications of upcoming payments each month either? Or presumably the absence of monthly meter reading requests and monthly bills too?  

Whilst they erred in stopping the DD (and presumably not notifying you this had been done) it is not unreasonable to expect that you might have spotted this a lot earlier. 

Might I suggest that if you are going to ask for an increase in the £130 component it is probably best done as a polite request that you feel the circumstances of their error warrant greater contrition on their part. 

goldieds

mebu60 said:

goldieds said:

My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable.

Their problem that you failed to spot no money was coming out of your account for 13 months and that you weren't receiving notifications of upcoming payments each month either? Or presumably the absence of monthly meter reading requests and monthly bills too?  

Whilst they erred in stopping the DD (and presumably not notifying you this had been done) it is not unreasonable to expect that you might have spotted this a lot earlier. 

Might I suggest that if you are going to ask for an increase in the £130 component it is probably best done as a polite request that you feel the circumstances of their error warrant greater contrition on their part. 

Fair point, i should add that they sent out an email every month to say there was a payment scheduled, yes i would have spotted the payment wasn't actually coming out if i had reviewed a bank statement but that isn't something i do regularly. i have all my DD set for the day after payday and whats left is my money for the month once the big shop is done

TheElectricCow

If you’ve checked the bills and agree they are correct, you will be liable for the energy you have used in the past 12 months. It is generally the responsibility of the account holder to ensure their bills are being paid correctly, so you wouldn’t much to work with in that regard trying to put this as their problem. It wouldn’t be an unreasonable expectation that a customer would notice they had £2500 more in their bank account than they should have due to not paying a utility bill for over a year.

That said, you do have a valid argument for the poor service you’ve received and the (lack of) management on your account on their part. This is where the £130 figure comes in and that is the aspect you’d need to negotiate on if you choose to. 

As you don’t appear to have suffered any financial loss here (and in fact with the offer on the table have come out much better off than if  the bill had been paid correctly) it doesn’t seem likely there would be much upside on what’s being offered. You might be able to push for a bit more by asking, but certainly don’t expect anywhere near a 50% reduction.

Finally, Octopus would have to agree to a reasonable repayment plan if that’s something you would want. This would take the form of paying X amount in addition to your regular monthly payment to slowly bring the debt down over time. This would often be over 12 months, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be more than that depending on what’s affordable for you.

booneruk

goldieds said:

Hi All,

Looking for some advice/options/prior experiences please.

We moved house in April 2023, kept the energy supply with Octopus.

When we moved i contacted them, gave them meter readings for old and new places and was told nothing more to do, they would leave the DD as is and re-asses in a few months.

Unbeknownst to me they cancelled the direct debit. A week or so ago i had an email from them putting what looks like 13 months of bills on the account and taking my balance suddenly from +£500 to -£2000.

I've spoke to them over the phone and they seem to have acknowledged their mistake and raised a complaint.

Today i've had an email through offering me a £350 reduction in the amount on the account

This was made up off;

£130 for not billing for the 13 months

And £110 each for gas and electric billed use from more than 12 months ago.

My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable.

But i am also well aware thats likely not how things work in the real world.

Can anyone shed some light on what my options are and what i should be aiming to get out of them. I accept i'm going to have to pay some of the bill but to me a 50/50 split would seem reasonable

Sounds like a decent offer to me. At the end of the day you did use the energy they've billed you for.

As for setting up a direct debit, I'm surprised they've not already offered to do this for you. They would need to be the ones who set it up - there may be a form you can submit in your account page. Oh and speaking of, I'd be double checking to see if they've charged you any extra on the bill for non-direct debit payment!

FreeBear

goldieds said: Today i've had an email through offering me a £350 reduction in the amount on the account

This was made up off;

£130 for not billing for the 13 months

And £110 each for gas and electric billed use from more than 12 months ago.

Whilst not a hugely generous offer, I suspect it is considerably better than any settlement you'd get by going to the Energy Ombudsman - They typically set compensation at £50-100, so £350 is much better.

If the bills you have now received accurately reflect your energy usage over the last ~13 months, I'd negotiate a repayment plan that you can afford (and take the £350 offer). You won't get a 50% reduction unless you can prove extreme poverty and qualify for a hardship payment.

calleyw

Sorry but this is laughable "My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable."

What to pay for the energy that you have used because you haven't checked that the DD has been going out for the past 13 months. I went through my husband being in hospital for 3 and half months after a stroke.  And guess what I checked my accounts and paid all my bills while working full time and visiting everyday.  

I would be embarrassed to know I hadn't paid a bill. And would not being demanding anything and taking what ever was offered.  At this moment in time you are up by the amount you would have paid for energy you have used so in theory could have had interest on the money.  But £350 off your bill is not enough. 

BarelySentientAI

goldieds said:

My instinct is to go back to them and tell them not to insult my inteligence with such a derisory offer. As far as im concerned it's their problem not mine and i shouldn't be liable.

I accept i'm going to have to pay some of the bill but to me a 50/50 split would seem reasonable

Your instinct is, unfortunately, incorrect.  You are liable for the energy you have used.  A reasonable adjustment, as defined by the government and the regulator, is that they don't charge you for the bit used over 12 months ago.  That's the £110 reduction.

It's not reasonable to expect to get half your energy for free.

Applying the regulations correctly when the issue is brought to their attention is unlikely to give the Ombudsman a reason to enforce an enhanced goodwill payment, so £130 seems generous enough to me in the first instance.

goldieds said:

As an extra - i want to get a DD set back up as soon as possible, i'm expecting this to run for a while and dont want to owe any more, is there any issue in me setting that back up in the short term

If you set up a fixed DD, it will be higher than you expect because they will include this debt in the calculation.  If you set up a variable DD, the entire debt will be taken in the first payment unless agreed otherwise.

If you're not on any sort of DD, then your unit prices might have been higher in the past (depending on your tariff).  If this is the case, then you might have an argument to have the bill recalculated at DD prices rather than cash prices, although there wasn't always a difference anyway.

MeteredOut

Good offer from Octopus - grab it with both hands, and speak to them about setting up a DD that allows you to repay what you owe them over, say, 12 months.

Taken to the Ombudsman, they'll have back-billing applied (the £110), but I doubt their goodwill gesture would be over £100.

debitcardmayhem

goldieds said:

………

Can anyone shed some light on what my options are and what i should be aiming to get out of them. I accept i'm going to have to pay some of the bill but to me a 50/50 split would seem reasonable

So if they over charge you for 13 months you would say to them ok give me 50% of it back and I will swallow the rest.
Didn’t think so.