Utility Warehouse electric bill

Mike1930

I have been with UW since the beginning of October.  Their October invoice my DD was £87.00 and the total charges were £0.00.  The confusing thing is the £87 DD included VAT of £4.14 leaving a figure of £82.86 which is then transferred to my credit balance.

This means I am in credit of £82.86 and not the £87.00 I expected.  The Nov bill shows £82.86 + £82.86 - £70.29 = a credit of £95.43.  I was expecting a credit of £103.71.  The difference is the £4.14 a month VAT which seems strange to me.

Comments appreciated.

MattMattMattUK

Mike1930 said:

I have been with UW since the beginning of October.  Their October invoice my DD was £87.00 and the total charges were £0.00.  The confusing thing is the £87 DD included VAT of £4.14 leaving a figure of £82.86 which is then transferred to my credit balance.

This means I am in credit of £82.86 and not the £87.00 I expected.  The Nov bill shows £82.86 + £82.86 - £70.29 = a credit of £95.43.  I was expecting a credit of £103.71.  The difference is the £4.14 a month VAT which seems strange to me.

Comments appreciated.

Can you post screenshots of what you have actually received? Direct Debits to not have a VAT element, VAT is applied on the bill, not on the Direct Debit which is just putting money in to a pot. 

vic_sf49

Don't UW have some totally weird way of billing VAT, as seen here, that even confused the Ombudsan...

.... did @EssexHebridean have an issue with this previously, and might pop along with a comment.

(Not sure if that has tagged EH properly.)

EssexHebridean

Yep (and it did!) - well remembered!

It was one of a number of things I complained to the Ombudsman about, and they were indeed confused about it to the point where the chap I spoke with was going to refer it up the chain to see if it was actually a legitimate way of them doing things, or whether it could be seen as a deliberate attempt to make their billing harder to understand. 

My primary complaint was that they didn't make clear that it's impractical to make ad-hoc payments to the energy account. Money I paid as an extra payment was never allocated to my account at all, something they lied about when I asked them, instead it was simply shifted into a suspense account and left there!

MWT

As long as they apply the credit with the VAT deducted against the energy costs before VAT is added then all is correct.

Mike1930

MattMattMattUK said:

Mike1930 said:

I have been with UW since the beginning of October.  Their October invoice my DD was £87.00 and the total charges were £0.00.  The confusing thing is the £87 DD included VAT of £4.14 leaving a figure of £82.86 which is then transferred to my credit balance.

This means I am in credit of £82.86 and not the £87.00 I expected.  The Nov bill shows £82.86 + £82.86 - £70.29 = a credit of £95.43.  I was expecting a credit of £103.71.  The difference is the £4.14 a month VAT which seems strange to me.

Comments appreciated.

Can you post screenshots of what you have actually received? Direct Debits to not have a VAT element, VAT is applied on the bill, not on the Direct Debit which is just putting money in to a pot. 

     Above my payscale for a screen shot but this is how the bill is laid out with copy and paste.  

       

 Your charges this bill 

                Electricity budget plan   £82.86

                VAT @ 5%                       £4.14 

                Your payment this bill    £87.00

                                                                                                   October balance                             +£82.86 

                                                                                                   November total charges                  -£70.29 

                                                                                                   November budget plan payment    +£82.86 

                                                                                                        After payment you're in credit    +£95.43

                                                                                                                 Electricity usage charged    £52.01 

                                                                                    Standing charge 04-10-2024 to 31-10-2024    £18.28 

                                                                                                                    Total electricity charges    £70.29

As you can see I paid £87 but they deducted the £4.14 when they creditted my account with £82.86 on the right instead od £87.

MeteredOut

Are you sure the VAT is not added on later down, at the bottom of the bill?

QrizB

As @EssexHebridean mentions above, this is normal practice for UW. Your account balance is the ex-VAT figure.

Mike1930

MeteredOut said:

Are you sure the VAT is not added on later down, at the bottom of the bill?

Quite sure it isn't.  However VAT is included in the £70.29 electric charges but not creditted to my £87 payments for the credit balance.

Mike1930

QrizB said:

As @EssexHebridean mentions above, this is normal practice for UW. Your account balance is the ex-VAT figure.

Then after deducting my electric charges of £70.29 they inform me the VAT is calculated on the credit of £95.43 which is less than the VAT I paid in the two payments of £87 (two lots of £4.14 VAT)

superkoopauk

       

 Your charges this bill 

                Electricity budget plan   £82.86

                VAT @ 5%                       £4.14 

                Your payment this bill    £87.00

                                                                                                   October balance                             +£82.86 

                                                                                                   November total charges                  -£70.29 

                                                                                                   November budget plan payment    +£82.86 

                                                                                                        After payment you're in credit    +£95.43

                                                                                                                 Electricity usage charged    £52.01 

                                                                                    Standing charge 04-10-2024 to 31-10-2024    £18.28 

                                                                                                                    Total electricity charges    £70.29

As you can see I paid £87 but they deducted the £4.14 when they credited my account with £82.86 on the right instead of £87.

Say your account was ended now.  UW would give you back £95.43 + £4.77 VAT = £100.20
You had paid £87 * 2 = £174 minus the £100.20 credit = £73.80
And your energy usage is £70.29 + £3.51 VAT = £73.80

Hence you would have paid exactly for your usage and the process works.

So effectively they are charging you VAT against your payments but recording the balance ex VAT.  But when the balance is released VAT is added so you don't lose out