Double charging / counting on my electricity bill?

Ildhund

pwood45 said:

Success 

This has now been corrected and your bills revised and this results in a benefit to you of £1666.03. 

That is brilliant - you'll be able to have a truly happy Christmas with this load off your mind.

I read somewhere that more than 50% of [some provider's] customers have never looked at their online account, which I really don't understand. Bills are one thing, but your example alone shows that suppliers don't always get it right. Online account pages usually contain just about everything you need to know to be able to keep tabs on your energy consumption. I'm sure you'll be telling anyone and everyone you meet over the festive season about your windfall, so please remember to tell them to scrutinize their bills and to check their online accounts every so often. And to come here if they need help understanding something! 

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PS Check that correction carefully, to make sure they've covered everything. I would expect to see a goodwill payment to compensate for some of the anguish their mistake has caused you.

Scot_39

pwood45 said:

Success 

I had this email response from So Energy below. I should mention that my first two online chats with them , earlier in the week and this morning, they confirmed that there was no issue with my bills or two meters showing on my account, it was denied that this could be a problem, and it's only through your help here that I had the confidence to challenge this, so thanks again for your help, as you can see it's made a big difference and a weight off my mind! I could easily have walked away and had to save up over time to pay off the incorrect charges.

To be fair, I don't think the root cause of this problem was caused by So Energy, but there is perhaps a lack of awareness / training about the possibility of this being a possiblity with their customer contact team. Also I do appreciate the speed at which this has been resolved.

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Thank you for contacting us recently. 

Just to confirm I raised your issue of the two charges showing on your bills for your electricity meter and these charges were indeed in error as an extra meter that is no longer present at the property was still being charged.

This has now been corrected and your bills revised and this results in a benefit to you of £1666.03. You will see this revision now leaves your account in a credit of £246.53 as opposed to the £1416.50 of debt that was previously showing.

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I now worry how many other people might be in a similar situation , and like me had no idea that it was even possible to have 'phantom meter' you are getting billed for, or queried it and were fobbed off by the supplier. Is there anything a consumer can do to check how many meters are against their MPAN after getting a smart meter installed or replaced?

Great news.

Nice little pre Xmas bonus.

Sadly its not particularly rare for phantom meters to remain registered at a property.

Suppliers themselves either forget to request updates or simply do not check when do request that it is actioned by the third party managing the database.  

Many people with old twin meter / rts meters - have been caught by that - including one of my neighbours - having been happily billed correctly for years maybe on the new meter configuration - at their current supplier - but then found the old metering has blocked a switch to a new supplier - who does a check against national databases.

What is rare - is for the supplier to bill you for that old meter once removed.

But mistakes do happen.

So it really pays to keep a regular eye on bills. 

Problem is many - tend to just trust suppliers.