Octopus - small but consistent overcharging? RESOLVED!

grn99

Was reviewing father's latest bill today and spotted what on the face of it is a very small "overcharge" going on. I then looked at earlier bills only to find the same thing.
The latest example for electricty being ....Energy Used 1564.0 kWh @ 21.03p/kWh £328.97 so this is before SC calculation (which is correct) and VAT is applied.

My old fashioned arithmetic tells me it should be £328.91 (rounded up from .909) unless I've got it wrong? Is it me or is it them?? My own bills show similar variance up to 11p. Has anyone else noticed this?

la531983

grn99 said:

Was reviewing father's latest bill today and spotted what on the face of it is a very small "overcharge" going on. I then looked at earlier bills only to find the same thing.
The latest example for electricty being ....Energy Used 1564.0 kWh @ 21.03p/kWh £328.97 so this is before SC calculation (which is correct) and VAT is applied.

My old fashioned arithmetic tells me it should be £328.91 (rounded up from .909) unless I've got it wrong? Is it me or is it them?? My own bills show similar variance up to 11p and it's always a higher amount, never lower. Has anyone else noticed this?

Now try doing the same sum again but with the unit price of 21.034.

Simple and likely answer is the unit rate only shows 2dp on the bill. 

molerat

The problem is that 21.03 is rounded, the sum works for 21.034, most actually use 3 decimal places.

teaselMay

They're hardly likely to consistently and systematically overcharge, imagine the reputational damage and the sanctions when that came to light! It'll be the difference between rounding and not rounding the unit rate

grn99

Thank you guys! That makes sense, I didn't appreciate there was a 3rd dp in use.

grn99

teaselMay said:

They're hardly likely to consistently and systematically overcharge, imagine the reputational damage and the sanctions when that came to light! It'll be the difference between rounding and not rounding the unit rate

I take your point, but automated billing can go wrong. If you have any doubt, try BG who get it wrong an awful lot in my experience, regardless of "reputational damage"

teaselMay

I oh know they can get it wrong, believe me I used to be an EON customer! But they wouldn't consistently just slighlty over charge like that, it will be a rounding difference.