Do I have a case?

IsItThough

Such a long story spanning 2 years but we had a faulty meter which I continously chased our energy provider about and kept getting the standard "we'll chase it up and get back to you".  So all meter readings for about 2 years have been estimated. I finally got someone to come out and fix it and they gave me a big bill.  I've argued it and had 3 different bills given to me but feel I can accept what the final amount now.

HOWEVER, I have been fighting for them to honour their Guaranteed Standards of Service as detailed on their website and compensate me for the amount of time this has taken plus the horrendous dealing of my complaint with lies I've proven with their own evidence and they've actually apologised for fabricating their evidence (all in writing).

I have gone down the Ombudsman route but I have the final offer from my energy company of £50 compensation, they refuse to address the Guaranteed Standards of Service and will kindly provide me with a written apology!  They're reasoning is that I have financially benefitted from the meter not working so they don't owe me anything.

My pride, stubbornness and near ready to give birth might be taking the best out of me so I wonder, do I actually have a case or should I just except defeat? 

Thanks in advance

MeteredOut

Have you financially benefited from the meter not working? To what level?

IsItThough

MeteredOut said:

Have you financially benefited from the meter not working? To what level?

Thank you for responding.  I probably have as its all been estimates so I have no idea what i have actually used.  I've been paying my monthly direct debit and then they were doing an estimate for the electricity every month (no problems with gas readings) which they deducted from the "pot". So I don't know to what level. We were paying towards it but the actual consumption is what we are unsure of and not sure how we can work it out. They've said we'll probably received a bill of several hundreds of pounds if they fully investigate this but how can they work out how much electricity we've used

born_again

Have you not taken any readings & provided them with them in the 2 years?
Knowing that they were estimates?

MeteredOut

Was the faulty meter actually broken. ie, no display therefore no ability to measure usage?

Care to share what kWh usage they did charge you for in the end, and over what period of time?

Scot_39

Given your pending new child arrival - good luck on that - you might want to remove this stress of the metering mess.

Given you now have a working meter again ,  and by sounds of thing a more sensible settlement offer on bill.

It's difficult to know what your true costs would be without a working meter - historic kWh comparisons might give a clue - bit most don't keep records.

But if the £50 is on top of a sensible sounsing bill offer - I might be tempted to accept and move on.

How many kWh electric and how big is your house/ household.

How does their estimate say  compare with Ofgem TDCVs - current low (25% quartile) 1800kWh, median  2700kWh and high (75% quartile) 4100 kWh



But as above - maybe simply time to put it to rest and look forward to your new arrival.

IsItThough

So February 2023 the meter started going backwards. Then in July 2024 it went blank completely right up to Jan 2025 when I finally got it fixed. 

So I haven't received meter readings since then. I've contacted them on various occasions and at first they weren't listening so I sent pictures and they tried to do it from their end and then said "oh it looks like it's going backwards" 🤦‍♀️ 

How do I see what kWh they charged me for? I'll attach an image of the most recent bill (it's changed 3 times since it got fixed in January)

I 100% agree with focusing on the baby but I also feel like they're taking advantage of me. The Ombudsman are involved and I've provided all my evidence already but I have until tomorrow to consider their final offer

IsItThough

Sorry I should add i did keep an eye on the meter and when it started going forward again I started submitting some readings but it didn't last long as it broke completely.  I'm not very clued up on this stuff and thought my chasing would be sufficient enough

IsItThough

I hope this is right...and works! Sorry im new to all of this

MeteredOut

Thanks for those, but you have't actually said for what period of time you were charged on estimated readings. Was it for all those bills, parts of those, some other period of time?

It looks like you got the new meter some time between April and May 2024 - what date was that?

And where those bill say "Customer reading" - I presume you did read those from the old meter?

IsItThough

Oh I see sorry...so I submitted meter readings from 06.02.2020 up until 24.11.2022 then noticed and reported the meter going backwards on 02.02.2023. It was then estimated readings until 25.02.2024 when the app allowed a reading to be input. Then I  submitted readings until 15.07.2024 when the screen had gone completely blank and my chasing rampage began.  The new meter was installed 18.01.2025 and I changed supplier as was really annoyed by this point.