Am I being charged twice for my electricty?

themisterkoala

Hello all,

I've been having a bit of a to do with our energy supplier. We recently made the switch over to a smart meter and ever since, our bills have looked like this. Now am I going mad or we being charged twice?

Mark_d

It certainly does look like you are being charges twice.  It shouldn't be too complex to clarify this with your energy supplier - especially if you've gone with a reputable supplier

Swipe

Which supplier is this?

QrizB

Swipe said:

Which supplier is this?

And what tariff?

debitcardmayhem

I wonder if there are two registers standard and () e.g. night and day but not an E7 tariff

QrizB

debitcardmayhem said:

I wonder if there are two registers standard and () e.g. night and day but not an E7 tariff

That was my thought too, and just a coincidence that both registers are reding the same number after 6 weeks. But we need more info from the OP, we're just speculating without it.

themisterkoala

QrizB said:

debitcardmayhem said:

I wonder if there are two registers standard and () e.g. night and day but not an E7 tariff

That was my thought too, and just a coincidence that both registers are reding the same number after 6 weeks. But we need more info from the OP, we're just speculating without it.

We're on the standard variable tariff with Sainsbury's according to our account with day and night rates. 

Before we got the smart meter installed, we had two meters with two MPans. It was a faff to try and get it all sorted but when it got installed problems started. 

Previously we only had one line for our energy used. And since the smart meter was installed we've had two lines of energy used. One of the bills has us being charged £18 for three days (one day of which we weren't at home) for a 2 bed flat. 

Keep_pedalling

Are you paying twice as much as you were on your old meter?

QrizB

themisterkoala said:

QrizB said:

debitcardmayhem said:

I wonder if there are two registers standard and () e.g. night and day but not an E7 tariff

That was my thought too, and just a coincidence that both registers are reading the same number after 6 weeks. But we need more info from the OP, we're just speculating without it.

We're on the standard variable tariff with Sainsbury's according to our account with day and night rates. 

If yoo've got "day and night rates" then you'd expect to see two lots of energy charges, one for day rate and one for night rate.

Are your day and nght rates both the same, for some reason? Is this intentional?

themisterkoala said:

Before we got the smart meter installed, we had two meters with two MPans. It was a faff to try and get it all sorted but when it got installed problems started.  

How do you heat the flat? Electricity, or something else? If electricity, what sort of heaters?

Should you be on a proper dual-rate tariff like Economy 7 rather than the one you're on?

Before the smart meter, were you on a different tariff?

Scot_39

Two meters and 1 line on bill sounds fundamentally wrong to me for the old system - and their may have been some legacy meter reading fudging going on to enable that.

Prior to smart - assuming you were able to - were you reading both meters and submitting the readings - and if so - how regularly ?

Were both old meters still incrementing - were you instructed - or were they internally fudging your bills by adding the two readings together to charge you single rate - e.g. if you had say in past requested single rate billing on what sounds like an old complex meter setup ?

Is your home all electric - most 2 meter homes were - but maybe not now ?

(How do you heat HW And your rooms ?)

Or had one long since been essentially made "redundant" (e.g. when say you or past occupier / landlord say upgraded NSH and HW tank to GCH boiler) but not disconnected the meter and had it removed ?

That bills now over 2 months old - to beginning of new cap period in Jul.  If you had raised it then - and Sainsburys (backed by EOn Next iirc) hadnt resolved it by now - you could be at the end of the 8 week delay to escalate it to the Energy Ombudsman. 

But for now - are you able to read the meter yourself - or have friend / relative to do it for you ?

Have you got an online account with Sainsburys - does it echo current readings - or a more current recent bill - have you checked the readings on their account - if like EOn - they give my readings only monthly at bill times - and as on SVT - at cap change dates as well - so on xxth every month and also 1st Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct as well.

It seems very freaky that your day and your night use would be exactly the same - but not I suppose impossible - but it does look suspicious.

And also unlikely unless you have asked for flat rate billing in the past - they would apply what looks more like single rate SVT than say an e7 style peak / off peak rate to both registers.  It's actually surprising they wouldn't have kicked you off of it  - and defaulted you to E7 - other suppliers have been known to - and customers have had to re-request it.

If you can get a set of readings - phone up and ask them for their readings and see how they now compare - or compare with a more current bill.

If not - phone them and them to explain the exact same readings on both lines - assuming its still happening.

(How often are they producing statements - monthly like EOn Next ?)

Make sure you distinguish between say a total reading and individual day and night readings - if the meter has been configured to do so (it might not have been - even if is an e7 capable meter)

Does your meter look like a 4 port (4 thick meter tails at the bottom) or a 5 port (5 thick meter tails) - 5 port meters provide a time restricted feed normally in sync with a low tariff rate say on a 2nd register - commonly to drive old style electric heating i.e. NSH or thermal store boiler - and HW tanks.

Also if you have an IHD - some will give you just the total of both rates - but others do give you the registers.

If you cannot find instructions on how to read your meter - on Sainsbury's site or google etc - let us know the meter make and the model.  

But to summarise - the best thing to do is phone them and query it (meter readings might help demonstrate the problem - but probably not essential) - if your not happy with the answer - take it to complaint level - and that gives them 8 weeks to resolve it before it costs them when you refer it to the energy ombudsman.  And hopefully help to get it resolved long before peak winter electric heating kicks in in earnest if you have it.

PS re the £18 - we would have to see the bill before this one - given thats 0.2/0.0 is likely your day 1 smart meter readings - were any on the £18 bill there as estimates - it would seem likely the £18 is more likely a catch up from meter readers final reading on old meter - compared to say an estimated bill a week or so before on the normal cycle - than for an actual 3 days use.  But not impossible in say a cold part of the UK even in April with even low electric heating.

themisterkoala

Scot_39 said:

Two meters and 1 line on bill sounds fundamentally wrong to me for the old system - and their may have been some legacy meter reading fudging going on to enable that.

Prior to smart - assuming you were able to - were you reading both meters and submitting the readings - and if so - how regularly ?

Were both old meters still incrementing - were you instructed - or were they internally fudging your bills by adding the two readings together to charge you single rate - e.g. if you had say in past requested single rate billing on what sounds like an old complex meter setup ?

Is your home all electric - most 2 meter homes were - but maybe not now ?

(How do you heat HW And your rooms ?)

Or had one long since been essentially made "redundant" (e.g. when say you or past occupier / landlord say upgraded NSH and HW tank to GCH boiler) but not disconnected the meter and had it removed ?

That bills now over 2 months old - to beginning of new cap period in Jul.  If you had raised it then - and Sainsburys (backed by EOn Next iirc) hadnt resolved it by now - you could be at the end of the 8 week delay to escalate it to the Energy Ombudsman. 

But for now - are you able to read the meter yourself - or have friend / relative to do it for you ?

Have you got an online account with Sainsburys - does it echo current readings - or a more current recent bill - have you checked the readings on their account - if like EOn - they give my readings only monthly at bill times - and as on SVT - at cap change dates as well - so on xxth every month and also 1st Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct as well.

It seems very freaky that your day and your night use would be exactly the same - but not I suppose impossible - but it does look suspicious.

And also unlikely unless you have asked for flat rate billing in the past - they would apply what looks more like single rate SVT than say an e7 style peak / off peak rate to both registers.  It's actually surprising they wouldn't have kicked you off of it  - and defaulted you to E7 - other suppliers have been known to - and customers have had to re-request it.

If you can get a set of readings - phone up and ask them for their readings and see how they now compare - or compare with a more current bill.

If not - phone them and them to explain the exact same readings on both lines - assuming its still happening.

(How often are they producing statements - monthly like EOn Next ?)

Make sure you distinguish between say a total reading and individual day and night readings - if the meter has been configured to do so (it might not have been - even if is an e7 capable meter)

Does your meter look like a 4 port (4 thick meter tails at the bottom) or a 5 port (5 thick meter tails) - 5 port meters provide a time restricted feed normally in sync with a low tariff rate say on a 2nd register - commonly to drive old style electric heating i.e. NSH or thermal store boiler - and HW tanks.

Also if you have an IHD - some will give you just the total of both rates - but others do give you the registers.

If you cannot find instructions on how to read your meter - on Sainsbury's site or google etc - let us know the meter make and the model.  

But to summarise - the best thing to do is phone them and query it (meter readings might help demonstrate the problem - but probably not essential) - if your not happy with the answer - take it to complaint level - and that gives them 8 weeks to resolve it before it costs them when you refer it to the energy ombudsman.  And hopefully help to get it resolved long before peak winter electric heating kicks in in earnest if you have it.

PS re the £18 - we would have to see the bill before this one - given thats 0.2/0.0 is likely your day 1 smart meter readings - were any on the £18 bill there as estimates - it would seem likely the £18 is more likely a catch up from meter readers final reading on old meter - compared to say an estimated bill a week or so before on the normal cycle - than for an actual 3 days use.  But not impossible in say a cold part of the UK even in April with even low electric heating.

I'm definitely going to phone up tomorrow! 

All of our flat is electric. We have panel heaters which my wife installed before she met me to replace panel heaters and a hot water tank that we heat up overnight every 2/3 days. 

The 0.2/0.0 thing is from when the smart meter was installed. I phoned earlier today to query the bill and they said they had recalculated things but it still doesn't look right. There is no way that we are using exactly the same amount of electricity day and night. 

We meticulously submitted manual readings at the end of every month for both meters. 

When the flats were first built in the 90s all the storage heaters and hot water were on one meter with everything else on the other. That's why there are two fuse boxes in the cupboard. We had everything switched over so it was all attached to the one meter. 

I appreciate that this is all very complicated so thanks for the input. 

I'll see what they say tomorrow