£3000 Leccy Bill wrong

MWT

QrizB said:

Bemmy2525 said:

... the bill is claiming my meter was reset back to zero a week after I moved in ...

For the avoidance of doubt, it's impossible* for a supplier or the DCC to reset a meter back to zero.

It could roll around from 99999 to 00000, but that's it.

* I guess it might be possible if you dismantled the meter and edited the memory at chip level, or if you wrote your own firmware and reflashed the meter, but that's beyond most folk and is definitely "meter tampering".

I seem to recall there was one particular meter type that had a firmware issue that was resetting the registers to zero, but aside from that rather specific incident, I agree, there is no normal way for a supplier to rest the registers.

brianposter

In a similar case a SAR to BG asking for all meter readings produced a list which demonstrated that some readings could not possibly be caused by power consumption.

Lorian

Just as a double check we're British gas supplying the property before you moved in?

cannugec5

Bemmy2525 said:

I moved into my flat in July last year and am with British gas. I'm on a smart meter. My meter and onscreen display also the usage data on the app says I've used 253 kWh since I moved in and that I owe £180(I know this is correct I've never paid more than £40 a month for electricity as I'm barely home and use around 40-60kwh per month depending on season) , British gas bill claims I've used 12259 kWh since then and owe £3000. My reading when I moved in was 12000 and is now 12253. It appears on the bill that it is claiming my meter was reset back to zero(after a tariff change) but it never reset it, resulting in a massive bill. 

I have 2 estimated reading on 21 July for 00000-06000(!!!!!! No way to use that much in 3 days my heating runs on gas not leccy) and then another for 24 July 06000-12012(again !!!!!). Smart meter reading on august 1st is 12029.  Those reading in July are completely wrong because it kept going slowly up from the reading provided when I moved in, not lower. My meter has never been changed so it's nothing to do with that. British Gas are claiming it is correct but have referred it to a specialist team as I kicked off. Can anyone figure out what has happened here?I'm freaking out cannot afford it. 

Great bill to wake up too on Christmas Eve.

Update: an electricity engineer on Facebook has said a meter would not be reset back to zero unless it was new meter or clocked over(99999-00000). Big red flag that there is an error which I will be bringing up.

I don’t understand. 

You moved into the flat in July 2024.
Now,17 months later you believe your total usage is 253 kWh? 

I appreciate you are not at home much, but that averages about 0.5 kWh per day! 

Does your meter show more than one rate? Are you reading Rate A or B instead of a Total reading? 

What electrical appliances do you have? 

Swipe

cannugec5 said:

Bemmy2525 said:

I moved into my flat in July last year and am with British gas. I'm on a smart meter. My meter and onscreen display also the usage data on the app says I've used 253 kWh since I moved in and that I owe £180(I know this is correct I've never paid more than £40 a month for electricity as I'm barely home and use around 40-60kwh per month depending on season) , British gas bill claims I've used 12259 kWh since then and owe £3000. My reading when I moved in was 12000 and is now 12253. It appears on the bill that it is claiming my meter was reset back to zero(after a tariff change) but it never reset it, resulting in a massive bill. 

I have 2 estimated reading on 21 July for 00000-06000(!!!!!! No way to use that much in 3 days my heating runs on gas not leccy) and then another for 24 July 06000-12012(again !!!!!). Smart meter reading on august 1st is 12029.  Those reading in July are completely wrong because it kept going slowly up from the reading provided when I moved in, not lower. My meter has never been changed so it's nothing to do with that. British Gas are claiming it is correct but have referred it to a specialist team as I kicked off. Can anyone figure out what has happened here?I'm freaking out cannot afford it. 

Great bill to wake up too on Christmas Eve.

Update: an electricity engineer on Facebook has said a meter would not be reset back to zero unless it was new meter or clocked over(99999-00000). Big red flag that there is an error which I will be bringing up.

I don’t understand. 

You moved into the flat in July 2024.
Now,17 months later you believe your total usage is 253 kWh? 

I appreciate you are not at home much, but that averages about 0.5 kWh per day! 

Does your meter show more than one rate? Are you reading Rate A or B instead of a Total reading? 

What electrical appliances do you have? 

From the numbers, it's pretty obvious that the OP meant this year as they refered to never paying more than £40 a month and £180 is what the real bill should be.

Bemmy2525

cannugec5 said:

Bemmy2525 said:

I moved into my flat in July last year and am with British gas. I'm on a smart meter. My meter and onscreen display also the usage data on the app says I've used 253 kWh since I moved in and that I owe £180(I know this is correct I've never paid more than £40 a month for electricity as I'm barely home and use around 40-60kwh per month depending on season) , British gas bill claims I've used 12259 kWh since then and owe £3000. My reading when I moved in was 12000 and is now 12253. It appears on the bill that it is claiming my meter was reset back to zero(after a tariff change) but it never reset it, resulting in a massive bill. 

I have 2 estimated reading on 21 July for 00000-06000(!!!!!! No way to use that much in 3 days my heating runs on gas not leccy) and then another for 24 July 06000-12012(again !!!!!). Smart meter reading on august 1st is 12029.  Those reading in July are completely wrong because it kept going slowly up from the reading provided when I moved in, not lower. My meter has never been changed so it's nothing to do with that. British Gas are claiming it is correct but have referred it to a specialist team as I kicked off. Can anyone figure out what has happened here?I'm freaking out cannot afford it. 

Great bill to wake up too on Christmas Eve.

Update: an electricity engineer on Facebook has said a meter would not be reset back to zero unless it was new meter or clocked over(99999-00000). Big red flag that there is an error which I will be bringing up.

I don’t understand. 

You moved into the flat in July 2024.
Now,17 months later you believe your total usage is 253 kWh? 

I appreciate you are not at home much, but that averages about 0.5 kWh per day! 

Does your meter show more than one rate? Are you reading Rate A or B instead of a Total reading? 

What electrical appliances do you have? 

I moved I this year july 2025, sorry for the mistake(I said last year in the post). I use about 1-2kWh a day as I'm at work all day and at my boyfriends at weekends and my heating is gas not electricity.

Bemmy2525

Lorian said:

Just as a double check we're British gas supplying the property before you moved in?

Yes. British gas was supplying the property before I moved in, so I stayed with them.

Bemmy2525

Update::: just checked my bill they have changed it to £183. Looks like it's been resolved. Looks like video I uploaded showing my meters monthly usage since July worked. Thanks for all the advice.

Issue was caused by 2 completely wrong estimated readings suggesting my meter was at 0000 and then a correct reading in August making it look like i used over ten thousand units. Just as I suspected 

WiserMiser

Congratulations !

Celebrate the New Year by claiming compo and ditching BG.

You may find you get a better deal by using different suppliers for gas and electricity.  It's worth checking a few Ofgem approved sites and doing the sums.

Remember that everything is driven by the new supplier(s); don't complicate things by sending the final readings to BG.

You may even be able to share about £100 with your boyfriend if he recommends you to his supplier and gives you a code. 😃

jaybeetoo

BG are a nightmare to deal with when things go wrong.  Last year my wife and I managed to get back several thousand pounds from BG for a relative.   The bills were indecipherable.  I spent a lot time building a spreadsheet going through every BG bill over several years to prove BG were in the wrong.  Most people would have given up or not started.  It was a long hard fight.  I’d ditch them asap.