Credit balance refund and billing mistakes

ElwoodBlues

I'm with one of the big energy suppliers, on a dual fuel dd standard rate, have been for about 5 years. At some point a few years back there was a misreading with my gas meter reading (must've been me, since I've not seen a meter reader in about 10 years). It was an over read, so I got billed for too much gas. Never noticed at the time as energy prices were shooting up anyway, so just assumed it was correct when they increased my monthly direct debit.

Since then, we've had lots of estimated readings, and whenever I submitted a reading the gas one was rejected. My monthly dd has been kept high, so I've accumulated a reasonable size credit (about £1000). I've recently managed to get them to reduce my dd, and I also wanted to get a refund of the credit balance on my account. Now I've looked at it I can see that I've overpaid substantially for gas (the current actual reading is significantly less than the supplier's estimates), so I must be in credit by even more than the £1000 they're (or were) currently showing on my account.

They say they can't give me a credit balance refund without up to date meter readings, but for months they kept rejecting my gas reading. Back in November last year I hassled them again about a refund and they said they needed two meter readings a week apart, with photo's of the meter, which I provided. Since then there appears to have been little to no progress towards getting the bills straightened out, or getting my overpayment refunded. I've chased by email and telephone, and been ignored and fobbed off repeatedly. Now I've raised it with them as a complaint and still getting fobbed off - apparently they only started looking into it last week.

I've logged into their web portal today to check for any more updates, and it's now saying on there that they've applied £7000 worth of new charges (with no detail on what they are for or how they've been calculated), so my £1000 credit balance is now a £6000 debit balance, according to them. There's absolutely no way that this is correct, I'm 100% sure that it's them who owes me money, not a chance in hell I've used that much gas. It's almost like they've taken my current meter reading and as it's lower than previously billed, assumed that my gas meter has gone all the way round and rolled back to zero! That's the only possible explanation I can think of.

I'm currently waiting for a response as to what this £7000 charge is for, but is there anything else I can do beside keep nagging them?

Woodstok2000

Follow their complaint process, give them time to fix it (could be 6-8 weeks) and then follow the escalation path. It should be documented online and will eventually lead to the ombudsman.

Ovo is here for reference, but they will all have something similar:  https://www.ovoenergy.com/feedback

WiserMiser

I bet it's British Gas !

QrizB

Suppliers are obliged to use meter readings for billing, so if they've been ignoring yours there's definitely something wrong.

Can you share your meter reading history (the readings you've submitted) and the  estimates they've used for billing?

ProcessMatters

A jump like that is usually caused by the supplier assuming a meter rollover when a reading goes down. They’re not allowed to do that without evidence.

Ask them in writing to explain exactly how the £7,000 has been calculated, including whether they’ve assumed rollover and on what basis. If they can’t justify it using actual readings, the bill is wrong.

Also request a deadlock letter if it isn’t resolved — that lets you take it straight to the Energy Ombudsman rather than waiting indefinitely.

Swipe

Please name the supplier

MWT

ElwoodBlues said:

I'm with one of the big energy suppliers, on a dual fuel dd standard rate, have been for about 5 years. At some point a few years back there was a misreading with my gas meter reading (must've been me, since I've not seen a meter reader in about 10 years). It was an over read, so I got billed for too much gas. Never noticed at the time as energy prices were shooting up anyway, so just assumed it was correct when they increased my monthly direct debit.

Hopefully not the case for you, but a few years ago some people took bad advice and submitted a false high meter reading so they would avoid the price increases and pay for their future use at the old price.

This causes subsequent accurate meter readings to be rejected as they are still below the previous false reading.

What the supplier should be doing is removing the original false reading and then re-billing at the correct prices for the actual use since then.

Do you still have those correct readings?

gpman

Swipe said:

Please name the supplier

It would appear to me to be EDF, but I'm not sure it really matters. All suppliers have very similar complaint handling rules. (governed by Ofgem)

gpman

ElwoodBlues said:

I'm with one of the big energy suppliers, on a dual fuel dd standard rate, have been for about 5 years. At some point a few years back there was a misreading with my gas meter reading (must've been me, since I've not seen a meter reader in about 10 years). It was an over read, so I got billed for too much gas. Never noticed at the time as energy prices were shooting up anyway, so just assumed it was correct when they increased my monthly direct debit.

Since then, we've had lots of estimated readings, and whenever I submitted a reading the gas one was rejected. My monthly dd has been kept high, so I've accumulated a reasonable size credit (about £1000). I've recently managed to get them to reduce my dd, and I also wanted to get a refund of the credit balance on my account. Now I've looked at it I can see that I've overpaid substantially for gas (the current actual reading is significantly less than the supplier's estimates), so I must be in credit by even more than the £1000 they're (or were) currently showing on my account.

They say they can't give me a credit balance refund without up to date meter readings, but for months they kept rejecting my gas reading. Back in November last year I hassled them again about a refund and they said they needed two meter readings a week apart, with photo's of the meter, which I provided. Since then there appears to have been little to no progress towards getting the bills straightened out, or getting my overpayment refunded. I've chased by email and telephone, and been ignored and fobbed off repeatedly. Now I've raised it with them as a complaint and still getting fobbed off - apparently they only started looking into it last week.

I've logged into their web portal today to check for any more updates, and it's now saying on there that they've applied £7000 worth of new charges (with no detail on what they are for or how they've been calculated), so my £1000 credit balance is now a £6000 debit balance, according to them. There's absolutely no way that this is correct, I'm 100% sure that it's them who owes me money, not a chance in hell I've used that much gas. It's almost like they've taken my current meter reading and as it's lower than previously billed, assumed that my gas meter has gone all the way round and rolled back to zero! That's the only possible explanation I can think of.

I'm currently waiting for a response as to what this £7000 charge is for, but is there anything else I can do beside keep nagging them?

BIB (my highlighting)

Energy suppliers are allowed upto 8 weeks to resolve your complaint.

It is unfortunate that despite you attempting to provide up-to-date meter readings on many occassions, these have all been rejected by the supplier (who presumably therefore carried on estimating your monthly usage). I do not understand why you did not challenge this earlier, if not on the first disputed reading, on the second or at leat the third sequential refusal, but that is history now. Especially since EDF (if that is the OP's supplier) issue nagging, monthly meter reading submission required reminders

You say you have recently provided your supplier with the 2 meter readings taken a week apart, together with photographic evidence thereof, as they requested. You do not say that they have objected in any way what you have provided them in this regard, so presumably they have accepted those 2 readings you have now provided them. Has your supplier explained why they have not used at least the latest of those readings to issue you with an up-to date bill/statement?

If you are indeed with EDF, they usually should issue a new statement whenever you provide them a new, up-to-date, accepted meter reading.

Regarding the £7k unexplained charges applied to your account, if I understand you correctly, you have seen this only on your online account. As somone above stated, this is probably the result of their billing system wrongly assuming your meter has 'gone round the clock', as opposed to reducing previously over-estimated readings. 

In a way, this is probably good news that progress is being made as your supplier has presumably now updated your meter reading with the meter reading(s) you have provided, albeit their software has assumed this is a 'round the clock' reading.

EDF nowadays use Kraken Technolgies software for account management, which was originally designed and developed by Octopus Energy. Hence why bills provided by both suppliers appear visually very similar.

You probably need to allow a little forbearance whilst your supplier finalises the full resolution of your complaint. But there would be no harm in dropping your supplier an email to explain what you have seen on your online account yesterday, and suggesting this is as a result of the wrong assumption your meter has 'gone round the clock'; hopefully your supplier would pick this up anyway as part of the manual intervention involved in your complaint resolution, but alerting them to this issue can only assist.

One of the advantages that Kraken Technologies software provides suppliers is that any email you send your supplier should automatically be routed directly to the customer service agent responsible for managing your account (I believe it's simply based on the email address you use to send your email from), and is automatically linked to all previous email correspondence you have sent/received. (excluding supplier system generated emails, such as meter reading reminders, billing, price changes, etc)

gpman

MWT said:

ElwoodBlues said:

I'm with one of the big energy suppliers, on a dual fuel dd standard rate, have been for about 5 years. At some point a few years back there was a misreading with my gas meter reading (must've been me, since I've not seen a meter reader in about 10 years). It was an over read, so I got billed for too much gas. Never noticed at the time as energy prices were shooting up anyway, so just assumed it was correct when they increased my monthly direct debit.

Hopefully not the case for you, but a few years ago some people took bad advice and submitted a false high meter reading so they would avoid the price increases and pay for their future use at the old price.

This causes subsequent accurate meter readings to be rejected as they are still below the previous false reading.

What the supplier should be doing is removing the original false reading and then re-billing at the correct prices for the actual use since then.

Do you still have those correct readings?

If I am correct in assuming EDF to be the OP's supplier, their usual modus operandi in such situations is to cancel previous statements and issue a new all encompassing new statement.

As this appears to be the result of an aging issue, the resultant new statement may at first sight seem very complicated, as it will probably involve multiple new assumed meter readings. The supplier may or may not use the previously rejected meter readings submitted by the OP, but rather new estimates all based upon the latest accepted meter reading going back to whenever the previous accepted meter reading was. This may be at different intervals to when the the previous estimated readings were used. Any tariff changes also need to be accounted for.

This may be particularly difficult to reconcile if only looking at the online account history. I find their formal statements easier (but not easy) to understand in these situations.

The new statement should show previously cancelled statements as "Reversed account charge"(s). All the OP needs to check is that these values, or the sum of these values, reflect the value of the cancelled statements the latest statement replaces.

gpman

ProcessMatters said:

A jump like that is usually caused by the supplier assuming a meter rollover when a reading goes down. They’re not allowed to do that without evidence.

Ask them in writing to explain exactly how the £7,000 has been calculated, including whether they’ve assumed rollover and on what basis. If they can’t justify it using actual readings, the bill is wrong.

Also request a deadlock letter if it isn’t resolved — that lets you take it straight to the Energy Ombudsman rather than waiting indefinitely.

BIB (my highlighting)

I can't really tell from the OP when they submitted their formal complaint. All they say is that the supplier has only been looking into it for a week.

My experience of EDF is that they accurately record the exact date they receive a formal complaint, and they usually start their investigations at that point.

It may, therefore, be a little premature to be requesting a deadlock letter so soon, unless the OP has reason to believe no progress is being made. (My above post suggests some progress, albeit slow and now incurring further issues, is actually occurring)

In my experience, EDF are very reluctant to issue a deadlock letter unless they truly believe they really have already resolved the complaint and/or that the customer is being unreasonable in expecting further action, or that there is no valid grounds for complaint; neither appear to be the case here. Otherwise EDF prefer to run down the clock, and if you are lucky, they will contact you after 8 weeks and say they have not yet resolved the complaint but are still actively working on it, but informing you of your right to now escalate the complaint to the energy ombudsman service if you so wish (I think this may possibly be an automated email based on complaints still not marked as resolved on their system after 8 weeks).

If such notification is not received, then the OP could include that fact if they need to escalate to the Energy Ombudsman later, as it's a requirement of the supplier to provide such notification.