Smart meter gone dumb not have two years of bill to pay

Noonaa75

hi. I noticed my usage on my bills were not the same as what they are charging me. Basically the smart meter went dumb for probably two years. BG are now sending me bills for £1600 as back payment. Are they allowed to do this as I thought they could only back pay for a certain amount of time? Many thanks

la531983

So you refused to provide a manual reading for two years?

MACKEM99

Ask if you can pay extra each month until debt settled.

MattMattMattUK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6661199/smart-meter-gone-dumb-not-have-two-years-of-bill-to-pay

Back billing is more complicated. They cannot demand new payment for energy used more than a year ago, but they can use all the funds paid in, then bill back a full year to cover the rest. Without seeing the bills and some more details it is hard to tell exactly.

TimeLord1

https://everydayrights.co.uk/energy-back-billing-12-month-rule-uk/?hl=en-GB#:~:text=save%20you%20thousands.-,What%20is%20the%20%E2%80%9CBack%20Billing%20Rule%E2%80%9D%3F,you%20for%20the%202024%20usage.

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6661199/smart-meter-gone-dumb-not-have-two-years-of-bill-to-pay

There is a chance something called backbilling might protect you - for anything other than last 12m of underestimated use.

So you might only be liable for 12m - and as its their meter - hopefully they might allow that to just be paid of as part of normal annualised DD if pay that way - rather than I guess a bill now demanding the full £1600 "now".

But there are caveats - but their a pretty high bar from the consumer side iirc - but if say you failed to provide BG with requested access - perhaps even just ignored requested access or data - they might try to argue you were at fault (but I suspect it's more like the former - where you would have to have refused them access on the doorstep).

Backbilling is not there for people to deliberately game the system by ignoring billing and metering problems but is to force suppliers - so BG should have been making real effort - to get at least one actual meter reading per year from your meter - and to provide an accurate bill from it.

Is the £1600 demand now based on real meter readings - if so exactly how long is it over.

You will likely be liable for at least 12m of it even if backbilling applied. So maybe half if the rules havent been applied to date (they well might have been - others do so automatically(*))

(*) although Ofgem had to wrap some suppliers knuckles a whilst back to ensure they were applying the rules fully and fairly.

You might want to talk to someone like Citizens Advice about this - a record of past bills might help - but not essential (if nothing else the £1600 bill likely has a series of past cancelled charges on it - if they have distributed the use correctly).

PS

1 Do BG ask for regular readings for those with failing / supposed smart meters OR do they expect consumers to spot it and report that as a fault ?

I know their SG subsidiary in the north - requests measurements for those with non smart - every 3m.

2 If you cannot read the meters - through age or disability - are you on PSR - so that they can arrange to send meter readers - if they cannot get data automatically ?

Chrysalis

As I understand it, if its considered to be a supplier side error without customer contributing to the problem they can only charge you for 12 months of the liability, with the caveat the money is taken from your bank, if you have enough account credit they can take what they want.

Your situation as I have interpreted it is, the meter went dumb 2 years ago and simply you and the supplier both didnt notice for 2 years. My opinion is that the supplier has failed to notice it went dumb, failed to ask for a reading, and you have not blocked access, if that is correct, and you dont have credit, then it should be capped to 12 months, this is making assumptions though based on them not requesting readings, you not deliberatly blocking access etc. and assuming I understand the rules correctly.

Qyburn

Maybe you could clarify this bit "my usage on my bills were not the same as what they are charging me". Were they issuing estimated bills, or not billing at all but continuing to take DD payments?