British Gas - Enormous Electricity Bill

durham_girl

Hiya Guys,

Just after a bit of advice

A couple of months ago I switched my gas and electric from British Gas to Eon. Everything went through fine, I received the final bill for my gas, that was fine and i paid it. Today I received the final bill for my electicity and rather then being £40ish it was for a staggering £341!!:eek:

So I rang British Gas and they told me that when we changed to them in August 07 we never gave them an actual reading so they estimated it. They kept on estimating until Eon gave them the actual reading which they took at the beginning of this month.

They say we must have underpaid the previous supplier by quite a lot and when we switched the actual reading must have been a lot lower then they estimated.

He succeeded in confusing me, so any help or advice would be great! Is there anything I can do? Surely this can't be right!!

Louise x

withabix

Get your last bill from your previous supplier before British Gas.

It's only last year. Have you got any of the bills? Who was the supplier?

durham_girl

Doubt I've got any of the bills but I can try giving them a ring, Powergen was the previous supplier

withabix

If you were an online customer, you should still be able to log in.

Eon is the new name for Powergen, so you switched from Powergen to British Gas and back to Powergen again... :rolleyes:

Try your old username and password on you Eon account. I left Powergen in October and can log in via the Eon website and see my previous bills.


Eon will have used your usage history from when you were their customer, along with the meter reading you gave them when you re-joined them, to determine what your electricity consumption was whilst a customer of British Gas, thereby estimating your meter reading at changeover to the best of their abilities.

Therefore, you have paid Powergen, British Gas and Eon for the total of your electricity usage. So you will most likely have paid the right amount of electricity, at whatever tarriff was applicable at the time you used it.

Unfortunately, it is for you to prove otherwise, as you are required to supply meter readings when you change supplier.

durham_girl

Just got off the phone to Powergen and British Gas and the bill is correct:(

What happened was the first read for British Gas is an actual read not an estimate, we didn't pay a bill from August 07 till March 08 which was £41 (estimated). So the bill is actually for Aug 07 - April 08 and the total is £373 and the £41 has been credited making the total bill to pay £341.

The bills are supposed to be quarterly, but BG said for some reason we were put on annual payment and I have never noticed up till now. Thank goodness I switched or a full years bill would have been massive! At least it's sorted.

Thanks for your advice withabix

withabix

Ouch! Sorry about your unexpected bill. I hate it when that happens!

I read my meters every couple of weeks (yes, nerdy I know), but it only takes a minute to read them and another minute to submit them online.

I'm with Scottish Power and doing this lets me get graphical representation of my energy usage online and it makes sure they have no need to make wild changes to my monthly payments, as there is never any need for them to estimate my usage.