Hi Electric bill

mcrterry · 18 July 2019 at 8:08PM

Hoping someone can advice me.
We recently moved from Sainsbury’s (British Gas) to tonik dual fuel tariff. we have now received a final bill for 2k for just electric based on the final reading. We are questioning this with Sainsbury’s but may have to accept to readings may be correct. We believe the average bill for a three bed semi is around £500-700 per annum. There are three of us but we are out all day. It just doesn’t seem possible.
Does anyone know how we can get the metre checked for faults? We did request a smart metre last year but we were told as it’s in a confined space it couldn’t be done.

Robin9 · 18 July 2019 at 8:19PM

Certainly you can get the meter checked but you will have to pay - if it is faulty you will be refunded.

But back to basics first. What were your opening readings with Sains/BG ?
and when you gave new readings to Tonik ?

In between times I hope you gave Sains/BG monthly readings ! Did you read and understand them - what was the bottom line were you in credit or debit.

PS read you meter today please - show all the leading zeros and watch out for the decimal point

matelodave · 19 July 2019 at 10:06AM

I'm guessing that you haven't been reading your meters or checking your bills and have therefore managed to ramp up a big arrears because your bills have been estimated and you haven't been paying enough.

You guesstimate of a £500-£700 pa/bill is quite low, most people are paying over £1000 a year, some as much as £1200-1400 but that's not the point. It's actually the amount of energy that YOU have used,and the tariff that you are on that determines your costs, not what others pay. They may be on a better tariff and control their costs better that you.

You need to backtrack over your bills to find the last one that was accurately based on an actual meter reading and work out how much you've used since then, how much it should have cost based on the prevailing tariffs and then subtract the value of the payments that you've made.

A quick trawl through this forum will identify hundreds if not thousands like you who haven't kept track of bills or payments, not checked their meters and accepted estimated bills. They've never had their bills corrected or checked that their Direct Debits or payments have been covering their costs and have been shocked and horrified at the final bill when the meter is actually read.

Getting your meter tested will cost you between £80 and £120 (per meter), which will be refunded if a problem is found but you have to stump up the cost if they are OK

D_M_E · 19 July 2019 at 12:41PM

Is the bill based on actual reading, or does it have an E for estimate next to it?

If it's an estimated bill then send them an accurate up to date reading and ask them for a corrected bill.

Another thing to consider is do you have an E7 meter and are there 2 readings on the bill?

Have you checked what they are charging against the tariff you were on? Is it correct?

Have you checked the serial number on the bill is the same as the one on the meter?

Gerry1 · 19 July 2019 at 1:07PM

You're really clutching at straws if you think the meter is faulty. It's highly unlikely, so you'd just end up paying even more. In any case, you can check it yourself. Unplug or switch off absolutely everything including the umpteen things on standby such as the doorbell and the boiler controls. Make sure the meter is showing no consumption at all. Take an exact reading, then switch on some power hungry appliance with a known power rating (e.g. a 3kW fan heater) for an hour or two and read the meter again.

Above all, you must deal with hard facts (frequent and accurate meter readings) and do the sums. Don't get distracted by the DD amounts, and unjustifiable claims that 'it's not fair, it's too expensive'.

And why are you with BG? They're unlikely to be the cheapest.

Hi Electric bill

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