Scary bill - SSE

LizzieAnn_2 · 18 April 2018 at 8:51PM

We have had a shocking electricity bill of £1038 for a 3 months period from December to March 2018. We have never had this much before and in fact, its up by ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FOUR PERCENT from last year's same period. Please help. We went through something similar a few years ago, but discovered we had accidentally been given a six monthly bill and we paid this, after going through a huge performance of having a check meter installed, etc., so now we are in a terrible position whereby our overall annual usage AS IS THE CASE EVERY YEAR, has decreased, but our quarterly bill for the comparable period last year has increased by 134%.

I have had a fairly fruitless telephone conversation with SSE but I was at work at the time and it was useless....I got some hopeless advice based on being more careful next time and getting my knuckles rapped, but there is NOTHING TO ACCOUNT FOR THIS!!! No new appliances, no excessive usage, and we NEVER turn our central heating on as we can never afford it - we wear extra clothing and only heat the room we are in. I would like to know if anyone has experienced anything similar and can suggest a course of action which will help us.

I have been lucky enough to win £905 on the recent Doritos competition and was over the moon until I realised I might have to give it all up to pay this bill!! I have been on a monthly payment plan with them for ages so my bill is really a statement, and they want to increase my monthly from £150 to £201 and I do not want this.

I would welcome any advice as I really do not know where to turn. Thank you x

molerat · 18 April 2018 at 9:15PM

£s mean nothing taken as a one off out of context. Meter reads - actual or estimated start and end ? How many kWh charged on the bill ? Previous bills using estimated reads ? E7 - day / night correct way round ?

Carrot007 · 18 April 2018 at 9:25PM

Sounds expensive unless you are electric only in which case it sounds about right for the cold spell period.

Or is is a catch up bill since they have finally managed to get a read after years of trying?

Your best course of action is to keep an eye on your spend. You sound like one of the rare people that could actually benefit from a smart meter. Well as long as you use it!

matelodave · 19 April 2018 at 8:27AM

Have you done the obvious and read your meter to check if the bill is correct and tracked back to the last actual reading to see how much you've used and how much you should have to pay

Have you been checking your meter readings and sending them in or looking at your on-line account to make sure that there aren't any estimated bills or statements and getting them corrected if there are. Never pay an estimated bill - get it corrected . You should be able to work out if you direct debit is enough to cover your consumption.

If you do all these things then you don't get ginormous bills out of the blue because you know how much you are using and how much you should be paying and can get it sorted out before something like this happens.

If you'd had problems in the past then I would have though that you would have been ultra vigilant to stop it happening again.

G_M · 20 April 2018 at 12:46AM

It is impossible to comment unless you tell us what the meter readings show.

Is the bill based on an actual meter reading? is it accurate?
Is it an estimated bill?
Were there arrears from a previous bil brought forward.?

LizzieAnn_2 · 21 April 2018 at 5:01PM

Thanks for all your comments. I have today been on my second phone call to the SSE and instituted a complaint and asked that someone come out and check the meter. Suffice it to say that the original bill was NOT an estimate, she went over all my usage, and then said that the reading I had input when I was going on the assumption that it had been an estimated bill, made it jump up £200 odd because the average usage per day was 2.2 units on THTC meter and 57 units on the daily normal meter.....this is obvious rubbish, because we only ever heat the room we are in, and our averages used to be approx 15 - 18 units for THTC metre and 21 - 29 for our daily normal meter.

She was surprised to learn we had two meters. We had used to press a button to get an A and B reading....she went away to speak to her manager and seemed to think that perhaps the meter had been incorrectly fitted and was showing incorrect readings. We are currently considering getting rid of THTC but do not know what this entails - our water is heated on A SIGNAL, how will that work if we don't have THTC?

So many questions and so few answers....it is worrying, very! xx

Scary bill - SSE

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