Back bill issue

ngregg wrote: »

I am with E.ON and they have been estimating my gas and electricity usage for past 8 years or so. Our flat has 2 adults and 1 toddler.

Billing was c£130 per month for direct debit until November 2018.

In November we gave them an actual usage. This was considerably higher than their estimate and as a result they sent a bill for ~£2500 (stating 44,000 gas units used for period 23 Oct 2018 to 01 Jan 2019 ... an insane artificial catch up amount) and lifted direct debit to £530 per month suddenly - and have taken £1590 so far.

I realise that it is always better to give Actuals but they also presumably have an obligation to chase if no Actual has been for a while.

What are the actual back billing rules? Should I cancel my direct debit to stop them taking the next £530 on June 3rd 2019 as they are being incredibly slow about acknowledging this? No-one at E.ON has mentioned on my 3 calls to customer service about back bill Ofgem rule.

Thanks

Nick

Put simply, a supplier can’t seek additional payment for unbilled energy used more than 12 months prior to the error being detected and a corrected bill being issued.

The protection may not apply if you have behaved obstructively or unreasonably which prevents your supplier from accurately billing you.

For example, by physically blocking more than one reasonable attempt by the supplier to take a meter reading at your property or if you have stolen gas or electricity.

To help your supplier give you accurate bills, we recommend that you provide regular meter readings to them, and tell them when you are moving in or out of a property.

But we don’t expect that not responding to a request for meter details or readings from your supplier means you are behaving obstructively or unreasonably.

Prohibition

21BA.1 Subject to paragraph 21BA.2, where the licensee or any Representative Issues a Bill to a Domestic Customer or otherwise seeks to recover (including via a Prepayment Meter) Charges for the Supply of Electricity from that customer (hereafter a “charge recovery action”), they must only do so in respect of:
(a) units of electricity which could reasonably be considered to have been consumed within the 12 months preceding the date the charge recovery action was taken; and
(b) where applicable, amounts in respect of a Standing Charge or any other type of supply charge accrued within the 12 months preceding the date the charge recovery action was taken.

Exceptions to prohibition

21BA.2 Paragraph 21BA.1 does not apply in the following circumstances:

(a) where any charge recovery action was taken prior to the date this condition took effect;
(b) the licensee or any Representative, has taken a charge recovery action following the date this condition took effect in a manner which complied with paragraph 21BA.1 and, due to non-payment are continuing to take steps to obtain payment for the same units of electricity and, where applicable, the same amounts in respect of a Standing Charge or other type of supply charge;
(c) the licensee has been unable to take a charge recovery action for the correct amount of electricity consumed due to obstructive or manifestly unreasonable behaviour of the Domestic Customer;
(d) any other circumstances, which following consultation, the Authority may specify by publishing a statement in writing.