Anyone help? 

Have lived at my present adress for nearly three years now and is a 2 bedroom flat with economy 7 heating, it is just me and my 2 year old son. I'm at work all day from 8:00 untill 17:00 and when in don't use much electric anyway the odd light tv and fridge/freezer,

Was paying estimated bills of £90 a quarter and this sounded ok to me so kept on paying them as my first property didnt know how much it should be. Until one day had a masive bill land on my doorstep and reckon i was using £300 a quarter and someone had read the meter. I made a complaint and was told to keep a record of my meter readings. I also asked my neighbour to do this who is also with edf, my readings were three times as much even tho she is in all day. They finally sent someone out from homecare who was the most patronising person i have ever met. He checked all my appliances and nothing wrong asked him to check my meter he just said theres nothing wrong with that and didn't even look! Now they want £70 to have it checked. Then he got out his paper work and totally confused me and worked out how i could pay them back £887 I owe.  Minus £200 they are going to take off because of a printing mistake they have made?

Tried energy watch and they sent me a letter saying they are investigating the matter this was22nd august and had to phone the up a couple of days ago because i havent heard anything, got through to the person who was following up my complaint and he told me theres nothing they can do.

So back at square one what can I do? I do think the meter is faulty but not happy to pay the £70 they want,

 

Any help appriciated

Hi Stacy. I had a look around for some info for you and have found the snippet below. I dont know whether it will help you . I know Economy 7 can be very expensive if used during the day. It certainly sounds like your bill is very expensive! You could try asking another utility company what they might expect you to pay for the same thing? Good luck I'm sure you will sort this out. Let us know how you get on.

As you can tell I don't have a gas condensing boiler because I only have electric and I am on an Economy 7 tarriff. This tarriff is rated so that off-peak electricity (between the hours of midnight and 7am) is a quarter of the price of on-peak electricity. However, on-peak electricity is rather expensive. I believe this is an attempt by the electricity companies to smooth out the peak of electricity demand during the day and the trough of low electricity usage overnight. You can't just switch off a power station when nobody is using it, so encouraging people to do their washing and heat their water overnight must use up electricity that would otherwise be wasted.

There are a whole host of other problems associated with Economy 7 tarriff but I'm not going to discuss them here.

Here's a little description about the hot water tank that is installed in my flat. It is well insulated with foam and has two immersion heaters installed. One is supplied by electricity between the hours of midnight and 7am and is placed at the bottom of the tank. If left switched on permanantly it would heat the whole tank but only using the cheaper electricity for seven hours every night. The other immersion heater is supplied by electricity 24 hours a day but is positioned half way up the tank. I presume this is supposed to be used as a booster to supply half a tank of hot water during the day if the rest has been used up.

Given that I rarely use a full tank of hot water each day it seemed wasteful to be using the Economy 7 tarriff every three nights or so, especially as it only took about an hour to heat up the tank. So I've had a timer installed on the 24 hour elecricity supply which only heats up half the tank and only for one hour in the morning just before I wake up. Now I only use 7 hours of Economy 7 electricity per week to heat my water and I don't have to remember to switch the hot water on and off every few nights. This is especially good as I often forgot to switch it off meaning that I'd end up using lots of expensive on-peak electricity for no reason whatsoever.

Hi ruby,

I know economy 7 is exspesive but my parents have a four bedroom house and have the lights on all the time have two fridge freezers a massive pond which has a pump and theres 3 adults living there and there bills are much cheaper than mine/and there wih EDF(not for much longer tho)! it just dosnt work out. I'm even thinking of moving home because of this.

Hi Stacy

Sorry just come across your thread and wanted to say I will offer some help if i can.  First thing is calm down, this thing seems to be stressing you too much. Lets get organised and sort this out.  You mention that you were paying estimated bills for some time, then a massive bill arrives, and that someone has come out to check the appliances etc. First things first.

1. when did you move into the place (2) have all your bills been estimated (3) did the massive one arrive as a result of a meter reading being taken. (4) Have you kept all your previous bills ? (5) Shoe on the other foot, have meter readers visited regular, took readings, but your bills have still been estimated?

Let me know the answers?

Hi Mr spock,

Have lived here for nearly three years now, the first three bills i received where estimated and all were for £90 there about. Then had a reading taken after this and worked out £130 for the next quarter only checking my bank statement they had taken out 2 lots of £130 which they denied but clearly showed this on my bank statement only after sending letters and proof they gave it back to me!. So anyway paid that bill then the next was the same then it started being more the last bill i got was £300 for a quarter this does seem alot ? They have sent me all previous bills so have them. I have given them readings quite a few times but for the first year I lived here it was all estimated is this a long time for them to be estimated for?

Thanx

Also random question dont know if anyone hear knows about meters but the disc turns realy slow, the other day when taking reading the disc spun around 3/4 of the way realy realy fast as if it had slipped or something would like to know if this is normal

thanx again

hi stacy

there have been changes recently to the billing code that all energy providers have signed up to.  It is from the Energy Retail Association (ERA) which is to stop the back billing of charges due to suppliers incorrect billing,

There are a whole load of instances why this can be breached, so the company must ensure they are compliant.  One of the favourite reasons, hence my questions, was under estimating accounts, despite actual readings being either taken (by a meter reader) or given (by the customer) and not used, hence you still get an estimated bill.

Another favourite reason especially for E7 customers is where your supplier receives the readings from you or the meter reader, but they get transposed.  In other words, you give your day rate, and night rate, but your supplier turns them around, charging your day rate (which is your expensive bit) at your night rate price etc.  But this is more noticable if you have true storage heating, as your true night rate usage to charge up your storage heaters, would be charged on your day rate price.

Now this ERA code was brought in 1st July 2006 where a supplier, if they had been billing up to that point, and after that (say for example) the 22nd August 2006, got an actual reading which showed they had underestimated your accounts for years, they were only allowed to backdate the undercharges for a maximum of 2 years, so in your case, year 1 would be written off, and they would give u that back, or roll those payments forward onto your 2 year covering bill. 

From the 1st July 2007 they are only allowed to back bill 1 year. So if you had estimated bills up to 1st July 07, then again say the big bill lands because they have caught up, they cannot go back more than 1 year. 

Your case might be more difficult, but i would look into this.  Also if they have estimated you for sometime, and then catch up, the catch up is usually on the current qtr's bill, i.e over the last 90 days.  Really you want the bill re-estimating over the period from the last actual to the present one, re-apportioning the bill, if you have had any price changes, as most suppliers tend to just make the catch up on one bill, not spread over the period of lower prices.....

Also dont get the complaint handled by the first call centre agent, they might sound as if they know what they are doing, but at the end of the day, you want it sorting asap and a manager or customer relations usually have more authority, especially if i remember they want to charge you for a meter accuracy test.  (which is what you want if you believe there is a fault with your meter).

There are usually two types of test they do, the first is the standard load test, which an engineer simply turns up, turns most of your appliances off, and then counts the spinning of your meter disc or light if it has one.  The other is to install another meter alongside your existing meter. This is known as a check meter.  This is far far more reliable than the first one.  The two meters sit side by side, and the engineer takes a reading of your current meter, and one from the check meter.  They are usually left in for approximately 1 month.  Then you can take your own reading.  There are rules governing whether your meter is running within the set limits or not. But basically if your existing meter has used 200 units but the check meter has only recorded 70, then its pretty obvious your existing meter is running too fast and isnt accurately counting your actual usage. 

If this is the case your account is adjusted accordingly.

If you have a record of your readings, then let me know a two weeks worth and i will say if they are excessive or not.

Also it sounds like you might be in the EDF area, as you havent mentioned your town or postcode (dont put your full address on here!).  If you are then your actually overpaying for your usage than with any other supplier as EDF (Formerly Seeboard/London/Sweb) will be your old regional supplier if your in their area and your unit prices will be cheaper with another supplier.  Let us know your current day, night (standing charge - if applicable)  Your day might be split on two different prices, this is normal.

Cheers

Hi, My energy company are requesting around £500 for backdating transposed readings since 2005. Do I have reason to dispute the demand? Sarah :)

Hi sarah

if your energy company has sent you statements whether estimated or to the actual readings it thought was right, and now demand backpayment, then i am pretty sure they are unable to do this. Under new guidelines companies are only allowed to back bill customers for less than 1 year from 1/7/07 I would contact the company, by the way which is it? and ask to speak to their complaints/customer relations team and ask them about backbilling of accounts and is your account valid under the ERA guidelines.

It is Powergen (E.on) . I have since been in touch with the Energy Retail Association on your recommendation and they are going to look into it for me. I'm not sure I have a case, but I would be surprised if they were allowed to back bill as this means our next 12 months direct debit is going to go up to £125 - for a small one bedroom flat! I will let you know what happens, but I am not hopeful. Thanks for your advice! Sarah :)

Hi. I would like to reply to the message left by Tracy, as I have had the same problem with EDF. I signed up with them a few years ago and they kept sending me estimated bills, last July I gave them a current reading and since then they still estimated my usage. At the beginning of last month April I gave them another reading and a few days later, to my horror a bill landed on my mat saying I owed them £1,530.00, adding this amount to the previous amounts I have already paid them for the year 2007 to 2008 this made the total amount of almost £2,000.00 for 12 months electric. I contacted EDF and challenged my bill, they ask me to take a five day metre reading, which I did and I got back to them with the readings, and they agreed they seemed very high, to which the assistant ran through some questions of the kind of appliances I have in the house, the result of the test came out that I should be using approximately 23 units per day when in fact my metre readings were saying I was using about 40 units per day. I was the advised they could send some one out to check the metre but this would incur a cost to myself of £70. However they did advise me there was an error on my bill and they would send another bill, which duly arrived in to days post, with a deduction of £100.00. There is something wrong here but I cant put my finger on it. I have been back the last three years and I have been paying between £800 and £1,000 a year for my electric.I have now changed my gas and electric supply from EDF to British gas, thus hopefully making me a saving of approximately £500 a year on my current readings.