Large elec bill from long ago!

[mike]

I wonder if there's any chance of finding out what happened here?

My electricity bill is £350. I pay be direct debit and the balance floats between £300 and £350. Thing is, about 3 years ago it floated between £70-£100. I do know what's happened to elect prices but I increased the DD until I noticed it said on the bill that they would adjust the payments automatically. But they take a fixed amount each month and have never increased it unless I ask. It just looks like they want me to have a big excess - if so why?

Due to circumstance I never got around to trying to find out why or exactly when, this step-function in the bill actually occurred (hands up - my fault for leaving it). I've been through all the past bills I have but of course the ones that would have should the details are lost. But I do remember at around that time the electricity meter was changed - from a beefy black plastic rotating wheel thing, to a small plastic box with LCD readout and blinking led!

Is there any point/chance of me finding out from their records (or any other means) after all this time, where this large excess came from? Thanks

[Mary Fisher]

Have you asked them?

Don't you keep your bills (with their readings)?

I've found utility companies helpful when I've asked for explanations of things we didn't understand on the bills. I've also arranged for them to decrease our DD payments, I'm sure they'd have complied if I'd asked them to increase payments.

Mary

[mike]

Yes - no reply yet.

Yes I keep the bill but scratch the readings out so I cannot read them... NOT! Do you only read part of NG posts? I clearly said I did - but have some missing. If I had the data on them even I might be able to work out the answer! Basically I'm trying to find out if they keep data that goes back that far. And, as I said have had no reply (1 month).

Sigh - please re-read the OP. Of course they will (and have) complied. I'll re-state the problem for those at the back.

1) I cannot account for the large step increase that took place in the bill that happened a long time ago. 2) They (the elc co) clearly say they will adjust the DD payment to keep pace with costs - they have not done so. The only time there has been a change is when I've asked them to do it directly. ttfn!

[Stephen Howard]

Get onto customer services and start asking questions. The worst that can happen is that they prove that you're being charged the going rate for an accurately metered amount.

Regards,

[Colin Wilson]

There are several places where this could have gone "wrong" - indeed the=20 bills may now be accurate and under-reading before, but...

Your property will have an MPAN (meter point administration no.), and=20 your supplier will nominate a meter operator (who may or may not be from=20 the same company)

Given the number of companies and computer interfaces involved in=20 transferring this data to anyone who needs it, it is not unknown for the=20 old _or_ new meter reading to have been taken down incorrectly and then=20 tacked to the wrong MPAN number...

As a suggestion:

a) check the meter serial number corresponds to the one on the bill

b) see if you can get the meter readings at the time they were changed -=20 you may need to make a guesstimate at your usage using prior bills to=20 get an approximate final reading of the old meter if you have no actual=20 readings available

c) check in the vicinity of the meter - there may be a sticker to say=20 what the readings were when it was changed

d) if your supplier doesn't provide any useful information in a=20 reasonable timescale, contact

[Mary Fisher]

Have you asked them?

Have you asked them why?

There's no point in arguing with me, I'm not the company, you need to persevere with them, don't give up until you have the answer you want. We can't give you the answers.

Oh - and I suggest that you keep all future bills (whether you think you'll need them or not) in date order in a safe place. Second hand filing cabinets are very good value. Of course you have to be organised and file bills as soon as you get them ...

Mary

[ken70]

Hi Mike...the bloke that changed the meter would have left a tag for the Meter READER. It might still be tucked in near the new meter.

Mary Fisher wrote:

[Aidan]

There was a post on here a while back (2 months-ish?) from someone who'd had a new meter installed.

The old meter measured kWh, the new meter measured kVAh . The point was that the new meter charged more for inductive loads (motors), so the poster's use of his numerous power tools was costing him lots more.

Might be relevant if motors make up a significant part of your electric consumption.

[The Wanderer]

It's a great pity you didn't bother to read the rest of that thread before making your post.

Totally wrong and misleading. The very next post in the thread (no. 11), from the OP, Mark, said that his meter was labelled for KWh and he'd been misled by the manufacturer.

Domestic customers are charged on a KWH basis, not KVAh.

[Andy Wade]

No it didn't, the poster only thought it did. I thought the notion was comprehensively demolished during the ensuing thread.

[Richard]

Hi Mary

In her previous (single) existence my wife paid her elec bill by DD. the provider increased her payments until she was £150 in credit and refused to refund the overpayment. She was only able to recover the money by moving house.

We pay _nothing_ by DD!

Richard

[Roger]

The message from mike contains these words:

How many of the bills have been lost? As all bills should have both opening and closing figures and prices you only need every other one to work out whether there has in fact been a sudden jump and even if there are more lost you can average the missing bills to pin down at least the period of the presumed event.

[Roger]

The message from Roger contains these words:

Afterthought.

Watch out for estimated readings and be prepared not to believe them. They are not always accurate.

[Mary Fisher]

That's never been my experience but I can only speak for myself. It does surprise me though. And I suspect that closing the relevant bank account would have done the job, it would have been less drastic. Perhaps she was moving house anyway of course :-)

I pay as much as I can by DD - it saves me having to remember and I get no red letters :-)

If I had a bad experience I'd probably think differently.

Last year our electricity company wanted to increase our payments because of higher 'wholesale' costs. Now I know this could cause a lot of controversy and I have no intention of involving myself in it. I telephoned and said that I wasn't prepared to pay more because we had taken steps to reduce our usage in the last three months. After I explained what they were the company said that my payments would be reduced, they were and I'm still a lot in credit so at the end of that annual period I'll contact them again and expect another reduction.

Something similar happened with the water company.

The fact is that DD is easy and secure, it is used confidently by millions of people for many purposes and with happy results. Nothing's perfect and the odd unhappy exception will occur with any system but that doesn't make the system bad in itself.

Mary

[The Wanderer]

AOL.

Well, it definitely pays to keep an eye on what's going on with the bank and all the various utilities. I suspect that's one of the main reasons why people complain when it all goes wrong, coz they just don't keep a watchful eye on what's happening.

That works as long as you get someone sensible and who understands just what it is you're trying to tell them at the other end. Unfortunately the peanuts and monkeys syndrome is too well established at many large company call centres. Took me quite a while and a considerable amount of angst to get to someone who could sort a problem I'd been having with my electricity supplier.

As I said above though, it's not an arrangement that should just be signed up for and then forgotten. The customer needs, it could be argued has a duty to keep tabs on things. I certainly wouldn't leave large institutions to have free and completely unmonitored access to my money!

[meow2222]

of course, the purpose of any company is to make profit. DD makes them more money 3 ways: a) bills are paid on time b) in case of disputes they simply take the money they want c) they also can and do take an excess and use it as working capital, so you're loaning them at 0% as well.

Giving a company free access to your bank account is nuts imho, you can only blame yourself really.

NT

[Clive George]

Seems reasonable.

Only if the customer doesn't realise that DDs can be cancelled. The company can't be blamed for the customer not realising this - it's part of the documentation they have to show the customer when they sign up for the DD, and it's pretty darn clear IMO.

Slightly different point - yes, there appears to be some abuse on that side. I'm not going to scream about it too much though - if you've got to the stage where the interest on a hundred quid or so is important, then I reckon you've got far more important things to be worrying about, and if it's lots more than that, stop the DD until it gets back down to a sensible level.

Yes, doing that would be nuts. DD isn't 'free access to your bank account' - there are in fact rather a lot of safeguards associated with it. As such it works rather well IMO. But if you want to make your life unnecessarily harder, I'm not going to stop you.

cheers, clive

[Bob Eager]

However, he made a blanket statement about DD which is untrue. Quarterly DD is for the exact amount billed (which may be based on an estimate but there is a chance to amend that). Point (c) does not, therefore, always apply anyway.

[Mary Fisher]

I'd have liked to say all that but it will be interesting to see if you get flack instead :-)

Mary

[Andy Dingley]

Cancel the DD and pay the bills. Utility companies in recent years have turned into thieving bastards who deliberately over-charge on these "budget" plans, effectively turning your money into an interest free loan to them. When I cancelled my last one, their over-charge had reached something like 9 months bill.