I noticed this morning, three years after moving here, that my electricity and gas meter’s serial numbers are close but don’t match the ones on my energy bills. I suspect that I am paying for my neighbour’s energy and vice versa, so I am going to ask my energy company to investigate this. (I never suspected it earlier because I set up the account by sending them photos of the metres and their serial numbers, and they’re only a few digits off.)
This is all well and good, but I am a bit worried that I have been using more energy, and therefore I’ll be left with a huge bill for the difference in energy consumption multiplied by many months that may well completely wipe out my savings – especially if it’s all charged at energy crisis rates rather than the more reasonable prices in ~2020.
So my question – has anyone had a similar experience before? Will I be expected to pay everything in one go? Any advice?
My plan at the moment is to contact the energy company first, then the neighbour to let them know they should probably do the same with their provider – I’m just not looking forward to the possibility that I might have doomed myself to a massive bill by not checking the serial numbers sooner.
11 comments
The rates charged cannot be retrospective. Whatever you used must be on the tariff of the time.
Do the meter readings on the bill and meter match?
This happened to my son and it’s taken him about six months to resolve. The estate agents gave him photos and meter readings of the wrong gas meter, which he didn’t realise until last September after a year of living there, so he was giving SSE meter reads for his neighbour’s meter and his meter wasn’t being read by anyone. At first SSE tried to tell him that he owed them £3000 for the last three years of use. Despite him only having lived there for eighteen months. Then SSE apparently couldn’t find it’s arse with it’s elbow and the number would change every time he contacted them, but they never actually sent out a proper bill. He eventually kicked off, after losing two days of work waiting for an engineer to call who didn’t show up, and got to speak to someone who wasn’t a call centre drone reading from script. IIRC he ended up paying about £250 on top of what he’d already paid (on the wrong meter) as SSE couldn’t verify usage from before he started taking readings from the correct meter. It took an awful lot of shouting down the phone and getting fobbed off by WhatsApp agents who promise call-backs that never happened to (mostly) sort it out; he checked his account last week and a mystery £1000 debt has suddenly appeared on his account despite having a promise from SSE that the account was all squared away.
TL;DR. Be prepared to spend a few hours on the phone trying to get your energy company to understand the issue multiple times, disputing how much you actually owe them and being hung up on or passed around different departments.
I work in *business* energy, so the specifics may be different for you being a domestic customer:
1. They would have to fully refund any payment on the wrong meter.
2. They would then have to bill the actual usage.
3. As this error is their fault, there *may* be a limit on how far back they can bill you.
4. Back dating rates can only be done in specific cases, which may or may not apply to you.
5. There would be no requirement to pay the lump sum in case of an error like this, but you will need to set up a payment plan if you can’t.
Yh this is normally a nightmare to sort out and you will be held liable for up to a year of fuel you used and didnt pay for.
The backbilling code means you can’t be charged for energy used more than a year ago if its a fault of the billing system- they might argue you’re to blame for not checking the MPan- but if you stand your ground you should be ok. Offer to settle up the difference for 1 year and say you can pay no more.
You might be in line for a refund tho if your neighbour used more than you
I am an energy advisor but not your energy advisor. If you lived in my area, this is the exact thing I am here for because this situation will be a disaster.
Find an organization near you that can help. Citizens advice, your council, your housing association if you rent from one. They will have experts or know who can help better.
Also, get a complaint filed as soon as they give you trouble. Do not get off the phone until they give you that complaints reference number.
Good luck, you’ll need it
Contact your supplier immediately.
I went through this 20 years ago. Took me 2 years of at least weekly calls and emails with the supplier and OfGem to zero effect. Took photos of the meter multiple times (they wouldn’t believe it was mine), each time I rang it was a different person, they refused to send anyone out to verify, etc, etc.
Only managed to get it solved by writing a letter to the CEO threatening legal action, and provided all the supporting evidence. It was solved *that week*.
You can only be billed going back a maximum of 12 months.
There’s a couple of things that aren’t really clear on this. First of all, are you sure you know which meter is yours, and have you been providing reads for that meter?
If you have, the billing will be correct because even though the serial number is incorrect the readings are accurate.
If this is a flat or something where the meters are together and there’s genuinely been a case where you mistakenly thought a different meter was yours and have been providing info from that then your bills will be wrong and dependent on actual use could be higher or lower
Depending on the circumstances back billing MAY apply and you’d only be liable for the last 12 months of bills, best thing to do is to just contact your supplier to get it sorted to prevent any issues down the line.
Depending on what’s happened, they’ll most likely just do a dummy meter exchange to update the meter details, which means they can set the end/start reads to whatever within reason to may it fairer, also potentially apply back billing and a goodwill gesture.
Best advice to get it sorted is raise a complaint and escalate it to the customer relations/executive team as they’re generally more knowledgeable and have the authority to just fix things as needed, they also understand the commercial benefit in not allowing it to go to the ombudsman so are usually fairer and more willing to knock bits off where they can.
The bills should have the readings before and after showing how many units you’ve used.
Check the readings against your meters.
If it turns out you owe them a large sum they’ll usually allow you to pay that off over a period (failing their agreement you can the relevant Of<whatever> to step in)
When I moved into my new build. I had my neighbours electricity meter registered as mine. He had mine registered as his. It was a fucking ball ache to sort. The people we both spoke too were complete morons who could grasp the concept that someone filled in the wrong details.
But yes. Things like this do happen.