I’ve fucked up and it’s going to cost me thousands- what do I do now?

I meant to add that I wouldn't have thought I was underpaying either.

My gas bill is about £40 a month for a 3-bed draughty house. £300 a month is crazy. The £40 was with the heating on only 2 hours a day though. It'll be more for this month as I've had it on a lot more. Doesn't include much hot water - I have an electric shower but use hot water from the tap for washing dishes and hands. Electricity bill is usually around £40-45 a month - one person, working from home, old laptop where the battery is useless so constantly topping it up. That's is really. Gas & elec bills so far have been less than £80 a month. Expecting more this month and February and then hopefully spring will be here.

tis is why i wont get one

they ask every few months and i say no thanks too many problems

hope its sorte soon

I had a similar issue with EON a few years back. Our electric smart meter stopped sending readings through, so they stopped billing at all for electricity. I noticed after a few months. When I queried why they hadn't contacted me they told me they were too busy to call when meters stopped working.

I still had to chase them to bill me after I'd supplied a reading. We were well covered by the direct debit which had accumulated a buffer but that wouldn't be the case for everyone I'm sure. They were utterly disinterested. I still don't understand why they wouldn't revert to the pre-smart meter estimated usage if readings weren't coming through.

It took them two and half years to replace the smart meters and now the electric meter is sending readings but not the gas.

My electric is about £100-£120 a month. If I am honest we are fairly heavy users - dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer etc for 5 people means a lot of electricity used. Electric shower used once a day (only DH uses that, the rest of use a thermostatic mixer shower) Games consoles, cooker, chargers, teenagers who go between sitting in pitch blackness to not turning lights off.

So having paid £60 a month may not be that far under after all.

Smart meters are meant to send out readings automatically? Threaten them with the energy ombudsman when you make a complaint. Make sure you check what steps you need to take on the ombudsman website first

As per picture

Incorrect. You can be charged for electricity used in excess of 12-months prior, however it has to be proven there was malicious intent to avoid paying in the first place. OP has a strong case for not being back billed more than 12-months as she had her meter replaced and paid a direct debit. OP should establish where the money she’s been paying has gone and go from there. If it is Scottish Power, get deadlock as soon as you can and go to the ombudsman ASAP.

Well that's high. Mine is generally under £50 so I would assume paying £60 a month would cover it

And I don't have standing charges

My dd works out as £63 p/m over the course of the year, obviously more in winter than summer, so not necessarily. 2 bed, newish semi and with eon.

My direct debit is £72 a month for gas and electricity (usage for December was £48 electricity and £56 gas) so I don’t think £60 would seem suspicious if you only have one fuel, to those questioning it.

Have you got an online account? Does it show your credit balance and last issued bill with the last reading?

Just in case it's relevant to anyone with smart meter issues - a gas smart meter will only work if it's within 5 meters of an electricity smart meter. Both were installed in a flat where meters were on different floors and sides of the building. Energy companies are aware but do it anyway because they are being paid by the government to switch meters over.

Recently had a situation which confirms power companies cannot back bill by more than 12 months. They put the onus on the customer to provide meter readings but legally it's on them. If a smart meter isn't working they should have seen that. We had a recent situation to confirm this. We had 16 months of DD payments sitting in our account but no bills issued - not even an estimated bill. As soon as I pointed out they couldn't bill more than a year they agreed.

@SnowQueenie even if your meter reading is zero you would be billed about £30 per month (if you have combined electricity and gas) because of the daily Standing Charge. Each bill has the standarding charge amount plus the amount for kWh used.

The energy price cap is set to £1738 per year for the usage of a typical household (£145pm) so you would have to be using a tiny amount of energy to get to as low as £50pm

We had to argue with Octopus to keep our budget amount at £100 a month. They wanted to drop it to £60 a month from £120 after the summer.

It can be done.

We recently had an issue with British Gas, I noticed our account was in credit by £1600 and then noticed they hadn’t billed us for a year. We questioned it and they didn’t know why, and apparently couldn’t produce a bill although they had all our smart meter readings and everything was up to date. It took weeks to sort out, backwards and forwards. They regularly ended the chats with ‘we don’t know how to produce your bill’. They eventually did, and we were still loads in credit so requested some back. I wondered how many accounts were sat there with thousands of pounds just sitting there. It was ridiculous.
wish I’d know they can’t bill for over a year ago as it covered a month from over a year prior.

hope you get it sorted out!

The ofgem ombudsman is excellent.

You need to raise a formal complaint with your supplier first and give them eight weeks to resolve it. In particular I'd be insisting that they provide:

1. A detailed breakdown of how they arrived at the figure they say you now owe,
2. An explanation of how they came up with the numbers they were charging you every month in the intervening years,
3. An explanation for why, if their meter (it's not your meter, it's theirs) hadn't been working for that long, why didn't they come out and fix it? Or at least tell you?

I'd recommend doing it all in writing if possible but if they call you take notes of what is said then ask them to send what they told you in writing. The more evidence you've got, the better. Once that eight weeks is up you can then ask the ombudsman to get involved. You can do it all through their website. It takes weeks to go through the process but it's really good.

The energy companies hate dealing with the ombudsman as they get charged for the service and they can't just fob you off. I had months of Shell demanding pretty much random amounts of money from me and being argumentative on the phone. Once the ombudsman got involved Shell changed their tune entirely, presented a much smaller amount that I owed (that they subsequently wrote off anyway), and I got £50 compensation on top.

A few energy companies have had issues with smart meters. I had one installed and every bill has said it was from a genuine reading but I'd noticed on the website that I wasn't getting a breakdown of usage. I always double checked the reading and it was always wrong.

I told them the meter wasn't working and they said it was but not always communicating. They've obviously realised there are issues as they sent out an engineer. The previous person had installed on the gas meter but hadn't installed anything on the electric which is what would communicate with them. Thankfully I kept giving them readings anyway. But there have definitely been a lot of issues with smart meters.

You have to fight this.

They wanted to charge me over £4000.
I'm autistic, was too scared to fight.
My son in law, also autistic, loves an intellectual/legal/financial fight.
It took him over six months but he got them down to £400.
He threatened them (nicely) with the Ombudsman but they became realistic before that stage.

Ask them for details of how you ran up that bill - how and when. They were charging me for Covid year (March 2020 to March 2021) when I wasn't living in my house, I'd moved in with daughter and son in law.

Did they inform you at any time that a debt was mounting? If not, why not? As stated upthread, they aren't supposed to charge back over a year.

I would put to them that they have a duty to bill you correctly and with a smart meter you assumed readings to be given automatically.
What @UnderTheStairs51 said. They did this to me. Put in a smart meter, didn't leave me a monitor, I assumed everything was fine, I was paying by direct debit.

Electricity companies are the worst. Please contact an ombudsman ASAP and tell your electricity provider you are doing so. Good luck.

You might be best to escalate it as a complaint. It goes through to a separate team and they are better at getting back to you.

Something is wrong here.

What do you run off electric? The shower or is that part of your central heating system?

If you are not using electric for heating or hot water that's the only other major power hungry appliance.

£60 may be a bit short but it can't be thousands short.

I would put to them that they have a duty to bill you correctly and with a smart meter you assumed readings to be given automatically.

Worst case they'll probably credit a bit to your account for the inconvenience so you won't have too much to make up.

Can you go through old bills and look how many units you used on average per month or over the year? Multiply it by your unit rate and see if their calculation sounds in any way reasonable.

If it does then you need to check they have credited your account with your payments. If it is massively out from previous years then contest the accuracy of the meter.

Oh how stressful OP! You have acted in good faith, trusted the equipment they installed and paid your bills. I hope this can be resolved/written off as it does seem they are at fault here.

To those acting as though the op is stupid or trying it on, I’m sorry your energy rates and usage are so high. Whilst everyone’s including mine have increased the numbers op quotes are not unrealistic. Screenshot attached of my account - I have electricity and gas, no other energy, 3 bed family home with readings sent daily by smart meter (and yes mine does work!)

Some really good advice on here.

As an aside, it is really worth taking your own readings once a month for a year and then periodically checking every 3-6 months. I know that my average use is in the order of 350-450 units per month depending on various factors like tumble dryer use etc.

Anything over that is just wrong, so I can estimate my bill per year inc standing charges and VAT and know roughly where the DD should sit.

Also the same with the water bill. I keep an eye on the meter and the usage to make sure it is in line with my normal data as anything outside of that is either a leak or a faulty meter.

I'd advise anyone to do this, it is time well spent.

Don’t pay it.
Refuse to pay it.
It’s their fault as they have responsibility for the Smart meter and didn’t notice your monthly payments were paying for ‘zero’ usage.

They cannot legally cut off your power - at least not between October and March I’ve just read.

I would write them an email so you have a trail and say you couldn’t have known and they should have noticed, as the entire point of a smart meter is for the homeowner not to have to read it.
Be polite but assertive and say you will pay the rearranged amount monthly that covers the future usage, once they’ve fixed your smart meter but that you won’t be held accountable for paying the historic payments.

Go to citizens advice OP. You’ve got some good points from here but you really need to talk thorough your specific situation with the details of your tariff and terms and conditions with an adviser