Help! £1400 being taken from my account

[MelvinThePenguin]

I’ve just switched energy supplier and received my final bill from the old one. They are going to take over £1400 from my account!

This makes no sense. I was paying by direct debit and have smart meters. I was over £300 in credit and was expecting a refund.

The e-mail says there are periods of time that they hadn’t charged me for gas, between February 2022 and September 2024 inclusive, and this bill rectifies this. I’ve been through my statements and meter readings and it is now clear they are trying to charge me for estimated meter readings for my OLD non-smart meter, from the point it was DISCONNECTED and replaced up to now. It even shows as an inactive meter on my account, but somehow they’ve dumped a load of estimates against it today going back 2.5 years!

What do I do? I called them, and they said I needed to e-mail, which I have just done, but I’m in a panic that they’re going to take my money. I won’t be destitute but nor do I want to lose this amount of money when actually they owe me!

If you have direct debit set up cancel it and then speak to the ombudsman

In the short term you could cancel the direct debit with the bank and ask them to bill you instead whilst it's being investigated.

I’d contact the bank and cancel the direct debit asap. Hopefully by the time they’ve started chasing for the non existent debt you’ll have got some sense out of them.

Thanks. I’ve just logged into my banking account and I can cancel the direct debit from there, but it’s popping up that I also need to cancel the instruction with the supplier. How do I do this?

I believe energy suppliers cannot go back further than 12 months to recover unbilled or incorrectly billed amounts meaning what they are proposing they cannot do anyway.

I would call and speak to someone or contact them via live chat and request a call.

This looks like a computer glitch and no human intervention to sense check the email before it was sent to you.

Have a read of this…. Surely the same back billing rules apply

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/you-havent-received-a-gas-or-electricity-bill-in-a-while/

Thank you. So not only are they charging me for energy I haven’t used, even if I had used it they’ve gone back 18 months further than they should.

I’m doubly annoyed!

I’m not going to point out the back billing rules yet though, because you can’t back bill at all for energy that’s not been used! Helpful to have for the ombudsman if necessary, though, to reinforce their incompetence.

They were completely awful over the phone. £1400 (1800 when you take into account the credit I had which they deducted) could mean a family going without food and missing mortgage payments etc. Fortunately that’s not our situation, but they really ought to have shown more concern. I asked what I should write in the e-mail and she said “I can’t really think of the words”. When I said it needed sorting quickly, she said “put urgent in the subject title and I’ll put a note on your file to say you’re going to e-mail”. Honestly!

I got through to a really helpful person via Facebook messenger in the end. They have explained that my new supplier sent a final meter reading under the old (pre Feb 2022) meter number, which triggered the backdated bills.

Old supplier has reversed the erroneous amounts and raised a dispute with my new supplier.

I don’t know how this wasn’t picked up by one or other of the suppliers. I submitted a closing reading of c.3000 to the old supplier and the same to new supplier as the opening reading. I have just checked my new account and new supplier has replaced this with c.40000. This matches the estimate for the erroneous meter. Surely someone should have queried this?

Anyway, panic over. Let’s hope new supplier can sort this out, as I currently can’t submit new readings.

This would also explain why new supplier can’t connect to my gas smart meter!!

If this is all the fault of the new supplier, I'd think twice about switching to them!

If old supplier was the one that changed the meter it's possible they are the ones to blame as they didn't update the records, so when new supplier took over the old meter number was still the one registered.

Yes, I think this is likely.

To be honest, all 3 of us probably hold some culpability.

Old supplier for not registering new meter and then later sending out bill for 2.5 years backdated against a meter they changed out.

Me for not going through switch info with fine tooth comb (looking over it now, I can see the wrong meter number now I know what I’m looking for).

New supplier for not querying why the meter reading I gave was so different to what they’ve gone on to replace it with, and not noting that my “smart meter” does not have a smart meter number / looking further into why it wouldn’t connect.

All’s well that (hopefully) ends well.