Electric Bill

[LadyMil]

My DN lives in a small 1 bedroom flat in the NW and has been told repeatedly by BG that they have to pay £200 per month for electricity
They have been to the ombudsman and nothing has changed.
They have submitted meter readings on a daily basis to prove that they use minimum amounts of electric and how much they are home.
Her partner works full time, she is at uni and has a part time job and also does things in plays etc.
They don’t have any debts. They both went from parents house to flat.
£200 just for electric for a 1 bedroom flat seems very unreasonable.

Apologies for placing this in AIBU I couldn’t locate another place for it.

Can’t she change tariff? I’m in a studio and my last bill was around £130 and that was quarterly!

Do you know their actual meter readings? Has their meter been investigated for a fault? Do they have and use electric heating or electric hot water?

We live in a 4 bed house, 3 occupants, usually one person home, lots of tumble dryer use - electric is around £2 per day at the moment for us.

BG cannot force you to be on direct debit. Cancel it, and just upload the usage each month and pay for that. I keep a spreadsheet now with my monthly gas and elec readings and all the formulas in it to work out exactly how much I will be charged. I now have an average over 12 months and have my direct debit to exactly that - although I also know it will be short after the October rise.

I'm with Octopus and while they are 'encouraging' me to increase it, I know I will have a reasonable credit with them come October and I have no intention of 'banking' anymore than that with them. I'll pay the extra when its due. I think energy companies are trying to mitigate their balance sheet recent losses from people who were on fixed contract by getting us all to have massive credits with them (money they get interest on).

Actually, more like £1.50 per day but we don't use electric for heating or hw.

BG won’t come out to investigate cause they are still connected and have electric supply.

Yes, their meter readings were minimal. Barely any change on a day to day basis.

Would anybody miss out on any of the subsidy payments if they cancel their DD I wonder? I may be getting confused with the council tax one.

Then after they should cancel the DD, submit monthly reads and pay on receipt of bill, if this doesn't affect their grant

And they're definitely on the capped standard variable rate, as opposed to a ridiculously priced fix?

Change from Direct Debit to standing order that way she can control what her amount that she pay is whilst still benefiting from the monthly DD tariff. With Direct Debit the company controls the amount set and requests that from the bank, with standing order your bank transfers X amount of money alongside an account number which is then picked up and the amount put against your account. You control the amount and when it leaves your account, you set the date so the 5th of each month. Alternatively they could pay quarterly and sack off paying monthly altogether.

They cannot force them to pay by DD but they can change their tariff to reflect that they are not paying by DD. Clearly common sense at BG has gone out of the window when they are submitting meter readings that show their consumption is low.

I used to work for npower a long time ago. I too have had a usage argument with Scottish Power who couldn't justify my sudden increase in payment demands several years ago. Even the chap on the phone was surprised by the new amount and I said someone has entered those parameters into the system to say increase by X amount.

Octopus are very flexible we are running at about -£80 a month balance for 3 bed bungalow, that’s most of the bill, £200 a month for a flat is ridiculous.

What should their annual usage cost? It seems strange that the ombudsman doesn't support them paying the right amount, even if BG haven't been reasonable.

What did the ombudsman say? If they've been provided usage figures plus details of the tariff then it's easy to determine what someone should be paying. So does this match what BG is demanding?

It's not clear what the problem is and until that's established it's not going to be fixed.

Are the meter readings correct? Does BG have the correct meter number recorded? Sometimes people are inadvertently paying someone else's supply because the national database is wrong.

This isn't as straightforward as just changing supplier. That won't wipe a debt and it's usually not possible anyway if you're in debt. Plus if there are adminstrative or technical problems they'd still continue with the next supplier.

Your niece needs to find out what's going on and why her bills are so high.

Just seen that they've just moved in - are they friendly with any neighbours who might give an indication of how much their bills are for the whole year?

Otherwise, cancelling the DD and paying quarterly might be the way to go, but they need to plan for winter bills being a lot higher than in the summer if they're using electric heating, plus having the lights on more and possibly having more hot food/drinks.

Also, yes they need to check their unit rate to make sure they're not on an expensive fix.

Standing charge could be about £15 pm even before they use anything, but unless they're leaving the immersion heater or electric heaters on, which doesn't tie in with what you say about the meter showing minimal readings, £200 pm definitely sounds too high.

Two grown ups with auntie stepping in to post on MN?
I doubt anyone here can do better than they can in actually reading the ombudsman’s decision.
If they’re signed up and committed to a tariff that’s a fixed payment that over the odds for a 1 bed, that’s entirely different to a variable rate with a suggested monthly payment and BG being unhelpful about changing the voluntarily payment level.
Given that there’s an ombudsman decision here, sounds more like the former.
Is this a contract they’ve agreed to?

Sounds like latter, but is fundamental for OP to confirm for sure! If it’s a fixed payment (no fixed rate) then no amount of arguing over what they’re using or suggestions to change DD to SO are relevant.

I believe that all the daily standing charges & the price per kilowatt increased 1 April this year
What does it say exactly on her bill ?

No as it is going to those on pre pay metres too.

My bill more than doubled when I went from a fixed tariff to SVR. I have dual fuel and my current rates (SW) for electricity are: SC 51.626p and KW 28.408p. £200 a month is £2,400 annually. Based on my tariff £2,400 - (365 × 28.408p) £188 =£2,212 ÷ 28.408p = 7788 KW hrs or 650 kw hrs a month. I use 200 a month with gas heating. Can your dn look at the breakdown in kw hours over the year to see how it's calculated?

The reality is even as a low energy user with gas ch my dd is £135 monthly.

I’ve passed on all your useful information and given her some advice.
Thank you all for being so helpful.

Cancel the dd and pay quarterly for the electric they use?

What is the daily usage and what is the rate they pay per kWh?

did they give readings when they moved in?

are the bills actual or estimates?

useful information here www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/your-energy-meter/find-out-if-your-energy-meter-is-faulty/

ultimately if it’s got to the ombudsman’s and they have gone in the suppliers favour then I’d think there is parts of the story you haven’t been told or the usage is correct

Also often dd is the cheapest way to pay and usually comes with a discount so I wouldn’t just jump to cancelling it or it could end up costing more

I wonder if they underpaid and are now having to pay usage plus debt

The niece needs to do a very careful check that they’re reading the correct meter. If it’s a flat it may not have its own meter in the home, but one in a bank of meters with the ones for other flats. British Gas May be seeing a different meter on their system (& receiving readings for it) to the one your niece is reporting.
A ‘Meter Sanity Check’ is needed, look at the MSE Energy forum for the procedure for whatever their type of meter is.
If the meter is showing “Barely any change on a day to day basis” all I’d warn is that smacks of a meter for an empty property rather than a home occupied by two people who presumably have a fridge, kettle/coffee maker, washing machine, TV, device chargers etc.