Fucking fuming - energy bills

[ThePastafarian]

I cannot go into the entirety of my beef with Avro energy as I will lose the will to live. I've explained it so many times just thinking about it makes me want to scream.

In a nutshell, there was a fuck up with them billing us properly, and we got stuck with a massive backdated bill. I complained to Ofgem - and Avro went bust. Me and my massive debit balance got passed to Octopus.

The thing that has me raging is that, after fucking months, Octopus have basically come back and said "Avro's administrators have told us this is correct so you have to pay it". Ofgem closed my complaint about Avro because they went bust, I can't complain about Octopus because none of it anything to do with them, and I'm supposed to suck up this massive debt that is the result of Avro not billing us properly - with no recourse to complain to anyone!

🤬🤬🤬

Ouch did it bar you from the backdating rules?
What option is left now pay or court?

You are DEFINITELY not BU to be properly fucked off!!

How old is the original bill?

Did you use the energy?

Are you disputing the amount used or the rate they applied or just the mistakes they made in billing? (Was it something like an estimated bill that was way under what you used??)

Did you user the energy ? Will they accept a payment plan at least ?

Finally do you have any recourse under the backdating rules for any of it to be written off?

I think we did use it. It initially sounded like some of it fell outside the 12 months for which they can back-bill you - but Octopus are now saying it doesn't. They didn't issue an actual itemised bill for about 9 months - but were displaying an account balance that was massively in credit. They hit us with the debit balance when I queried this. Octopus say they were estimating the bill "for a while" as apparently my metre readings didn't match what they thought we'd be using, so they just ignored them - but never fucking said anything! I'm struggling to pin down a timeline of when they apparently noticed a problem, when they started estimating the bill, whether the final amount is based on my readings or their estimate... Because I'm having to go through Octopus to figure out what Avro did, and they aren't asking the questions I would ask.

I would genuinely like to scream at somebody but at this point I'm not even sure who?!?!

Energy Ombudsman. They will help, they were very good when I used them.

Can you get the money together? If it's possible to have the money in reserve I would let them take me to court and let a judge decide. Even if it goes against you provided you pay straight away it won't be held against your credit fil e.
the judge will take into account that you've tried ombudsmen and payment plan.

I would be asking for them to send over all of their records about your account (citing GDPR) so you can actually see on what basis they are requesting the payment and then contact the energy ombudsman.

I'd go to the media about this - the Guardian has a weekly consumer column (as does the Observer) and this is exactly the kind of thing they can help with:

Consumer desk: [email protected]

Consumer investigative column in weekly Money section [email protected]

She's already been to offgem ^^

Consumer champions

Money at The Guardian

Ofgem have already washed their hands of the whole thing on the basis that Avro don't exist anymore. I'm nervous about taking it all the way to court for several reasons: general stress and worry, and wouldn't I get hit with court costs if I lose? I can't afford to make this any worse! The media consumer advice thing is a good idea - as is the GDPR request. Thanks!

If it's under the threshold for small claims the costs are fixed and you wouldn't be hit by solicitor costs. Try the ombudsmen but if they bounce you back to ofgem don't be scared of court. It isn't nice obvs but nothing terrible and if they won't work with you to sort it out it's an impartial decision.

We had issues with Avro and then being moved to Octopus. The amount of stress it was causing me, we were just better off paying it sadly. We are fortunate that we could, it was nearly £500 we owed! They were not interested at all and just kept saying we had to pay it 🙄

@MumaD We currently owe almost £900! I've actually found Octopus okay in terms of customer service - better than Avro, who I hope are all burning in hell. But after almost eight months of "we're looking into it, you have to be patient" they've basically come back and said "Avro say it's right so you have to pay it". I don't trust anything Avro say at this point, they don't seem to be able to account for what they're saying, but apparently we now just take their word for it and the failure to bill me correctly until the debit was out of control is just my bad luck?!

We didn't receive any bills in our time with Avro, just paid by DD and their emails always said they'd suggest a new DD amount if it wasn't enough but they never did. I'd send readings every few months (stupidly didn't keep a note of them though) and I was told by Octopus that the readings I'd sent them were never accepted 🥴 but Avro never bothered to tell me this was the case.
Octopus have been good for the most part, but I do query some of what they said regarding the Avro situation but I gave up on the end as it was just too stressful and time consuming.
I now make sure I take meter readings monthly and keep the pictures on my phone!

@MumaD That's what happened to us! I diligently sent of readings when asked, but am now being told they were using estimated bills because those didn't seem right! They didn't issue a bill from November 2020 till July 2021. My dashboard was showing a credit balance that kept creeping up and when it hit £400 I queried it - and got told no, you actually owe us £900!! I can't work out when the estimated billing started or whether the final bill is based on their estimate or my readings. And no one has ever acknowledged the fact they were showing me a massive fucking credit balance while I was apparently racking up debt! 🤯

We had a similar problem with Avro, we paid by direct debit and we have a smart meter so they should have been received readings very regularly, for some reason they were estimating our bills so quite conveniently when they went bust they took our £500 credit because they said that we owed it.

@SaintJavelin Did they claim they hadn't been getting the readings somehow?

This thread is now starting to make me angrier! Did Avro just say to every at the point they went bust "er, actually we were estimating your bill, you need to give us some money!"

Yup.

My husband told Octopus who basically shrugged their shoulders and said nothing that they can do.

It stinks because as well as the smart meter my husband was manually entering the usage when prompted to by Avro, but nope they estimated our bills despite that.

Same thing has happened here op.

We were with Avro, got transferred to Octopus when they went bust. Now we owe Avro £300.

Avro never ever billed us correctly, it was always estimates. Even when we gave meter readings they'd never bill us.

Fuck me, they really were clowns, weren't they?! The initial response I got from Octopus was a shrug, but I persisted. Fat lot of good that did me. I thought the ombudsman might give a stuff, but apparently not!

Do you know what I am going to do, just for shits and giggles and because I'm between Netflix series? I'm going to make a freedom of information request to Octopus to ask how many of Avro's customers were apparently receiving estimated bills. I am sure this is a waste of my time, but what's five more minutes?!

Oh, that only covers public bodies, doesn't it? I thought I was being clever for a second there! 😂

Yes Energy ombudsman. Of all the ombudsmans out there (housing etc) their website is very easy to use.

That’s awful that it has happened to so many of you.

British Gas didn’t tell me that my smart meter had stopped working and they were doing estimates. When they sent repeatedly sent me bills with duplicated dates I went beserk (think 01-30 of a month, then the next one starting 26-30, so duplicating about a weeks worth of energy)

the complaints manager actually phoned me and said he couldn’t work out what had happened on my account!