Octopus Energy - £4k elec bill for 11 months?

[Watchoka]

Trying to help my brother.

He lives in a 2 bed flat on his own and works in an office during the day. Only has electric.

When he moved in in 2023 Shell was the electricity provider.

Octopus took over Shell in Feb 24

Since he moved in he has paid £135 per month for electricity.

In January 25 Octopus sent him a bill for £4k without explanation.

There were a series of charges made to his account in one day and then credits made on another day and then charges made again (all on one day) all adding up to approx £4k. Again no explanation.

my brother called them and they said he had only been paying estimated amounts and he had now been billed for actual usage for the last 11 months (amounting to £4k in 11 months)

I queried with Octopus whether the charges related to electricity used more than 12 months ago (back-billing) and they said no. They said they checked the account and the charges were correct. They did say that they attempted to install a new meter in May 25 but couldn’t. They didn’t say why they were installing a new one or whether the old one was faulty.

I’ve checked the usage amounts on all his bills and they just don’t add up for one person in a small apartment who is out most of the day.

The Customer Service Advisor appeared almost ecstatic when he came back to say the £4k for 11
months still owed.

I’m not sure where he goes now. The billing just doesn’t make sense and no real explanation has been given about the charges piled on in Feb 25.

Anyone had a similar experience please?

any help would be very much appreciated please

thanks @shuffleofftobuffalo did they go through the complaints system and then ombudsman also?

They didn’t as they were due a refund not a big bill to pay. But they did question it (it was thousands) and octopus could never really explain why they were due such a big refund, just paid it out - same sort of relatively vague explanation as your brother has had.

This is why I hate utility companies . No one stops to think sensibly about how unlikely it is for a small flat to use that amount of electric in 11 months. It’s just a complete lazy cop out to say he used it he pays it .

He needs to check the readings on all his previous bills. Were they actual readings, or estimates?

If they had been overestimated, and then an actual reading was made which was significantly lower than a much earlier estimates it can sometime happens that instead of crediting an account with the difference, the system charges for electricity that it should be crediting the account with.

It's called "round the clock" billing and companies are supposed to have debugged the software to prevent it, but sometimes it still happens.

That's nearly what where I work pays! They do have solar panels, but we're talking about several large rooms (up to 200 people size), used 7 days a week.

I’ve asked him to check that the MPAN on his meter matches the MPAN on his bill.

That's an excellent plan. Someone I know was charged a ridiculous amount and it turned out that the energy co were using readings from the wrong meter.

This was in an enormous Victorian house that had been converted into 13 flats. Around half of them were being charged for the wrong meter, and many of them had changed supplier several times.

That was 13 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if they were still trying to unravel it now! Friend moved out a few months after it came to light and never heard any more about it.

I have been arguing with Octopus for 2 years about them insisting our bill is 4K too.
Average sized new build, no one home all day. When we come over in the evenings we are careful what we use.
They change our direct debit payments with no warning so they randomly take £400 or £500 out of my account leaving me with less money for the month. I have complained so many times and they never reply to complaints.

This only applies to gas meters. Electricity meters have always measured and displayed kWh.

@LakieLady interesting point - I’ll check what his reading in November 24 was and compare to estimates

he has been taking readings each week since about May and usage no where near what he was previously billed for despite no changes in how using electricity.

so difficult to navigate all this

Meters have a certification life, and must be replaced when it expires. There is also a type of meter (radio teleswitch), which rely on a radio signal which has now been discontinued, so these are all being replaced. Plus, as we all know, the government is very keen on upgrading every property to a smart meter. So, no, a supplier is unlikely to be doing anything nefarious here.

I would get the energy ombudsman involved and that will shut them up for a couple of weeks at least. Octopus are quite good at emailing back but they should be investigating this properly.

Yes same here, my energy company replaced my meter for this same reason.

The first thing he needs to establish was there an opening read taken when he moved into the property. It might be a week or so out but that'll be close enough.

Go straight to the energy ombudsman!

My complaint has just been resolved - it started in April 2024!!! I have no kind words to say about Octopus - I think they are pretty disgraceful tbh.

I was sent a £1500 approx bill out of nowhere. The bills were beyond confusing, nobody would explain anything, nobody would look into anything. It was an absolute farce! I complained - they wouldn’t put a thing in writing but offered to reduce the bill by £300 despite not admitting any fault or explaining what had happened. Wouldn’t reply to emails, wouldn’t call when they said they would. I knew something was wrong so went to the Ombudsman.

Octopus had managed to merge 2 accounts of mine, one from a previous address and one for current address, an absolute mess to be frank and something they aren’t allowed to do. It took months of unpicking and delays from Octopus but I am finally there. You aren’t required to pay the disputed bill until you have a resolution with the Ombudsman in my experience so it is worth him doing this anyway.

Thanks @Rosybud88glad to hear you got it sorted finally despite it taking over a year! Annoying and stressful I bet

I was sent a £2k gas bill by British Gas when my mum died. They tried to transfer the debt to me because i had POA and I was never named on the bills.

They wouldn't back down and threatened to sue me. Energy omsbudsman sent them packing and it turns out it was a computer error when they transferred to a new system and the bill was actually £175 which they wrote off out of "goodwill."

If he is unable to find whether a meter reading was taken on moving day he can prove when he took legal responsibility (irrespective of moving in day) for the flat by providing a copy of his tenancy agreement, if renting, or completion statement if he bought the flat. I'm wondering if he is being billed for unoccupied period.
Another thing to try, with the agreement of the other residents, is to establish if he is being billed for other flats by turning the power of and seeing if others are affected.
Is he being billed for external lighting like the communal hallway, outside the main door or car parking area?
Failing that you ask the provider to "prove" the supply.

I used to work in the water industry. Above isthe advice we gave to people with disputed bills, but the theory is the same.

@OneNeatBlueOrca that’s awful - so sorry to hear about your mum and then the added stress of a huge utility company billing you, as POA, for your mum. Unbelievable and don’t think they could do that - learning so much from the responses on here

Electrician here, get your brother to request a check meter to be installed - they should do this for free, it is a second meter that will then check the accuracy of the reading and you can then work out if the previous meter was over recording.

However in 20+ years in the trade I have never come across a meter that over registered - back in the day when meters had the spinning disc the bearings sound dry out and it would run slow, but never faster!

Turn everything off, check the meter, then turn each thing in one at a time and look at the meter again.
My friend had crazy high bills and it turned out the neighbours EV charger had been wired to their place. They discovered it when they turned all the plugs off and the meter continued to spin.

Also, get your brother to send in monthly readings, it's a bit lax to live there all that time without sending accurate readings. Octopus has an app and it takes seconds to do. I refuse a smart meter but sending in the readings monthly keeps me on top of bills and we can see when the usage goes up and down.

I’m with octopus. Does he have an online account? If you dig around in there there is lots of details/ graphs of usage etc so you could see any big jumps etc and use that to question them.

You say he only has electric. Is his heating electric? In the winter if he has his heating on a lot that would build up ££. My energy bill is over £4k per year (so it’s definitely possible!) but I have a bigger property and household and that’s gas and electric combined.

We had similar a few months ago! Random amounts added and random amounts taken away all on the same day,

Not one person could/would explain what all these charges and credits were about. We asked for a manager to call us several times and none ever did. We took it to the ombudsman and suddenly managers were abundant!

Still to this day have had no explanation about the random credits and debits but we did finally get a manager to zero the account. We were also given a £140 credit as an apology.

@Duechristmasabsolutely he should’ve been submitting regular readings and he is now. I think he thought because he was paying quite a bit via DD each month already he’d be covered but yep - head in sand. No heating on in evenings during winter really as his flat is new and is one of those ones which holds the heat which is awful in summer but good in winter

Thanks @Addictforanexand @ThatsRoughBuddy

will keep going with this until get some clarity

my sister who is an analyst has also been into his account and looked at the readings in all the charts month by month and can see the spike in 24 and then the dive in 25 and has made some assumptions about baselines used by octopus but even she is struggling to get clarity on the ‘why’