Help needed please. I'm at a loss.

[Galaxy56]

I have been receiving estimated energy bills for a while. I couldn't access my meter. I have now have access to the meter and I'm sending weekly readings over but I'm over £5,000 in debt. It's my own fault as I should have somehow made more of an attempt to send meter readings but I honestly didn't think they would be this far off. I pay quarterly so it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I'm at a loss at what to do, I have offered to pay £150 a month plus pay whatever electricity I use but it's crippling me. I'm so scared and I just don't know what to do anymore. Can someone help advise me please, no judgment please as I feel awful as it is. Thank you.

I haven't got anything to offer but wanted to send a virtual hug over. I can't imagine how stressful this must be.

I suggest maybe contacting your local citizens advice bureau or one of the debt charities that are out there who may be able to help. Also have you spoken to the energy company? What have they said?

Sounds like the back billing rules could apply in your case.

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

Consider contacting CAB.

How long is "a while" ?

Id say 2 years. I sent meter reads over in September to now. But due to the big jump in readings, it's like I I have used near 5000 in one month.

It seems an awful lot to use even in 5 months. Do you think you have been using a lot?

Oh I may have misunderstood if it's 2 years.

Have you still been paying the estimate ayes quarterly bills? How low were they, compared to how much they’re saying you’re using now?

When did you move in, and did you have meter readings on that date, so you know your starting reading?

Why weren't you able to access your meter for two years?

I second the suggestion to go to the CAB. They will look at all your incomings and outgoings and find a realistic amount to pay back. They will also help negotiate with the energy supplier. Good luck with getting it down a bit.

That seems an awful lot, if you've been paying the estimated bills? How much were they a month, ish?

Are you a fully electric house, heating, hot water, cooking all electric?

If you should be on economy 7 have you checked that you are actually paying a dual rate tarrif?

I guess the problem is calculating what proportion of the extra is outside of the back billing time limit.

£5000 sounds like a large discrepancy for 2 years worth of estimated readings.

This is the discrepancy - so I presume you were paying some amount on top of this.

It implies your discrepancy was on average £200 a month over 2 years :

(£5000/24) = £208 or about £7 a day.

Even at the high unit price at the moment (0.35p per kWh), that implies about 20 kWh per day of discrepancy.

In fact the average price over the 2 year period is actually much lower than 0.35p per kWh, so the usage will actually be much higher than this.

Thank you 💕

So readings where around the 25134 mark for a time, they are now 44351 so almost double. I wasn't able to access the room in which the meters where in as it was a storage room and was full to the brim with crap, they are at the back in a corner. When I first moved in, people would take meter readings but then COVID hit and meter readings stopped and the amount of crap in the cupboard piled up preventing me accessing it. It was the usual things like a lawnmower, things that weren't able to go in the shed. I had gone through a messy breakup, lost my mum and then COVID hit so it wasn't a thing I was even thinking about as I was recieving bills every 3 months and paying them.

If they don't take readings I think there is a certain time for back payments but if its because you didn't access the cupboard I think you'll be liable OP but do monitor your usage, as it can be wrong. My dad just had a water bill and the amount it was you'd have thought he was filling an Olympic pool, when we queried it someone there end had inputted the numbers wrong.

So readings where around the 25134 mark for a time, they are now 44351 so almost double

What were the estimated readings on your last two bills?

When you say they were ‘around X for a time’ I’m not sure what that means. The estimated meter reading should still have been increasing bill by bill.

What did you pay in the last 2 quarters?

How long had you been paying that company for electric before the meter reading stopped? I'm wondering what time period your estimated usage was based on?

Is your heating electric?

So how much were you paying per month when it was estimated?

Well if the 25134 was your last reading from 2 years ago and 44351 is now, then you used :

(44351-25134)/(2x12x30) = 27 kWh per day on average.

Which is a lot.

Even with electric heating this is a lot because of course during summer you won't anywhere near as much.

Do you have gas CH ?

I don't think they are allowed to bill you for electricity used more than 12 months ago.

I think if you were paying their estimated bills then you have a strong chance of getting the bill reduced, but hard to be sure. You should definitely check with the CAB.

If you were providing your own estimates to them of what you thought the meter was then I suspect it would be a different issue.

It does seem strange though how their estimated bills would be so much out - that £5000 is quite a lot of discrepancy to rack up over 2 years.

IME they tend to overcharge rather than undercharge on the estimated readings, so there must be some explanation of why your usage changed so much for them to get the estimates incorrect.

Also, your baseline consumption looks quite high.

I'm wondering if the estimates were based solely on summer usage and then OP was started using electric heating after the readings stopped. If there's no reason for the estimate being so wrong then although it's unlikely it's possible it's a faulty meter.

i think they can, it’s the ops responsibility she didn’t read her meter. You can’t refuse to read your meter for 2 years and the company has to suck it up. . They can’t back bill if they were at fault. As the op didn’t provide rhe readings I think she needs to pay. A cupboard full of crap doesn’t really provide a good reason.

these are the reasons you don’t need to pay more than 12 months.

You’ve asked your supplier to send you a bill, but you haven’t received one for over a year
Your bills have been based on estimated readings rather than the accurate meter readings you’ve provided
You’ve been charged for the wrong meter without realising
Your supplier hasn’t resolved a query you raised about your account or meter
Your supplier failed to reassess a payment arrangement, such as a direct debit, within 15 months

No judgement here, that’s exactly the sort of thing I would do.

First of all, speak to your provider. Get them to check all the numbers, usage, etc to make sure it’s definitely right. Then ask about a repayment plan - so long as you have one, you can ask for the repayments to be lower. They can’t make you pay at a rate you can’t afford. They should be nice about it - they’ll be so used to people doing this!

That's very high useage. I am all electric (no gas here) and had new metres installed when I moved in.

It's just hit 50,000kwh between the two rates (economy 10) over nine years. You have gone through 25,000 kWh in two years. That's a lot but if it's heating, which it would have to be to be hitting 28kwh a day average. For comparison I just worked out my December useage and it's 17kwh with storage heater on, but in the summer it's about 5kwh.

The obvious question is are you sure you read it right?
Do you just give one reading or two for a split tariff like economy 7 or 10. If you have them the wrong way round it would produce an astronomical bill.

Try and keep calm. It sounds like something is wrong and you need to try and identify what.

Can you answer:

1. Is electric your only form of fuel or do you use gas or oil?
2. Are you on one rate tariff or split with peak and off peak
3. Do you have storage heaters or an immersion water tank?
4. What size is house and how many people?
5. How much have you been paying monthly?

Exactly how long is it since the 25000 meter reading? If it was before covid, that's 3 years ago now, not two. Plus any electricity that was used before about October 2021 would have been at a rate much cheaper than what it costs now (under half) so you need to try and get some of it billed at the lower rate, don't pay for it all at the current high rate.

You must also have been paying something in the last 3 years so that would need deducting from what you owe, so chances are what you owe is far less than £5k, probably more like £1/2k at most, less if you've been paying a decent amount over the past three years.

Can you ask for any debt to be added to your direct debit to pay off over the next year or two?

Then try and keep up with sending in meter readings and paying a regular monthly amount? If you get a smart meter installed, you won't even need to worry about the meter readings, it's all automated.

And if you pay on monthly direct debit instead of quarterly, you won't even need to worry about paying more in winter, as it’s the same amount each month, and the rate is slightly cheaper too.