electricity bill v high

[gr00vy]

I'm told there are some lawyer mums who read this forum and was told to post here to get some adivce.

Basically, I live with my son in a two bedroom flat. A couple of months ago I got an electricity bill for almost £900. Thinking it was obviously a mistake a rang them up to sort it out but they are maintaining it is a true estimate.

They are saying for most of last year my electricity meter wasnt working correctly so they have done an estimate based on when they fitted the new meter in august and took a reading in November. They are saying I have made no payments in the past year, which is not strictly true.

I made two payments of about £75 per quarter but for the following two months they told me I had nothing to pay as they had overcharged me by half. It was after this I then got the almost £900 bill.

Even if I had made no payments and it was over a year, £900 seems a lot of money? We do run solely on electricity (no gas) and do have storage heating and emmersion heating but even so, as far as I know it runs on economy 7. I tried to argue with them that during august-november I would have had the heating on thus boosting my reading but I wouldnt have had it on all year around, and if my bill is estimated on those months then it is wrong. But they wont accept it, they keep trying to fob me off without giving me a real reason why.

I am due to have a pre-payment meter fitted in now so they can begin to recover this money from me because to set up a payment plan they were insisting on about £60 per week payback, which I cannot afford.

Can someone give me some advice on what to do? Do I need to just accept the bill or is there something I can do about this? I have spoken to the electricity company (southern electric) a number of times and I get no joy.

Hi. I work for solicitors. I recommend you put your complaint to Southern electric in writing, with copies of any bills they sent you saying you had "nothing to pay". If they still claim you've used units that they cannot account for it may be worth taking a meter reading yourself on a weekly basis ie. noon on a particular day and keeping a record for at least 4 weeks.

One thing they might not have explained to you is that energy companies try to spread your payments out over 1 year. But that means that during the summer they expect you to pay them "up front" for the energy you will use in the autumn/winter. If their meter wasn't working properly how come they haven't sent an engineer round before now to check the meter. I recommend you always take a reading every time you get a bill and write the actual reading on the bill. You can phone over a meter reading day or night on the automated telephone line. that way the company knows you are keeping tabs and they will check your reading against their estimate. I hope this helps.