£900 gas bill.... what can I do?

[iwontbite]

so, following a year-long battle with npower re our electricity bill (now resolved) they deided to actually send someone out to read both electricity and gas meters.
fine.

note: this only happened because of our complaint, disconnection and reconnection of services. if we had not been complaining they maynever have checked meter.

we have, over the last couple of years provided meter readings for both gas and electric., we have no way of proving this.

this morning I receive a gas bill, for the period may 2007- feb 2009.
so, nearly TWO years.
all of our gas bills have been based on estimated readings, despite us giving them actual readings,
we now owe them £900

how can they do this>???? 2 years worth of not charing us enough and now w2e're expected to just cough up £900??

I Know we owe it I know it is gas we used. but if they had noticed before by using the readings we supplied, or by sending someone to read the meter then it would never have got this bad,
are they jnot obliged to take actual readings ever??? can they just let it build up and up and up and then make you pay?

it is slightly more complicated because we want to leave npower due to the crappiness of the service anyway, but obv can;t leave until this is sorted.
i just want to cry...

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thank you! have found our localk councillors, and have also been to the ofgem website which tells me to contact consumer direct.
so we'll be doing both before going back to Npower with this

now i may be wrong but i thought energy companies are obliged by law to read your meter at least every 12 months or that could be 6 months CAB or local councillor may know

thanks, (i am OP btw, just diff name) I couldn't find much about how often they ought to do proper readings.
j ust thought though, I must just send dp under the stairs to check that they've written it down right

also someone on another site suggested that they can only back charge us for a year, which would help!

Speak to them again.
I had a gas bill of £6,500 last month based on very similar circumstances.
I have had to speak to them for many hours but we have concluded that all their bills were estimates because they had not started with a correct reading ( the meter was changed) and had failed for several years to sort it out.
Crucially I have repeatedly allowed accesss for their staff to take reading butthey failed to do so competently.
They took daily readings for two weeks,worked out my lowest likely consumption and then deducted the total I had actually paid for that period. I have ended up with £1,500 which is fine. The problem you will have is that if the current reading is correct the law may view it that you have had the benfit of the underpayment for the last year. But certainly at the very least they should offer you a decent payment plan to catch up.
I would talk to CAB andthen go back to the gas people though