Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

The customer support for these energy companies (British Gas for me) seems to have nigh on collapsed as well.

I'm on SVR for electricity with a smart metre in a new build house. The smart metre doesn't work (And I've reported it, waiting now well over a month) so I had 0 consumption charges from date of move in till I gave a fixed reading. Because the fixed reading was after the price cap and they'd already "billed" me pre price cap, we were billed the full amount 7 months usage on the new price cap.

Rang up and the first guy understood exactly and said he'd get a new bill revised.
A month later and nothing happened, rang up again and the next person couldn't understand and said I was billed correctly.

Got online and then they reversed the charges, I provided a metre reading point on the 31st March so they could bill December-March old price and April - Then on new price. For some reason I was billed a total of £60 for that entire 7 months......................

Rang them again today and everything got reversed and instead of £60 for 7 months I've been billed £57 for 8 months.......

So now I'm sat on a ton of credit that is British Gas's they seem incapable of billing me for, they're messing with my direct debits and I'm at the point of giving up trying to correct it.
 
Martini1991 said:
The customer support for these energy companies (British Gas for me) seems to have nigh on collapsed as well.

I'm on SVR for electricity with a smart metre in a new build house. The smart metre doesn't work (And I've reported it, waiting now well over a month) so I had 0 consumption charges from date of move in till I gave a fixed reading. Because the fixed reading was after the price cap and they'd already "billed" me pre price cap, we were billed the full amount 7 months usage on the new price cap.

Rang up and the first guy understood exactly and said he'd get a new bill revised.
A month later and nothing happened, rang up again and the next person couldn't understand and said I was billed correctly.

Got online and then they reversed the charges, I provided a metre reading point on the 31st March so they could bill December-March old price and April - Then on new price. For some reason I was billed a total of £60 for that entire 7 months......................

Rang them again today and everything got reversed and instead of £60 for 7 months I've been billed £57 for 8 months.......

So now I'm sat on a ton of credit that is British Gas's they seem incapable of billing me for, they're messing with my direct debits and I'm at the point of giving up trying to correct it.
Click to expand...
By not working do you means its not sending the reads automatically and you having to manually read it or do you mean its not reading itself and you cant read it either?

Problem is there is a huge turnover in the call centres for energy suppliers at the moment. I know we have a lot of people stressed to **** in our contact centres or on the sick due to the demand and the abuse they are taking daily for things that are beyond their control.

Try to be nice where you can.
 
Zenduri said:
By not working do you means its not sending the reads automatically and you having to manually read it or do you mean its not reading itself and you cant read it either?

Problem is there is a huge turnover in the call centres for energy suppliers at the moment. I know we have a lot of people stressed to **** in our contact centres or on the sick due to the demand and the abuse they are taking daily for things that are beyond their control.

Try to be nice where you can.
Click to expand...

It wasn't sending metre readings, but it's easy enough to read.
So in my account for metre readings it says "****" then 4 months later the exact same metre reading. British Gas didn't flag it but just simply didn't charge consumption charges for that period.


When I gave a reading I was billed a massive amount and I worked it out that they'd billed my all on the new cap, which has been reversed but even after giving them up to date metre readings I've only been billed a paltry amount.

So as it stands right now having been here since December, my "up to date" billing for that period is £57.

Which is obviously completely and utterly wrong

It should be at least £500.
 
danlightbulb said:
These fixes are preying on people's fear of future rises they are bad value.
Click to expand...

They are simply a gamble no? If you had fixed when the last set of price projections were released you would be doing much better than most of us. The energy companies are covering their asses.

You have to realise that there are still a fair few people on fixed deals that mean they are paying £1400/year avg. while the actual price is going to be well over double that so all of us that are not on those old fixed rates are basically subsidising the lucky few.
 
Martini1991 said:
The customer support for these energy companies (British Gas for me) seems to have nigh on collapsed as well.

I'm on SVR for electricity with a smart metre in a new build house. The smart metre doesn't work (And I've reported it, waiting now well over a month) so I had 0 consumption charges from date of move in till I gave a fixed reading. Because the fixed reading was after the price cap and they'd already "billed" me pre price cap, we were billed the full amount 7 months usage on the new price cap.

Rang up and the first guy understood exactly and said he'd get a new bill revised.
A month later and nothing happened, rang up again and the next person couldn't understand and said I was billed correctly.

Got online and then they reversed the charges, I provided a metre reading point on the 31st March so they could bill December-March old price and April - Then on new price. For some reason I was billed a total of £60 for that entire 7 months......................

Rang them again today and everything got reversed and instead of £60 for 7 months I've been billed £57 for 8 months.......

So now I'm sat on a ton of credit that is British Gas's they seem incapable of billing me for, they're messing with my direct debits and I'm at the point of giving up trying to correct it.
Click to expand...

I had similar with BG. After the first agent assured me they would fix it and they got it wrong again it was straight to complaint.
Fill in an online complaint form, give all the info (units used when etc) and it will be fixed by someone competent in my experience.
They don't like complaints being raised since if they don't fix them you can escalate over BG to the regulator which they hate
 
fez said:
They are simply a gamble no? If you had fixed when the last set of price projections were released you would be doing much better than most of us. The energy companies are covering their asses.

You have to realise that there are still a fair few people on fixed deals that mean they are paying £1400/year avg. while the actual price is going to be well over double that so all of us that are not on those old fixed rates are basically subsidising the lucky few.
Click to expand...
Last I saw about 70% of people are now on the default caps but yeah, still a good number on long fixes from before the issues started.

The current fixes are more expensive now than the increases are projected to be in October and possibly January.

Yeah it's a gamble as you say but it's borderline whether it's worth it against predictions going into next year and you pay more than you have to now by going onto one of these.
 
UTmaniac said:
If only this wasn't predicted in forums within minutes of the announcement.:rolleyes:

www.bbc.co.uk

£400 energy payment: Fears landlords to keep renters' rebate

Where a tenant's bills are included in their rent the energy rebate will be paid to their landlord.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...
I'd have thought most situations where bills are included as part of the rent will be in buildings of multiple occupancy where the bill payer will receive £400 for the whole property. Should still be passed on but wouldn't be £400 per tenant.

The whole scheme is rushed and poorly thought out though I agree.
 
UTmaniac said:
If only this wasn't predicted in forums within minutes of the announcement.:rolleyes:

www.bbc.co.uk

£400 energy payment: Fears landlords to keep renters' rebate

Where a tenant's bills are included in their rent the energy rebate will be paid to their landlord.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...

Sorry but why should the renter get an energy rebate when they don't pay for their energy. This also isn't a simple scenario.

If a landlord including bills in their rent hasn't increased their rent then they are going to be potentially £2000+ worse off per year, £400 for the house isn't going to change that much.

If a landlord has increased their rent to cover increased energy costs then they should either be reducing it by £400 over the year or otherwise passing that rebate through to the renters.

If a landlord has increased their rent to cover increased energy costs and the prices go down then they should reduce the rent back down to reflect this.

Its not as simple as people are making out.
 
y2w2003 said:
It's the standing charges that are a killer for me where I live, they are a **** take.
Click to expand...
I wonder has it been announced when the SC hike for the liquidated companies expires? Those predicting the SVR are all keeping the high SC in place as far forward as the prediction goes. But surely at some point that SC has to come back down?
 
Martini1991 said:
It wasn't sending metre readings, but it's easy enough to read.
So in my account for metre readings it says "****" then 4 months later the exact same metre reading. British Gas didn't flag it but just simply didn't charge consumption charges for that period.


When I gave a reading I was billed a massive amount and I worked it out that they'd billed my all on the new cap, which has been reversed but even after giving them up to date metre readings I've only been billed a paltry amount.

So as it stands right now having been here since December, my "up to date" billing for that period is £57.

Which is obviously completely and utterly wrong

It should be at least £500.
Click to expand...

Personally, I would leave it as the mistake is now in your favour. Make sure you have a record to show that you've attempted to get the bill corrected. I believe (but check the details) that you will fall under OFGEM's 12 month back-billing policy, so if they don't resolve the problem shortly then it'll be them that are out of pocket.
 
chrcoluk said:
I wonder has it been announced when the SC hike for the liquidated companies expires? Those predicting the SVR are all keeping the high SC in place as far forward as the prediction goes. But surely at some point that SC has to come back down?
Click to expand...
They'll keep them high indefinitely I fear. Consumption will drop massively once these bills start to drop and this will shield against that to some extent.
 
chrcoluk said:
The new one might be worth taking come November. I know it will be annoying not as good as v3, but will very likely be better than what the December cap is.
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How does the energy unit price work out at the moment, are you able to switch enough usage to the cheap night period to make it cheaper on average than the SVR cap?

Edit:

Had a look and I'm finding it hard to see why the agile tariff makes sense at the moment. Even the cheap times look more expensive than the SVR?

www.energy-stats.uk

Octopus Agile East Midlands | Energy Stats UK

View historical tariff data for Octopus Agile East Midlands back to 2018. Claim £50 of free credit when joining Octopus Energy.
www.energy-stats.uk www.energy-stats.uk
 
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