Gas & Electric winter bill

[ali_kat]

We don't pay DD, they mess it around too much

Our last Bill (December) was £205 for Gas & £115 for Electric

[esselte]

CatherineJ said:

I really wish I could work out how they determine the DD payment.

Since we moved into our house in 2003 we had been paying £35 a month for gas and electric. Even in winter 07/08 we were in credit with them. Now we have just had a bill and they have decided that we should be paying them £77 a month, because the January bill was £330 including some left over from the last bill.

Also another company to increase it's Direct Debit is BT. We owed them for the last quarter £100.00 and of that paid them approx half in other words the outstanding amount is £50.00 So they have now decided we need to increase our payment from £18.50 a month to £42.50 a month. Is it me or does that not sound right?

I suppose it's because you're paying off some of last year's bill and they are saying that you're not paying enough for your current useage?

[CatherineJ]

Well i'm starting to think about coming off Direct Debit, up until this year it has all worked out well.

I don't know if this is all to do with them boosting their own cashflow but I find it remarkable that everything has worked well for a number of years and then all of a sudden it changes.

[esselte]

CatherineJ said:

Well i'm starting to think about coming off Direct Debit, up until this year it has all worked out well.

I don't know if this is all to do with them boosting their own cashflow but I find it remarkable that everything has worked well for a number of years and then all of a sudden it changes.

Maybe because prices went up by a huge amount last year...?

[CatherineJ]

Well I think I capped the prices until Oct 09 before the big rises came in.

[-JUT-]

To anyone who is unhappy with their utilities suppliers, a few tips (which may sound like sucking eggs to some but hey ho, I've been working in one form or another on the problem solving/debt recovery side of the industry for 8 years now so these things tend to repeat themselves...)

1. Take your own reads and send them to your supplier as a matter of course - and check them against the bills you get. Gas suppliers are only legally obliged to read your meter every 2 years, and the estimation in this time can go well out of kilter.
2. Check out uswitch or similar - there is a massive variation in the prices charged by different suppliers.
3. Go on DD - some suppliers give a discount for doing so.
4. If you think your estimated bills are a bit iffy but the readings seem roughly in line on the last bill to what the meter says now (for example at the end of the winter period, or if you've just switched from gas to electric oven or made some other substantial change to your usage) - take your own readings every day over the space of a week, work out what you're using now and if it's different to what you are currently paying, send the reads to your supplier and ask them to re-evaluate what you're paying on a monthly basis.
5. If you think your meter is on the blink, ask for it to be tested. Gas meters tend to be fairly reliable but leccy meters can go wrong. Depending on meter type, the meter operator may be able to run an accuracy test on it in situ, they might fit a test meter in parallel and check that both are recording the same usage, or they might take the meter away to be tested. Whichever it is, you have a right to ask for it BUT bear in mind the company will usually charge a fee (around £200-£250) upfront and will not refund this fee if the meter is found to be accurate, so this is only advisable if you really think the meter might be buggered.
6. If you have not yet signed up with a supplier after moving into a property - do! Uncontracted pricing is horrendously expensive.
7. If you have recently moved in, take a reading, find out who your supplier is, and tell them! Same goes for moving out if you don't want to be hit with an estimated bill you have no way of disproving...
8. If you have a prepayment meter that was historically installed before you moved in (i.e. you haven't personally had it imposed on you for your unwillingness to pay the bills...) - sign up on a contract and get a proper credit meter. You'll save a fortune.
9. Kit out your house with energy saving bulbs. They were 3 for 99p at Robert Dyas recently, and at roughly a tenth of the energy consumption they can save you a fortune.
10. Lastly, FFS, if you are going to complain to your supplier about your bills, know what you are complaining about. If you agree with the start read, the end read and the price you've been charged... well, frankly you agree with the bill... the number of morons I used to have to deal with who expected my PC to have a magic "cheaper" button is unbelievable... Identify the problem and raise it, don't expect the supplier to do it for you. The vast majority of people who query their bills (in my experience) are simply annoyed at the size of them, and 19 times out of 20 the bill is right. As such, the people who you'll talk to at these firms will assume you don't have a genuine complaint unless you can point to something specific. They won't just reduce your bill.

Soapbox mode off. Sorry, but in one way or another I've been trying to get money out of people for their utility bills for the best part of a decade and it amazes me how little thought people give a lot of these things until they get a bill they don't like. But by then they are then unprepared to properly dispute it. Taking your own readings, sending them to your supplier and checking you're on the cheapest tariffs every couple of months could literally save you hundreds of pounds a year, if not thousands if you're a heavy user or a business.