Electricity Bills

[sp1214]

It has recently come to light that I may have been undercharged for my household electricity. It stems from the problem of being on Economy 7 where a lower rate per unit is charged during night time periods.

Although my quarterly bills show that I have been consuming 3 times the day rate as night rate the electricity company thought I was being undercharged.
After double checking that the two meter readings were correct I did some checking on my own.

I found that the time clock was in error and not set correctly.

I had a phone call today from the electricity company saying they would recalculate mj bill retrospectively. Can they do this not knowing what percentage of units were used and when?

[Ethel]

Most people on economy 7 use 40% of their electricity during the low peak hours - they set their immersion heaters, tumble driers, storage heaters, dishwashers etc to come on at night.

If you are the same, you have being too much due to them not maintaining their meters properly. You are not an electrician, it is not 'your' meter and you do not have the authority to tamper with it in any way,

I would strongly argue for a REBATE - you have been paying too much for night time electricity when you have had your most power hungry electricals on.

[sp1214]

Thanks you would think my use was pretty standard. But he seemed to be going by when the day rate cut in which was about 5.30 in the evening and during the rest of the day was on night rate. I don't ecpect any rebate as my usage seems standard overaul.

[Ethel]

You seem to be using 25% on night rate, which is too low to justify having economy 7 - after all you pay more for your day rates than somebody without economy 7.

You have no way of knowing when your meter went wrong.

I would not accept having to pay more or being charged retrospectively. There is something very wrong.

[sp1214]

Thats right how does anyone bother to check when their meter switches over to the other rate. You just trust the meter reader. Over the past year they have arrived more infrequently which makes it difficult to work out the costings. Once they got it completely wrong and the figure was doubled and then they got me to check the dial readings. It seems ever since EON took over Powergen.

[Ethel]

I''m with Eon too. I have a spreadsheet on my pc, and every month I take my own meter readings - really to make sure the meter doesn't show I'm suddenly using a lot more.

It only takes a minute on the first of every month.

But I can't stress enough that you should NOT pay any more - it is more likely you have overpaid and the fault is theirs in any case.

What they should and could do is put your meter right so the night units start when they should, and reevaluate in 6 months or even 12 months to see when you use most electricity.

If you don't use enough night time units, seriously consider ditching the economy 7 as it would be costing you more. I think the cuot off is 38% - if you use less, you should ditch it.

[sp1214]

Yes you're right. Maybe I'm not really suitable for economy 7. So I am going to work out what my bill will be if I am just on the standard rate for all units. My problem is I don't what the standard charge plus what the unit costs are. My situation is that I am on a lower fixed rate deal until 2009 so I would have to know last years rates.

[Ethel]

Phone them up and discuss the best tariff for you - as far as I am aware there is no penalty for leaving the fixed tariff.

They should be able to work out how much last month's bill would have been on standard fixed, for example, and how much on economy 7.

[sp1214]

Thanks Ethel, its when you get problems like this it concentrates the mind more fully. Having been with this company for many years its time to move on. If you look under www.confused.com they list the best company by price to do business with. Top of the list seems to be nPower as the savings can be quite huge.