How to kill old people...

[SueEllen]

I'm currently 3 days away from a 1 year dispute with my energy supplier about a gas meter that counts up even when the isolator valve is engaged. The ombudsman has just ruled in my favour for a meter test (OFMAT) which the energy company refused to do. To which the supplier has since appealed on a technicality.

Its not a huge overcount - I estimate about 20-30kWh per day, but its still hundreds of £s.

That's a huge overcount if it includes any summer months.

[Paralytic]

I'm currently 3 days away from a 1 year dispute with my energy supplier about a gas meter that counts up even when the isolator valve is engaged. The ombudsman has just ruled in my favour for a meter test (OFMAT) which the energy company refused to do. To which the supplier has since appealed on a technicality.

Its not a huge overcount - I estimate about 20-30kWh per day, but its still hundreds of £s.

[SueEllen]

It's the same story every week.

A complete failure of regulation and a compensation regime that's wholly inadequate.

There needs to be a high level of statutory compensation payments put in place, to deter companies from this sort of behaviour and encourage investment in data quality and complaints management.

One thing this letter and similar raise is that people should not be ashamed about talking about their utility bills.

[SueEllen]

Don't get me started on Thames Water. About a year ago they started sending us letters demanding to fit a compulsory water meter. We can't have one, as we are a block of 3 terraced houses which share a single supply. Eventually they sent an "engineer" who confirmed this. All was well until we returned from holiday a month ago to a hefty pile of "correspondence" from Thames Water demanding accesss to our property to fit a meter. It takes around 2 hours to get through to a "human" on the phone, and they are always useless, and hang up the call if they can't book an installation (which leads me to doubt whether they are actually TW employees at all.)
I have had today a final demand, with the threat of forced entry, or a higher tariff. I'm definitely raising a complaint with the regulator, which is a total waste of time as they are more useless than TW. I have written off doing anything useful tomorrow, as I'll be on hold awaiting a short conversation with a complete moron, for most of the day.

The trick with utility companies, which I learnt from dealing with Broadband companies some of whom aren't around any more, is to find some way to write to them whether by email or snail mail labelling the correspondence as a formal complaint. (If by snail mail get proof of posting it's free from post offices) Then when they don't answer your query within a set time you can complain to their regulator. Lots of regulators won't deal with your issue unless you can show that you sent a formal complaint to the company and they didn't answer.

Btw the regulator for water is the Consumer Council For Water - https://www.ccw.org.uk/ (Yeah I had to complain about Thames Water over the same issue but about a decade ago.)

[DoctorStrangelove]

The Imperial / Metric meter thing affected my parents' gas meter which Transco had changed without telling anyone.

In a rush of blood to the head I took the bill to the meter & compared the serial numbers & voila!

Sometimes you just can't make this tulip up.

[Mordac]

about 10 years ago I agreed to have a water meter fitted. Thames water duly installed it and then started billing me 5 times what I would spend on water rates. I disputed it as that was about the equivalent average of 15 people living their by TW's figures. In the end having read the bill very carefully I worked out they were billing me as if I had an Imperial meter. Talking to their low cost country based support it was impossible to convince them they were wrong and unlikely to fit an imperial meter (the serial number was metric) , in the end I reverted to water rates. Though throughout it was obvious that their billing department made a chocolate teapot look good!

Being caught with those incompetents would be enough to drive anyone to drugs!

Don't get me started on Thames Water. About a year ago they started sending us letters demanding to fit a compulsory water meter. We can't have one, as we are a block of 3 terraced houses which share a single supply. Eventually they sent an "engineer" who confirmed this. All was well until we returned from holiday a month ago to a hefty pile of "correspondence" from Thames Water demanding accesss to our property to fit a meter. It takes around 2 hours to get through to a "human" on the phone, and they are always useless, and hang up the call if they can't book an installation (which leads me to doubt whether they are actually TW employees at all.)
I have had today a final demand, with the threat of forced entry, or a higher tariff. I'm definitely raising a complaint with the regulator, which is a total waste of time as they are more useless than TW. I have written off doing anything useful tomorrow, as I'll be on hold awaiting a short conversation with a complete moron, for most of the day.

[vetran]

about 10 years ago I agreed to have a water meter fitted. Thames water duly installed it and then started billing me 5 times what I would spend on water rates. I disputed it as that was about the equivalent average of 15 people living their by TW's figures. In the end having read the bill very carefully I worked out they were billing me as if I had an Imperial meter. Talking to their low cost country based support it was impossible to convince them they were wrong and unlikely to fit an imperial meter (the serial number was metric) , in the end I reverted to water rates. Though throughout it was obvious that their billing department made a chocolate teapot look good!

Being caught with those incompetents would be enough to drive anyone to drugs!

[Protagoras]

It's the same story every week.

A complete failure of regulation and a compensation regime that's wholly inadequate.

There needs to be a high level of statutory compensation payments put in place, to deter companies from this sort of behaviour and encourage investment in data quality and complaints management.

Let's start with £100 for issue of a proven incorrect bill, doubling every time a further incorrect bill is issued with no limit. And not credited to account either, paid out in actual compensation.
Plus there needs to be protection from the sale of debt, especially where there's scant evidence to support its validity.

Some years ago a utility company sold a disputed debt they alleged I owed. I paid the recovery agent and sent the utility co's Finance Director an invoice to be paid within 14 days and notice before action. I got a cheque by return, but the whole saga was probably six months.

However I am aware that many are intimidated by these companies, or lose the will to deal with them.

[SueEllen]

Get E-on to send them a bill for a few thousand of electricity they don't owe
(Absolute f£&*ing scum)

https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...bill-error-eon

A 76-year-old widower was forced to ration his electricity for a year and rely on charity food handouts after a clerical error by his supplier left him facing a bill of nearly £13,000.
John*, who has a serious heart condition, has paid in advance for his electricity via a prepayment meter for 10 years. However, his supplier, E.ON, began sending unexplained bills several years ago and subsequently threatened court action if he failed to pay. It also withheld his £400 energy bill support scheme payment from the government to help with last winter’s heating bills.

The retired joiner, who relies on a basic state pension, considered ending his life because of the stress, according to his family. He stopped heating his house or cooking food as the bills escalated, fearing his supply would be cut off, and was referred to a food charity by concerned health workers. Only after the Guardian’s intervention did E.ON discover that it was charging him for readings from an unrelated meter. It has now cancelled the bills.

“My dad became a recluse and stopped answering the door or the phone in case it was debt collectors,” said his son Ian*. “He was too ashamed to tell family of the ‘debt’, and gradually he stopped going out to save money. We couldn’t understand why, in the coldest part of last winter, he refused to turn his heating on, and why he stopped cooking meals, despite having been hospitalised for his heart condition.”