Hi,
Recently switched from Scottish Power and got lots of phone calls from them asking why (one of the reasons is you won't give me a minute's peace).
Anyway, they sent my final bills through. First was Electricity £130 for period from 01/11 to 01/01!
Seem incredibly steep so I checked the figures they had down for my useage. Unbeliveably both figures they had were estimates. Their start kwH was actually higher than my current kWh!!!
I called them and had them look into it and am now expecting something more like £30 for that period.
This morning I got my final gas bill - another whopping £130. Not bad since I had no heating from October through till December!
I checked the useage figures again and spotted that they reckoned I had used 6366 kWh! Absolutely no way that could be right. So I did some sums and looked at the values they were using and came to the following conclusion.
They had read my cubic feet 'gas meter' as being cubic metres! Thus implyihg I had used 2.83 times the actual amount. These were actual figures as read by a so called professional meter reading firm! A phone call to Scottish Power confirmed that this looked like being the case.
Moral of this story is look closely at your bills in the future. I was able to spot it but an elderly relative might not be so astute.
I trust no service companies these days. Vodaphone once overcharged my by £90 in two consequetive months. If an automated charge system like theirs can screw up then consider what happens when you add humans to the mix.
Eyes peeled kiddlies!
Moogs
Recently switched from Scottish Power and got lots of phone calls from them asking why (one of the reasons is you won't give me a minute's peace).
Anyway, they sent my final bills through. First was Electricity £130 for period from 01/11 to 01/01!
Seem incredibly steep so I checked the figures they had down for my useage. Unbeliveably both figures they had were estimates. Their start kwH was actually higher than my current kWh!!!
I called them and had them look into it and am now expecting something more like £30 for that period.
This morning I got my final gas bill - another whopping £130. Not bad since I had no heating from October through till December!
I checked the useage figures again and spotted that they reckoned I had used 6366 kWh! Absolutely no way that could be right. So I did some sums and looked at the values they were using and came to the following conclusion.
They had read my cubic feet 'gas meter' as being cubic metres! Thus implyihg I had used 2.83 times the actual amount. These were actual figures as read by a so called professional meter reading firm! A phone call to Scottish Power confirmed that this looked like being the case.
Moral of this story is look closely at your bills in the future. I was able to spot it but an elderly relative might not be so astute.
I trust no service companies these days. Vodaphone once overcharged my by £90 in two consequetive months. If an automated charge system like theirs can screw up then consider what happens when you add humans to the mix.
Eyes peeled kiddlies!
Moogs