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[jid]

2. You have left that cable to the street lamp connected and been using the Councils lecky from dusk to dawn.

Some idiots did that in an estate near me a while back!!

Unluckily for the Council they wired it wrong and they blew up the street light!

Shows what some people will do to get their electric for free.....

[guest]

Hi all,I have just submitted my quarterly meter reading with Scottish Power.When the bill was generated my electricty usage is only £18,this is about a quarter of what it usually is.The reading is correct so what do I do?Is there something wrong with my meter,saying that we turned every electric thing on in the house all at once,ie,emmersion heater,oven tv,lights etc and the wheel just flew round.When we turned them all off it just when round a slow pace.
Am I obliged to let them know my usage seems low or is it up them to see my usage is low and get in touch?

I think I know what it is.

Do you by any chance have a day rate and a night rate? If so then they have them the wrong way around on the webpage - well they do for our account anyway - and that results in abnormally low bills being generated. I notified them of this months ago and they said it was being passed to "Disputes Resolution" who would "be contacting me shortly". Unsurprisingly they didn't contact me at all, so I'm not providing them with any more meter readings until they do as it could be argued that I was aware of the problem but kept submitting readings which I knew were erroneous.

[oldfogy]

Totally OT but.
Some years ago with a company I used to look out for (accounts etc) I had an ongoing problem with British Gas, every-time I submitted the reading over the phone because I do not pay estimated bills they then amended the bill, this went on for several years, then on one occasion the person on the other end of the phone said it can't be right as I had give a reading for a 5 digit meter and it should only be a 4 digit reading.

They even insisted they were correct because of "actual meter readings" taken by meter readers on previous occasions, "this I knew was a lie because there were only 2 people with access to where the meters were and neither of us had ever been asked by a meter reader for access to read the meters.

So I insisted on a inspector coming out, yep, you guessed it, we had a 5 digit meter and they did not know what the heck they thought they had.
What had actually happened was the meter was replace 3 years earlier and the contractors had failed to give BG the new meter information.

The discrepancy which also had to be repaid was £3,000 "which I always knew about" so that was no big surprise.

[UncleUB]

@Rizla,no we don't have a day night rate.We have Scottish Power Online energy saver 4 dual fuel.
@ Dave.M,they can't have overcharged from previous bill as we have a fixed direct debit.
As regards the street being wire to the street lighting   
Looks like a phone call tomorrow to sort it out.

PS,excuse the spelling its hard to see under candle light. 

[tuftedduck]

 

Unkyub tries to type post after refusing to pay leccy bill.

[chrissie]

On a personal level, we have for years, read both our meters every week, giving us the actual numbers on the meters and then we calculate each weeks usage.  This helps us to know if we go up (or down) and ask why... like using the electric oven always increases the use AND the washing machine....  I'm glad we do this, only takes a few minutes and we log it on a sheet of paper so have records going back for a few years.  Means any discrepancy we note on our bills, we can show them the records.  One meter reader read the electric meter one time and read 1,000 units over what we had used!!  Luckily with our record system we knew it was his mistake and were able to point it out and send in a new reading.  

As for paying, I personally will not let them have my money up front, why should they get interest on my money when I could keep it in an ISA (or whatever), I just pay direct debit every 3 months... and I get to keep the interest for the year, however small.  

[scottiesmum]

Looks like a phone call tomorrow to sort it out.


I said that in the first place   

[oldfogy]

PS,excuse the spelling its hard to see under candle light. 

Candle powered PC's, what on earth will they think of next.

[tickmike]

If it was me I would just pay the £18    and say nothing  .  and you can have a bit more spending money over xmas.

It will sort it self out next time

I did read about a chap who stored a lot of speakers next to his electric meter and had a shock when his bill for £1000000 plus came.
It turned out after the electric company checked the meter that the magnetism from the speakers had affected the magnetic damping in there meter so it was going round at amazing speeds.

[oldfogy]

If it was me I would just pay the £18    and say nothing  .  and you can have a bit more spending money over xmas.

It will sort it self out next time

That's exactly what happened to the person in my first post, because they insisted on only paying what was being asked for. hence the £3,000 "eventually"

[UncleUB]

Update: It was the meter numbers that had stuck.The reading was 77999 and we noticed it had hardly moved from this morning.While I was chatting to my son on ms messenger last night ( he use to read meters when he was in the UK)  he told me to give it a tap on the side(actually he told me to remove the magnet,cheeky sod) .And lo and behold the numbers dropped to 78000(not quite 3 cherries but good enough)
Anyway it seems to be ok now. 

[oldfogy]

(not quite 3 cherries but good enough)

Could have been though if you had just ignored it. 
(Just keep putting the savings into a savings account for a rainy day)