David Lock

I get my gas and electric from the same company. They send me quarterly bills which I pay by cheque or credit card if I am a bit short of the readies - and they charge me 2% for the privilege!

Or at least they should do. I have been getting quarterly gas bills but no leccy bills. Yesterday I got an electric bill for the whole of the past year - £1600

I simply can't pay this by cheque so looks like the card again with a £32 card charge added on.

I think they are a bit naughty waiting a year but is there anything I can do aside from moaning at them?

dl

OverEasy

£133 a month on electricity

Are you growing cannabis?

Have you thought about going on a monthly budget plan? The usually give better rates on these and then there shouldn't be any nasty surprises.

Did you not notice the lack of bills for the year and think about querying it? Or were you hoping you were getting it for free?

Leslie

I think you are perfectly entitled to ask why you did not get quarterly bills and because of their poor accounting that they will have to accept the payment over a period of time!

Les

stilover

I've started knicking next doors Gas & Electricity.

I use his Wireless Broadband connection, and I eat his food..... right after his wife has let me sh*g her.

unclebuck

Surely it is the resposibility of the customer to make sure they are billed on time? If I didn't receive a bill for a whole year I would notice.



The same is true of estimated bills. People moan when they find the estimates have been wildly inaccurate and they are suddenly presented with a huge bill. But is it really unreasonable to expect people to keep track of what they use by looking at their meters and comparing the numbers from time to time?

hodgy0_2

yes

I was being undercharged on my leccy for 4 years -- when I reconcilled it with the meter I owed over 4k

they let me off 1.5k and said I could pay the balance off "on the tick" i opted for £200 a month coz I wanted to get rid of it

Butty

iTrader: (2)

If you've used £133 of elec in a month then I'd call that excessive for an average household.
Is there something unusual about what you use power for

David, you could read your own meter/ contacted the co. to ask why you hadn't had a bill for a year
Is the £1600 for actual usage or estimated?

Matteeboy

Our flat in London was all electric so we were a bit careful.
A year later they checked the meter - it was the same as when we moved in. It's apparently their fault so we paid no electricity (running dishawasher, heating, water heating, etc, etc) for a year - woo hoo!
Can't happen often...

hodgy0_2

happens all the time

we've never had a Gas bill in our 6 bed/4 story London house (130 BTU boiler which any plumber will tell you is massive) for the 10 years we have owned it

apperently we dont have a Meter Reference Number

Markus

It's happened to my brother. He was renting a place and didn't see a gas or electricity bill for a least 2 years. After the first six months of not seeing a bill he phoned the respective companies. Gas wasn't with BG and electricity wasn't with, umm, whoever the normal supplier is. Thus BG and the Leccy place told him they could not deal with it, he needed to go to the other companies, he found out who they were and contacted them, they said it wasn't their problem, as he had to deal with BG or the Leccy company.

He left it for another month, tried it again, same answer, so he just left things alone and ended up not having to pay for leccy or gas in the time he was there.

I would be nice to think that it should not be down to the customer to have to chase up the company regarding this type of thing, but sadly it seems not to be the case.
We had a worrying one here, our car insurance was due for renewal and you'd typically expect them to send out a renewal form, which they had done, and unless you want to cancel you do nothing, then they'll renew things and send you out the new paperwork. Alas this bit didn't happen, we didn't get the new paperwork. I got pulled over for speeding and was asked to present insurance docs, so I pulled them out, it was at that point the officer pointed out they were invalid as the expiry date had past.
Turns out the insurance company quite happily took our money, but did not send out the new documents. Thus I got a ticket for not having valid insurance, but this could be resolved by simply showing up with valid paperwork.
I phoned the insurance company who said it was my fault, I should ensure THEY had sent me the documents, and now I had requested them, they would send them out. Funny how the few years before and now after this they had sent the documents out without issue. Obviously they don't want to accept blame for anything, especially when someone has got a ticket due to them fecking up.

Matteeboy

Markus - that can't be allowed?! Have you contacted the Financial Ombudsman?

Contact them on 0845 080 1800) or email them at enquiries@financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

That is SERIOUSLY wrong.

StickyMicky

I check the car wash water meter once a month and report the figures back to head office, it was broken for 3 months and apparently i was reporting the same figure back each time (i can never remember what the figure is from the previous month)

the water company did a check and discovered the problem, telling me somebody would be around quite soon to put a new meter in, although they arrived 2 months later

5 months free water for a busy carwash?


when i moved out from my parents place i was not even used to paying an electric bill, so i just paid whatever they sent me, i did not realise it was an estimated bill, and got myself into a right mess due to oweing them quite a bit more when they finally sent somebody to read the meter

now i receave the estimate bill, and then ring them up the same day with a proper meter reading, it pays to be **** with these things IMO

when the electric meter was changed a few months back, it was done while i was out, and nobody thought to leave a note telling mew what the meter reading was on the old meter before they removed it more hassle to a feckin call centre

Markus

I don't think they would help at all, for various reasons:

1) It happened a few years ago

2) I'm in Ontario, Canada, so the law could well be different, but as said, in previous years, and also since the event they have sent us the correct information.

OT I know, but I didn't fight either of the tickets. I was speeding (56 in a 40 - that's kmh as well ) so was my own silly fault, the cop was good though, said that I wasn't driving dangerously and if I contested the ticket he'd not have a problem with it, so was basically saying that if I went to court I could probably get the points dropped and the fine lowered a bit. On the insurance document side, he said that if I present the docs at court showing we did have valid insurance at the time, it was simply a case of not having the docs on us then they'd drop the ticket.
Why didn't I go to court? I'm lazy is the real answer, it would mean taking a day off work to go downtown to court and as that ticket didn't give me any points, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

I would echo Les's comments - contact the supplier now, tell them you are not in a position to pay the full amount at the moment. Place the blame back on them as far as possible if they have not sent bills as they should have. Arrange to pay off the debt (and only the debt), in a way that suits you over x number of months, or spread the load for what you have used in the last year over the next four quaterly bills.

Most companies will negotiate with you if you are reasonable - I personally wouldn't pay the credit card charge, up to you though.

Leslie

I have to disagree. I think the onus is on the supplier to bill the customer correctly and in this case at the right intervals, it is their responsibility to let him know what he owes for their services.

Les

David Lock

I had a long chat with the supplier and they have knocked around £700 off the bill which I was very pleased about.

I did learn that if a bill is over 12 months old (mine wasn't) then they have to waive payment completely under their customer charter.

So it was worth making a call despite some of the sarcy comments on here!! dl