75ZT Community

I recently changed our energy supplier from Co-op to British Gas.

Yesterday, I received my "final" bill from Co-op to the valuer of £342.32. Being somewhat proactive, I'd done a rough calculation and estimated that I'd owe them just less than £100 so the bill presented was cause for concern.

Eventually, I managed to track down on their website the make-up of the bill. I have to say that they hadn't made it easy. Certainly nowhere near as easy as the "PAY NOW" link which appeared everywhere like a rash.

So, having found the breakdown of the bill, it became immediately obvious that the meter readings were wildly inaccurate and, mirabile dictu, were based upon estimated readings, even though, as part of the transfer procedure, I'd had to include meter readings taken on a specific date.

Now, I had a record of the readings which were sent to my new supplier, British Gas and, being British Gas, I immediately assumed them to be at fault I was wrong.

I actually managed to speak to a British Gas customer service rep late yesterday afternoon and I was assured that the proper readings had been passed on. Specifically, one company CANNOT transfer a customer without reporting the meter readings to the old supplier, so the readings must have been passed on. The customer services rep then told me of one or two horror stories of the same ilk connected with Co-op and one or two others. I'm not that naive, I imagine British Gas are not squeaky clean in this respect but it just goes to show that one cannot trust any company anymore. They're all out to rip us off.

I imagine that a great many people just pay the final bill without query and it makes me wonder how much is being made by methods such as this.

I await a reply from Co-operative Energy.

I faced a similar problem, with a bill at pre-transfer time of £670. So despite having paid by DD at the level they had insisted on it seemed I was in debt. When questioned, with hints of ombudsman, the bill was reduced to a reasonable amount and the change of supplier followed. Determined to avoid the like again, I now enter my own readings once a quarter (two weeks before they expect it) and see the revised bill on screen. If it looks at all iffy, a conversation follows. No more trouble and my 'usage' seems much more reasonable. I now find the energy companies to be delightful people to deal with

Our energy supplier cocked up final readings and were only able to 'estimate' up to the amount we had actually paid them...which worked out ok in that it caused us no problems and probably actually saved us money... that said, why they chose to ignore my own final readings I have no idea! Now, BT swap to Talktalk...absolute nightmare...claimed we owed them hundreds when we owed them less than £50 and tried charging us for a further 2 months after we left them and £30 for 'broadband cessation' claiming I had failed to get the mac code...funny that, given I had passed it on to Talktalk and was happily using a 2x as fast set up with unlimited broadband, with Tv stuff and phone for less than half BT wanted. Final bill that I unwillingly paid just to be shot of the arris holes was £60 odd but came with absolutely no break down of how they had reached this magic figure....but by this point I was beyond caring!