Energy bill shocker - but has it happened to you too?

By Tony Watts - Editor - 18/06/2008

We received our electricity bill recently. Nothing odd with that, you might think. Except the first thing to hit my wife as she opened the envelope were the words, in very large print: “Your account balance is £1,713.33 in debit”.

 

She found that alarming – goodness only knows what someone with a weak heart or suffering from stress or depression would have made of it.

Understandably puzzled, as we pay our bills by standing order every month and had our meter read only six months previously, I rang my supplier – e.on. “It’s an overestimate,” a cheery voice told me. “We often do that if we haven’t had a reading from a customer for a while – it’s to provoke a reaction and get the customer to read their meter.”

Well they got a reaction from me, but probably not the one they were expecting. I phoned their PR who explained that the call centre response was definitely not company policy. And that my excess bill was due to the fact that I had accidentally been switched to being a business customer – with a higher tariff. That still doesn’t satisfactorily explain why I ran up such a big bill so quickly (in their estimation) or why the response from the call centre was so glibly given.

A call to the very helpful people at energywatch followed: in their experience, wild overestimates like mine are common. Sadly, energywatch is being folded later this year – presumably the Government doesn’t feel we need protecting from the big energy suppliers, despite the fact that huge numbers of complaints are still being received.

So, readers, was my experience a one-off ... or have you had a similar experience? Email editorial@maturetimes.co.uk and let me know.

 

Tony Watts