I was an Iresa customer before they went into liquidation and have just received a reminder from Octopus that I did not deal with their email about my final Iresa bill. I have now dealt with it but I am concerned that others might have just accepted the figures given without checking or being able to check them.

The initial final bill showed us as being in debt to the tune of £89.01. I knew that this was wrong as we had always been in credit. I saw that Iresa had estimated our gas usage for the last month (July) at 55% of our annual usage. That massive over estimate seems very suspicious to me! However, I contacted Octopus and challenged the estimate pointing out where the error had occurred. I then received an amended bill showing a credit of £49.99 and some figures to justify this were included. This still seemed wrong so I sat down with the meter readings and bills and worked out my own estimate of the correct figure. I am no accountant and I struggled with the figures but, eventually, arrived at a figure that I sent to Octopus with an explanation of my calculations. I have now received a new final account showing a credit of £305.39, a difference of £394.40 from the original bill. Octopus admitted that they had made an error in their calculations and apologised for doing so.

I have no doubt that the errors by Octopus were innocent ones but there was clearly no checking of the figures being produced. I was able, with difficulty, to work out where the errors had occurred but I know that many people including my wife and in laws would not have been able to do so. I am concerned that there seems to be no (or completely inadequate) protection for customers caught in circumstances such as these. It is unfortunate that I did not see the original message from Octopus and dealt with it earlier. I doubt that raising this here will help anyone but felt that I had to do so just in case someone else has found themselves in the same situation as we did.​

Well done on realising this and also getting your money back.

Thanks also for the heads up which hopefully may be useful to other people.

As you have had to do all this work, I would suggest that you make a further complaint to Octopus and demand compensation as you have had to undertake the management of your account.

If Octopus refuse then you should make a formal complaint and tell them that you want escalated to the regulator. This may move them to offer you compensation.

I would suggest that you don't accept anything less than a £50 goodwill gesture and if they insist on offering you less then you proceed with your complaint. Even if you are eventually awarded 50 quid, you will have cost them money and aggravation and you will get something out of it.

Hi Bankfodder

Thank you for your reply and the advice which I will act on. It was quite difficult for me and also stressful as I was concerned that I, the layman, was missing something that they, the experts, understood.

The really big mistake you made was including innocent and the energy supplier name in the same sentence.

First Utility are doing exactly the same and increasing "meter readings" by best part of 2000 units at their inflated pricing. Come April for those that don't move the unit rate moves to nearly 20p per unit.

In the last week alone 2 other suppliers have gone bust - Extra Energy & Spark Energy who between them have approx 400,000 customers.

agree, when Hudson went bust years ago they sent out final bills for thousands and when people didnt pay up they got the money from the supplier taking over the account and left them with all the crap to clean up.

It is not an innocent mistake