Southern Electric contract

[Cerebra]

Hi, myself and my wife live in a 2 year-old 2 bedroom 2nd floor flat. We have storage heaters (Creda) and a decent boiler (Gledhill PulsaCoil).

 

Our bill shot up from £109 last quarter to £485 this quarter. The only difference was the heating on low and a couple of extra lights (low energy, by the way).

 

Southern Electric are saying it's got to be something that we're doing. We've told them 'til we're blue in the face that it has to be an issue with the meter but they won't accept it and dodge round the issue every time.

 

We have serious doubts that the 'Manager' that is dealing with us is nothing of the sort. The emails we have off her use horrendous English, lower-case letters and the grammar is awful and phone calls to us leve us even more confused.

 

We had a similar issue at our previous house with nPower that took 10 months to sort. We definitely don't have the energy to be dealing with this all over again.

 

Has anyone else had a similar experience and if so how was it rectified?

[Clare_L]

If you have storage heaters, make sure you are on an economy 7 tariff! If you are on economy 7 do a load test to check to see if the reads have been transposed, ie take a read during the day, carry on as normal using the normal amount of electric then take another read an hour later and see which rate has moved on, the day or the night. Also be sure all reads are not estimated and are actual.

[royalscot]

Thats a ridiculous amount to pay for electricity for the size of property ....I would mirror what clare says ...but have to ask is the meter just yours .

 

A property which is only two years old must be well insulated to conform with strict british standards and i dont believe for a second that youve got the heaters full blast with the windows open !!

 

Do you own the flat ? Is it rented ? ..This meter needs to be checked by the energy supplier or your landlord

 

My daughter has a similiar flat but a wee bit older , she has the heating on to heat the flat but the flat retains the heat thanks to the insulation and the heatings on its lowest setting .....Her bills are no where near yours .

 

Dont let it rest

 

rs

[Cerebra]

Thanks guys. One of the underlying problems is that we weren't informed what tariff we were on until we challenged our landlords and SE. Turns out we're on Economy 10 which isn't the best one to be on. We've done all of the tests and they were inconclusive. SE say that the meter is fine but haven't physically tested it. The property is rented, but our landlords aren't the most proactive.

 

Our energy certificate states that our flat is a 'C'. The storage heaters are apparently some of the best available.

 

All we want is someone at SE to have some common sense and realise that it is indeed ludicrous. We're apparently pulling an average of 35 units a night!

 

I think we may have to escalate it to a higher level within the company as we have no confidence in the young lady we're dealing with.

[postggj]

£120 a quarter should be what you paying

 

demand the electric people check the meter

 

take regular readings

[royalscot]

Cerebra ....ask SE if they have your correct address and not the one on the promenade in Blackpool ........lol

 

Go to the top of SE if you must ........

 

 

rs

[45002]

If your paying Southern Electric,the meter is property of the utility company and not the LL.

 

One problem with Economy 7 or 10,there are usually two readings (two sets of number)

 

Daytime and nightime rate..

 

like this http://www.energychoices.co.uk/images/General/economy7meter.gif

 

Are two reading getting mixed up ?

[Cerebra]

Thank you, we are aware of the readings and again SE say they are confident that they are doing everything correctly. It still doesn't answer the issue of the amount of units either night or day rate that we are pulling.

[45002]

Thank you, we are aware of the readings and again SE say they are confident that they are doing everything correctly. It still doesn't answer the issue of the amount of units either night or day rate that we are pulling.

 

OK,Have you worked out the actual Bill out yourself with the readings on the Bill with what the kWh are ?

 

who did the meter reading on this Bill,was it you or have Southern electric estimated the Bill,it should say "E" next to the meter readings or "C" for your readings ?

 

and are there any arrears brought forward from your last Bill ?

[Cerebra]

Hi,

 

We are currently contesting an excessively high bill (£485) for just over 3 months usage in a 2 bedroomed 2nd floor flat.

 

We have some serious issues about the way in which our whole complaint has been dealt with i.e. very unprofessional, conflicting advice and non-existent important policies that deal with new customers etc. They are being unbelieveably obtuse in their dealings with us and are brushing important issues under the carpet.

 

We have never signed any contract with them so need to know where we stand legally.

 

Also is it worth sending a Private & Confidential letter to the Chief Exec regarding the issues with their complaints dept?

 

Any help gratefully received.

[Celt777]

Hi Cerebra

 

Contact the Southern Head Office Customer Relations team first - try 08000728616. Always found it easier to deal with over the phone.

[nottslad]

How old is your complaint? If the matter has not been dealt with within 56 days or you are vulnerable, you can escalate the matter to the Energy Supply Ombudsman.

 

Complaints should always be dealt with in writing or by email so that there is a clear audit trail.

 

With regards to the high bill, is it based on actual meter reads rather than estimates? did you take a meter read when you moved in? How is the property heated? electrical heating can be extremely expensive and depending on the wattage of the appliances used, this can justify your bill. I suffer from a health problem and therefore need my flat to be warm, it is the size of a garage and my winter bill was £789, so just goes to show how different people use energy in different ways

Edited May 4, 2010 by nottslad

[kavsta]

Hi, did you ever get any explanation over this?

I'm with npower and also live in a 2-bed flat. After numerous problems with a pay-per-use meter, we finally got switched to a billed system, which for the first quarter was £104. We have just got the latest bill in which is £554!

For one of those 3 months there was only one person living at the property, we have no central heating, and have probably barely used any heating, if at all, since April due to the hot weather.

The bill claims we have used 3115kw/hr of Daytime minutes (when there is VERY rarely anyone in the house in the daytime) and 800-odd Nighttime minutes.

This seems really odd to us.

But...

Our flat is above a hairdressers, and we wonder if the meter we are being charged for is ALSO including the hairdresser's usage and noting it as the same property somehow? Is there anyway this could be checked?

Also, maybe we're barking up the wrong tree and this isn't as abnormal as it sounds to us - any advice would be thoroughly appreciated, thanks!

[loobyloo99]

Have you tried switching power supply to your flat off for an hour? Maybe do one during the day and one late at night? You never know, the meter may continue to run!

[pelham9]

If your paying Southern Electric,the meter is property of the utility company and not the LL.

I think this is incorrect. The distribution network up to amd including the meter is owned by the distributor. The utilities (supplier) pay the distributor for the use of the netwok, the meter and of course the wholesale cost of the fuel used. Often the utiliies will check or change meters but they do this in the capacity of agents for the distributor and often they employ agents to do this!!!

[Surfer01]

We are on E10 but the switching unit inside the house is for E7 so we have to manually switched it on for the water every night for the 2 hours. IMHO E10 is a better option as you have warmth in the afternoon and again in the evening. If E10 the meter belongs to the supplier. are you aware fo the times of switching on a E10? They are 12am to 5am, 1pm to 4pm and 8pm to 10pm. Everything outsdie this is at normal rate.

[pelham9]

You seem to be all electric? I will assume that is the case.

 

This quarter when the weather was reasonable your bill was £485 which is far too high for a well insulated 2 bedroome flat. The quarter before was £109 and this was far too low considering the abysmal weather we have had. £109 to £485 looks horrendous but there are explanations other than a faulty meter.

 

 

(485+109)/2=£250 sounds a not unreasonable average for these two quarters - perhaps a maximum of £1000 PA. Mine for gas and eletricity is £1300 pa.

 

So it may be that you should be looking carefully at that £109 quarter rather than going immediately for a faulty meter. This can be expensive if you are wrong.

 

You have not answered various queries about estimated readings. Are there any which can affect the two quarters in question? Bear in mind that utilities usually overestimate readings as they get your money earlier that way. An overestmated reading at the start of the £109 quarter could easily show as a very low charge if a proper reading was obtained at the end of the quarter.

 

An underestimated reading at the end of the £109 quarter could account for both the high £485 bill and the low £109.

 

Equally it is possible that actual readings by a meter reader were incorrect or have been entered incorrectly by SE.. This is not uncommon. The only way to check this is to do the readings yourself. I send in my self read meter readings once a quarter and insist I pay to my readings. Do you have easy access to your meters?

 

Are you able to compare the two quarters in question to the same quarters last year. I would expect them to be about 20% up - mine were.

 

If after thinking this through you are sure that your meter is overreading and became faulty in the last quarter then write a letter of complaint (recorded delivery). Customer Services are universally useless except for the most minor queries.

[Cerebra]

Hi Kavsta,

 

Well, I'm sad to say that it is still ongoing albeit with a minor step forwards. We're currently up to about 25 emails sent/received and 5 months elapsed.

 

After several weeks of non-descript offers of solutions SE agreed to install a check-meter and the readings from that apparently suggested a 3.85% over-read on the original. So whilst it explained some of the overcharge it essentially put us right back at sqaure one. I personally don't believe a word they're saying.

 

During the period of email tennis I read up on the appliances in the flat and after discounting things such as the boiler and white goods I settled on the storage heaters. Having read the very ambiguous manual that was supplied by our agents/landlords we deduced that because we had the input up at about halfway and the output at 5 (max 6) this could be the only possibility. An email to Creda (storage heater manufacturers) eventually illicited a reply suggesting that this was fine and shouldn't be the cause.... It was also let slip by SE that a number of our neighbours had also reported excessive bills. Typically, an email to the landlords/agents was met with a complete blank and non-admission of any knowledge of a problem, even though we know that SE have contacted them about this.

 

In amongst the myriad of emails and telephone calls exchanged with SE they have made several glaring errors with out of date information, very bad customer service errors and we have found a number of policy and procedure anomalies, let alone the fact that the complaint is now over 5 months old. Suffice to say they brushed it all off. Therefore we instigated a complaint via the Ombudsman and they are currently investigating our claims.

 

SE have made an offer to reduce the overall bill by 5% (1.15% in real terms taking off the meter over-read), and as such I nearly choked on my cornflakes at the sheer audacity and offensive nature of the offer.

 

So as it stands now I have replied back leaving them in no uncertain doubt as to my disgust and have asked them to look at the offer again bearing in mind the ongoing Ombudsman investigation and the amount of stress this has caused. This was at the back end of last week and the complaints department, who are normally very quick to reply, haven't as yet.

 

Truth be told we have had enough of it, have fought as hard as we can, done our homework but are still proverbially banging our heads against a brick wall.

 

When we eventually come to some mutual agreement I will post the outcome on here.

[Cerebra]

We currently have a long-running dispute with Southern Electric and have just received a report from the Ombudsman.

 

One point I would like clarifying is that they are saying that in the eyes of the law when anyone takes tenancy of a new dwelling they are 'deemed to have entered into a deemed contract'.

 

Therefore the suppliers effectively have 'carte blanche' to supply you with goods that you have no idea of the cost and suitability of and then still demand payment when you haven't had sight of or accepted their terms and conditions.

 

Would appreciate if someone could confirm if this is correct or not?

 

Thanks.

[nottslad]

It is correct, deemed contracts are covered under the Utilities Act 2000 and also the Electricity Act 1989.

 

A supplier cannot just stop supplying a property when someone moves out. Someone has to supply the property until a new supplier is nominated, and it is therefore deemed that the occupier had contracted with the existing supplier.

 

See http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Primary&PageNumber=1&Year=1989&BrowseLetter=E&NavFrom=1&parentActiveTextDocId=643311&activetextdocid=643622&versionNumber=1 for a bit more info

[nottslad]

It is correct, deemed contracts are covered under the Utilities Act 2000 and also the Electricity Act 1989.

 

A supplier cannot just stop supplying a property when someone moves out. Someone has to supply the property until a new supplier is nominated, and it is therefore deemed that the occupier had contracted with the existing supplier.

 

See http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Primary&PageNumber=1&Year=1989&BrowseLetter=E&NavFrom=1&parentActiveTextDocId=643311&activetextdocid=643622&versionNumber=1 for a bit more info