we had a gas bill back in feb for £220, i disputed it for ages saying it was an estimated reading and i wanted a gas key to read it myself, 3 times and 3 red letters later i phoned up and set up a dd for £50 per month and they told me they had had an actual reading and it was higher than the estimate but the £50 would be fine and they would review it at next meter reading which was due in the next week or 2.......


bloke came 2 weeks ago, read it, i watched him, and i have just come back to another estimated bill of get this £480
i have in the meantime recieved the gas key so read the meter yest and its 600 units LESS than februarys ACTUAL
reading

tried to call and the computers are down typically!

they can get bloody ready on monday!

i had a new boiler last dec so knew there was no way the bill should be that high!

My electric bills were like that last winter. They kept taking estimates every 2 months instead of reading the damn thing! I was being charged £180 for 2 months! In the end I still had to pay the bloody thing, they just reduced my next bill slightly.... and then estimated the next one again making it rocket.

I feel like im running round in circles with them Also you have to log on to their site online to review bills which are paid by DD so sometimes they've already lifted the money before I can dispute it.

I feel your pain and hope they feel your rage on Monday!!!!

Thats awful! So they are reading it but not using the figure, how stupid!

I don't pay by DD anymore, simply cos they get it wrong so often - I'd rather pay each 1/4 so I can make sure its right!

have cancelled the bloody dd, which means they want the whole £600 they say is outstanding, they can sing for it, they better send someone out to read the damn thing cos as far as i can work out i am going to be in credit cos i havent even reached the £220 they wanted for feb!

Take a photo of the metre with todays paper in the pic (for date) then email it to the feckers!

Good idea to send a pic.
We've had problems like this. I have gas/electricity companies

We've just had huge issues with e-on recently, they estimate a reading in feb but estimated it too low, then they claimed to have read the meter early May - well they didnt because they have the come in the bungalow to do it and noone has been in. they then sent us a bill with a £375 debit for just the gas!! We were paying £55 a month for both which is the amount they advised. Anyway, I told them the actual reading and with the gas and electric we now have a debit of £498

They have now increased our payments to £137 and we are now really careful, hopefully we'll have paid the debit and maybe be in credit by the end of the summer.

Utility companies really piss me off when they estimate readings it shouldnt be allowed.

Sometimes if you have an online supplier you can submit a reading - in fact I think we have to submit a reading every 3 months or so (probably have to have a DD for this type of account though). They still send someone to actually read the meter from time to time.

http://www.uswitch.com/ is quite good for selecting a new supplier, although the price hikes are so frequent that the best deal changes frequently and it is all a bit of a gamble.

(I have to confess that since moving house 18 months ago I've let OH handle all of this so I couldn't even tell you who we're with now, although I think we changed supplier after the first year.)

Hope you get it sorted,
Ros