I don’t have a smart meter so I take regular readings and enter them on to my online account with SSE. Last year I was in credit, so SSE reduced my monthly direct debit from £71 to £53. By autumn I realised this was falling short.
Due to coronavirus and lockdowns, my energy consumption was clearly higher, as I have been working from home and my estimated February bill showed a £585 deficit. I queried this, but was told that it was accurate. My direct debits were tripled to £147 last month, but when I submitted my most recent meter reading the debt soared to nearly £19,000. This is clearly insane, and yet I can’t get through to the call centre and have had no response to emails.
GH, Oxford
Ovo, which has taken over the SSE brand, tells me that the fantastical figure is not a bill but a live balance generated by its What If Billing (WIB) service as soon as a customer enters a meter reading on their online account. This is hardly reassuring since the sum would presumably appear on the next bill. Even more alarming is Ovo’s discovery that when you entered your latest meter reading the system thought your meter had “overcycled”. That is to say, because the reading you supplied was lower than the estimate used to calculate your February bill, the system assumed that your meter had run full cycle, so it added both readings together to total nearly £19,000 worth of consumption. WIB should have recognised that something was wrong and Ovo says it’s investigating why it did not. The company says this is a one-off.
It isn’t. Eighteen months ago, another SSE customer found her WIB balance soared to minus £20,348 after she had entered her meter reading. As in your case, the actual reading was lower than the estimate used for her previous, unexpectedly high bill, and the company again explained that the system had assumed that her meter had overcycled.
Given that agents ceased visiting homes to read meters on behalf of energy firms during the pandemic, many others may be facing inflated bills based on estimates. Your debt now stands at £328.50 and Ovo has rounded it down to £300 as a “goodwill gesture”. The fact that your account was allowed to fall into such arrears is another issue.
Research by the comparison website Comparethemarket.com estimates that the average energy bill increased by £398 in the 12 months to March, as Covid restrictions forced customers to work from home. In December alone the average household spent an extra £40.88 on keeping warm. Research has found that an annual increase of £85 is enough to tip many families over the financial edge and this month bills could rise further as the energy regulator Ofgem increases the price cap from £1,042 to £1,138. It’s essential, therefore, that suppliers alert customers to any shortfalls and suggest a payment plan so that they are not faced with shock bills.
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