Claiming back against your electricity supplier?

[Das]

Anyone done this before?

Ok so I finally persuaded British Gas(I have both Gas and Electricity with them) to change my electricity meter back in March. The one I had was an old wheel one, date stamped 1989. So since I got my new Digital meter fitted my bills have dropped hugely!!!!! I was paying £105 a month now my bills are around £60-65, ive gone from being around evens, to £230 in credit.

March 2011 1100KW(must have been an estimate) March 2010 400kW(new meter fitted)
April 2011 820KW, April 2012 550KW (270kw difference)
May 2011 813KW, May 2012 558KW (255KW Difference)

Now I am going to monitor this over the next couple of months, but has anyone ever complained about an over reading meter and looked into getting a refund? From what I see im looking at around a 33% over payment. Ive only been with British Gas for 2 years but that could be somewhere in the region of an over payment of £800!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any helpful advice greatly welcomed.

[SlowCoach]

Good luck in trying. I tried and all I get is. Non refundable. They charge by the estimate and never actually charge by the meter readings!

I moved from old hose and they demanding 700!!! Even I don't use much and not been in the house for 9 months!!!

[bindex]

It depends... yeah I know

To be honest your current bills sound too low to me. I hope I'm wrong of course, I'd love bills as low as that. But it really does depend on

1) how much you use,
2) how big your house is,
3) how much insulation you've got... and so on.

Mine averages about twice as much as yours, but it's a big old Victorian house built in 1890, high ceilings, no way you could ever have cavity wall insulation in a million years etc. If yours is much more modern, lower ceilings and lots more insultion then it may well be correct.

I just wouldn't expect British Gas (or any of the others) to just fall over and accept that they've been over charging you for years. More likely they'll do anything possible to obstruct you.

The best advice I could give is to keep pushing them, don't accept whatever they say at first.

Good luck with it anyway.

cheers

[Das]

Well its got to be worth trying. Bindex I live in a 70's ex-council house, 3 bed end terrace, double glazing, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and all bar the kitchen low energy lighting. I'm for ever going around turning things off etc. I did ask about having my meter tested when we were with Scottish Power but they told us if there was nothing wrong with it there would be a £100 charge so never did that.
Humourbash I normally take readings myself and submit them via their website and the meters are still read by a person from Accuread or G4S every 3 months, so even if I miss a reading they still get it right 4 times a year.

[chewy71]

blimey!!... I'm only paying £40 a month!!... and £45 for my offices!!!

[Ben50n]

Have you changed anything else in your household which may help to account for the reduced consumption??

Things like cookers/hotplates, microwaves, TV, hoovers, kettles, emmersion heater anything that is either high power rating or on a lot of the time?

Never leave any remaining cooking time on a microwave, it appears to keep the thing charged ready to cook and can use a lot more power then when it is switched off.