|
|
Post by Alanović on Mar 22, 2017 10:12:44 GMT
Just got my gas/leccy statement for Dec-Mar, this is the second statement since getting a smart meter and not providing meter readings myself. The email it arrived with caught my eye - they are reducing my monthly payments from £147 to £78. Major double take. Surely some mistake? So I download the bill, and sure enough I'm £10 in credit, and that's over the heaviest usage months for the gas central heating.
I'm used to being roughly zero at the end of every year's usage, being in debit after winter and making that up in the summer. Usually spend £1500 a year, and change tariff every year to stay on the lowest one. Things never seem to change much, other than the general upward trend of cost. But now this. I'd expect to be a couple of hundred in debit at least.
So, I can only conclude one of two things. 1) Before the smart meter, I was being over charged chronically. 2) The smart meter isn't working properly and not reporting my usage fully.
I think I'd better give them a call, I don't want to find out in 5 years time that the meter's been under reporting usage and I've got a £5k bill to pay.
Weird. |
|
|
|
Post by crankcase on Mar 22, 2017 10:59:58 GMT
Being a suspicious old cynic, if ever there were a smart meter in my house I'd still be checking the readings on it to make sure it was sensible, just as I do every quarter now.
There won't be though, if I have anything to do with it.
As to direct debit, I've never gone for that nonsense, preferring to pay whatever I owe for whatever I've used four times a year. One reason is I don't trust them to set the monthlies at any sensible level.
|
|
|
|
Post by Humph on Mar 22, 2017 11:13:56 GMT
I had a letter the other day to tell me that this month is my last mortgage payment. I know this sounds a bit limp, but I'd not really thought it was so soon.
Yay.
I suppose !
|
|
|
|
Post by Alanović on Mar 22, 2017 11:20:08 GMT
An auspicious day, Humph. Mine's due in 2034.
:-(
(I am planning to bring that date forward.)
Don't understand your aversion to smart meters, crankski - you're usually the first in line with any new tech or gewgaw.
I've logged on to my "Detailed Usage" page for the last two years on the utility co's website, monthly usage seems to be broadly in line with previous usage. I expect I'll just have to make sure I up the monthly payment in the autumn to ensure I don't build up a deficit next winter. I prefer doing it on a monthly payment as it helps me budget, and I get a discount for direct debit. Keep an eye on things and what's the risk?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 11:35:21 GMT
>>I don't want to find out in 5 years time......
They can only go back 2 years.
|
|
|
|
Post by crankcase on Mar 22, 2017 11:53:38 GMT
An auspicious day, Humph. Mine's due in 2034. :-( (I am planning to bring that date forward.) Do, if you can. Made a conscious effort big effort to do that about five years ago, cleared it down eight years early without trying impossibly hard, and that has enabled my early retirement at 55. |
|
Ted
Full Member
Posts: 30 
|
Post by Ted on Mar 22, 2017 23:21:16 GMT
I'm like Crankie. I won't be having a smart meter and I pay my ute bills, on-line, when they come in. I'm not keen on standing orders, when MiL was relying on us in the end stages of her life, I intercepted all her mail as she was in the habit of shoving it all, unopened under the settee cushions.
One day, twp letters arrived from either leccie or gas with a bill for thousands of pounds. The second was to tell her her monthly payment had gone from 2 figures up to somewhere in the hundreds.
I exersized my Power of Attorney PDQ and cancelled all her SOs within the hour paying by cheque as future bills came in. The thousands owed was an incorrect account no, it turned out.
|
|
|
|
Post by Hofmeister on Mar 23, 2017 20:12:41 GMT
I had a letter the other day to tell me that this month is my last mortgage payment. I know this sounds a bit limp, but I'd not really thought it was so soon. Yay. I suppose ! Thats fabulous news, when does your pension kick in? |
|
|
|
Post by Humph on Mar 23, 2017 20:24:44 GMT
Bleh !!!!!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 9:11:07 GMT
The energy companies are remarkably bad at maths but always in their favour.
nPower always increased the direct debit I had with them to £47/month to cover £230 worth of gas/year. Getting the excess back was a real ballache with them.
When I switched that back to pay as you they've since put the daily standing charge up from 11p to 27p.
At the end of February when I was last in the UK a bloke arrived at the front door in a Bentley, wearing a tailor made suit, carrying the latest tech gadgetry. I asked him if I'd won the lottery.
"Dunno mate", came his reply, "I'm from nPower, come to read your meters".
|
|
|
|
Post by crankcase on Mar 24, 2017 9:35:39 GMT
I concur with the lack of trust. With mine (EDF), I can if I choose pay monthly on a DD, amount fixed by them. Or quarterly, also by DD, paying for just what I use.
The latter is my choice, and I pay no extra for paying quarterly - there's no difference financially up or down by choosing the monthly option.
However, if I log in online, I can see what they have set my monthly payment to be, if I were in fact doing it that way. For the last year or so it was sitting at about £50 ish a month (not far off for a year, even with the electric car, last year's electricity was about £550 total). Last month, for no apparent reason, that monthly figure displayed shot up to £260. A month. Who knows why?
Luckily, I can put that in the "oh right, how interesting" category as I don't use the payment method. If I did I'd have had to make calls/emails whatever to sort it out. And who knows if they wouldn't do it again two months later. No thank you.
As to "makes it easier to budget", I can't see that. You know what your bill is likely to be, you work out it to be £50 a month, you put that money in a separate place, even it if it's only mentally, and it's there when the bill comes in.
|
|
|
|
Post by Alanović on Mar 24, 2017 9:39:42 GMT
It's almost as if different ways of handling things suit different people and circumstances better.
|
|
|
|
Post by tyrednexited on Mar 24, 2017 9:53:52 GMT
..as it happens, I'm also with EDF on a tariff that expires at the end of May.
I've just renewed to another "fixed" year. They aren't quite the cheapest, but they are close, have no penalty for leaving at any time, and will retain my current tariff until it expires, only then replacing it with the new fixed one.
As expected, the monthly DD payment has gone up (quite a bit). In my case, I suspect that it is due to the imminent end of my billing year (in the month after the tariff change will be effected), with the "run-rate" being slightly above what I've paid to date (partially due to my son being with temporarily with us), and they do like to be square at the end of the billing year.
It has happened before, and having paid a couple of month's higher payments, the DD amount was reset by them fairly quickly to a more appropriate amount shortly afterwards.
However, whenever any amount has been significantly wrong, I've never had any issues with them immediately adjusting it to figures I've suggested, and that is what will happen if the figure doesn't fall for the new billing year.
|
|
|
|
Post by hobbit on Mar 24, 2017 16:12:34 GMT
We've been with Ebico (in partnership with SSE) for the last couple of years, and found them very reasonable. Received a letter from them saying that as SSE had increased their prices by 9% they intended to seek different options. Received another letter saying they have now teamed up with Robin Hood energy (Nottinghamshire)and as as result my Gas and electricity prices will drop by 4.5% (payment on receipt of bill) or 5.5% if we pay by DD.
Every little helps!
|
|
