General Chat

I have just received a letter from Utilita who inform me that as I am £40 in credit they are going to reduce my d/d to £27.00 per month !!!!( I currently pay £70 and usage is that) Stupid people. Surely they must realise that with the price hike my d/d will need to be increased as the credit I have will soon disappear with the new tariff??

I waited on the telephone in a queue for 45 minutes before hanging up. I signed into my account online thinking I may be able to deal with the increase this way but no chance. It doesn't even tell me my current balance even though my bill is made up monthly.

My d/d goes out on the 20th so will just have to keep trying until I get through.

As far as I can see having the App on my phone & an online account is useless unless I want to make a payment!

Florence in the hebrides

As our unmarried daughter is on PIP, yesterday we had the wall insulation done, FOC.

Will get an idea at the end of the month to see if it makes a noticeable difference.

I've got a spreadsheet with a record of bills going back to 1995 so can track consumption and cost for the last 27 years (haven't moved house in that time).

Definitely. Fingers crossed for you :-)

tyanks von its a pain isnt it

Maddie we had a similar thing happen to us. Our monthly bill doubled but as the

increase was so much we had paid off the deficit in a short space of time. As we then

had a large sum in reserve they recalculated the monthly bill.
They refunded the surplus amount.
I do hope they manage to resolve it soon as it’s a worrying time for you.

well looks like im stuffed but still not happy

Re: Utility Warehouse uw.co.uk form submission
maddie mederson
Fri 25/03/2022 13:58
so why does your explaination differ from this e-mail i received

I am so sorry for the delay in sending this email. The reason for the elec deficit of over £1000 is because of what the elec meter reader gave us on the 15th of Feb of 42330. Last read we got on 30th of Sept was 39202. Which means that we have underestimated your usage and this is a catch up bill between those dates.

We are aware that you are ona budget plan, so your budget plan went from to £345+ per month. If you are questioning about the usage, I have sent a link to you about energy efficiency advice about electricity appliances. https://uw.co.uk/legal/energy-information/efficiency-advice

nothing makes sense
M.D.Mederson


From: UW
Sent: 25 March 2022 13:18
Subject: Re: Utility Warehouse uw.co.uk form submission


Good afternoon Mrs Mederson,


Thanks for getting in touch with us and I apologise for any delay in our response to you. We've been receiving higher volumes of contact than usual and are working hard to get back to everyone as quickly as possible. I tried calling you to discuss this and am sorry that we were unable to speak.


I'm sorry to hear that you've had a catch up bill following a recent meter reader visit. I can see that at the end of January we estimated your electricity usage to be 31314 and you had paid up until this amount of consumption. The meter reader recorded 42330 which is a difference of 10,916 units which have been back billed as far as September 2019 and the various rates that were on offer during this period of time (please see attached bill).


I'm really sorry for any shock this may have caused you and can completely understand your concerns. I've gone ahead and raised a formal complaint on your account under reference number 0313531. We really appreciate and value your feedback so will make sure this is sent over to the management team for review. We're unable to credit the usage as this is legitimate energy that has passed through the meter and consumed by the household. I have however applied a £25 gesture of goodwill credit to the account as an apology and understanding of the shock this may have caused you.This has closed the complaint on the basis that you can reopen it if you're not happy with what we've offered you today.


We're unable to change a bill that's already been printed and we're unable to reduce a budget plan amount any lower than the average usage or if there's a deficit. The system won't allow this as we'd be potentially putting you further into debt if we were to and we have a duty of care to all of our customers to best avoid this from happening.

maddie

Flowenergy have just doubled our dual fuel, monthly payment to £153.88 a month. It's not as bad as some, but we have a modern 3 bed bungalow with insulation in the walls, floor and loft, double glazing etc but we have never had an annual bill over £1000 before! Hubby likes it warm, hates jumpers (that may have to change!) so heating is on a lot. I think an obvious saving for us is to switch bedroom radiators off till the evening, get one of those inflatable bags to block the lounge chimney, as we don't use the gas fire in there, and maybe get a slow cooker?

Maddie said she was on a budget plan(8/3)

Also if you are on a budget plan, are there credits for the monthly amount you pay on the account from last Sep?

Maddie, just a thought, going back to your last bill, was it paid in full or was a balance carried forward? Do you pay by monthly d/d or do you settle each month? Just wondering if there was an outstanding balance owing?

Florence in the hebrides

no i came to something like that and thought i was going doolally
i asked them for a break down of their calculatons so we shall see
thank you for your help, im not going mad
maddie

I have a partial Electric statement for 40 days of 360kWh at 19.695p (£0.19695) per kWh = £70.90 on the bill - and also me using a calculator. The standing charge for 40 days was an additional £9.18 (40 days at 22.964p per day or £0.22964)

So you have 42330 - 39202 = 3128 kWh x 19.695p per kWh

3128kWh x 0.19695 per kWh = £616.05

Then Standing charge for 138 days at (lets use my cost as I don't know yours)

138 days x 0.22964p per day = £31.69

Total 616.05 + 31.69 = £647.74

Even Tripling that for whatever reason doesn't make your total, only £1943.22 !!!!!!!!

Am I wrong? Maybe my Maths is a far too distant memory?

help please
now got a breakdown that means nothing to me
however they have said my last meter reading was 30/9/2021 39202
meter reading in15/02/22 42330
kwh charged 3128 at 19,695
how does that equate to a bill of £1979.42

thank you
maddie

Gwyn, mine came last week and I notice the £150 had been credited against the balance. Also mine doesn't start until May, so this next bill is over 9 months instead of 10 but....mine has gone up by £18 and that includes our water & sewerage as we dont get separate bills. In all its not too bad for me. I am in Band B

Florence in the hebrides

..........and now the Council tax notification letter has arrived :-(

Interesting article in MOS which also seems to say that either staying on the variable rate or fixing is a gamble either way.

The fixed rate deals they quoted go from about £3200 to £4447. I expect they’ve already changed.

You are right, Names. I don’t pay by bankers’/standing order, so what I ought to have written is that I set my monthly payment online then the provider asks for that amount from the bank. It is still set for the monthly amount I have paid until now.

Sorry if I am misunderstanding, but you can't do anything about your DD without asking the power provider to do it for you.

Yes, Belle, we, too, buy gas and electricity from the same supplier and I'm not sure that I can be bothered dealing with two different energy companies anyway. (Perhaps I ought to check though.)

I've done a second comparison and our current supplier is still coming out on top for dual fuel so I am about to sort check the cost of separating gas and electricity. If the costs are similar I shall stay our current supplier although I shall not alter my DD to exactly what was suggested because of receiving £100 back in the summer and being £190 overpaid in January.

OH and I will discuss it this weekend - as he is hard of hearing, I am usually the one who deals with everything in case there is a phone call.

As I mentioned at the outset, I'm with the same energy supplier for both gas and electricity. Although on the standard variable rate (SVR) I was on a Plan that finished in October each year. At that time the Company would always send me a letter telling me what the fixed rate annual amount would be so that I could make an informed choice as to whether to fix it or stay on the SVR. For the last two years I have compared the two and it was always cheaper for me to stay on the SVR I think it's because it is just me in the household; if it was a family of four it might have been worth my while :-)
I expect the fixed rates have now gone up accordingly, so SVR is still most probably the cheapest for me although fixed rates do give you peace of mind :-)