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Why can't energy firms send correct final bills?
Philip Poulsom, 68, was sent a bill for £3,900 after meter readings by Scottish Power when the right sum was £661 - and he is not alone
Energy companies are repeatedly failing customers by not providing a prompt, accurate final bill, with complaints from customers soaring in the past two years.
Philip Poulsom had been a loyal customer of Scottish Power for eight years until a billing dispute sparked his decision to switch in June.
A meter reader visited the property and took final readings, which Mr Poulsom also noted down. The final invoice arrived several days later – and it came as a shock.
The bill for the previous three months totalled £3,899.88, according to the supplier, far more than Mr Poulsom’s typical energy costs for the year.
Mr Poulsom, 68, contacted Scottish Power by phone, email and postal letter but the amount was not altered and he received letters requesting immediate payment to avoid further “collection charges”.
Finally, on July 19 he spoke to a customer services representative over the phone, who asked him to provide his notes of the final readings. His final invoice was swiftly recalculated to £661.10.
“I was fortunate that my direct debit had already been cancelled when I decided to move, otherwise they could have raided my account,” said Mr Poulsom, who lives in Wiltshire, “and that I had noted the final readings myself.”
He said: “Scottish Power have neither acknowledged making a mistake, nor offered any explanation or apology for the anxiety that such a massive bill can cause.”
The Telegraph has launched an Energy Shambles Watch campaign to improve appalling customer service standards across the energy industry. The unnecessary stress that surrounds obtaining an accurate final bill from an energy supplier is further evidence of failings across the market.
The Telegraph’s consumer expert Jessica Gorst-Williams receives letters almost every day of the week from readers regarding problems with energy switching.
According to figures from the energy ombudsman, complaints around this issue have soared in recent years.
The number of complaints recorded so far for back billing, or 'catch up billing’, total 1,703 for the first six months of the year, more than the figure recorded for the whole of 2013, at 1,625. In 2012, there were 1,056 complaints.
There have been 4,242 complaints registered under 'no bill received’, up from 542 complaints in 2012. Complaints about inaccurate invoices total 2,150 so far this year, up from 1,289 in 2012.
John White, 89, received a notice of arrears from Co-operative Energy in June, more than a year after he switched from the supplier to SSE.
The supplier said it could refer the debt, totalling £119.35, to debt recovery agents if Mr White did not pay promptly. “I couldn’t believe it,” Mr White said. “I don’t like going into debt and had paid everything by direct debit to avoid this happening.”
He thought he had paid all outstanding bills in April 2013 and had not cancelled the direct debit authorisation to Co-Operative Energy.
His neighbour, Paul Tjaguns, wrote to Co-operative Energy to complain on Mr White’s behalf. Mr White, a retired art teacher from Darlington, also contacted the supplier himself and paid the bill in full. Mr White said Co-operative Energy did not respond to his request for an apology. “All in all, I am not enamoured with Co-operative Energy,” he said.
John White from Darlington, County Durham. Pictured with neighbour Paul Tjaguns
Ofgem rules require a supplier to take “all reasonable steps” to send a final bill within six weeks of a customer switching suppliers showing anything that is owed.
Furthermore, under its voluntary code of practice, suppliers can’t bill customers for energy used more than 12 months previously, as long as the customer did not pay due to a supplier error.
Ramsay Dunning, group general manager at Co-operative Energy, said: “We’d like to apologise to Mr White for any inconvenience or upset we have caused him in the way we have corresponded with him regarding his account.
“After we sent Mr White his final bill in May 2013, we advised him that we would take the full amount by direct debit. We failed to collect the direct debit and therefore his account went into arrears.”
Mr Dunning did not believe this case counted under the voluntary code, but the supplier has refunded the balance of £119.35 as a “gesture of goodwill”, in addition to £50 in vouchers.
Martin Lewis, the founder of consumer website MoneySavingExpert, has publicly clashed with supplier npower about customers who received “shock bills” months after switching supplier.
He told the Telegraph: “People who have budgeted carefully and believe their old supplier long closed get massive bill shock months later as the energy suppliers’ broken bill calculators catch up. This is simply unacceptable in a digital age.”
He said Ofgem should make sure a final bill is sent within three months to allow people to budget for the expense. “If energy firms miss this deadline they need to take the hit. The regulations at the moment effectively permit negligent incompetence. That’s not something that should be encouraged,” he said.
Scottish Power apologised for sending the £3,899.88 bill to Mr Poulsom.
A spokesman said: “The inflated bill was caused by a final meter reading being entered incorrectly. This was due to a human error and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. Mr Poulsom’s account has been corrected and by way of an apology, we have offered £30 compensation.”
Mr Poulsom said he would donate the compensation to charity Send a Cow.
money@telegraph.co.uk