Billing Basics

How often should my supplier send me a bill?

What information should be on my bill?

How and where can I pay my bill?

My latest bill is much higher than usual

How does my supplier estimate my meter readings?

What do the letters after the meter reading mean?

How can I provide my own meter readings?

I haven’t had a bill for ages – do I still have to pay?

What is the ‘super-complaint’?

How often should my supplier send me a bill?
Energy companies are under no legal requirement to produce bills at specific intervals. However, most consumers should receive bills from their supplier at quarterly intervals (whether they pay by monthly direct debit or quarterly standard credit).

If you pay for your gas or electricity by prepayment meter you can generally expect to receive a statement once a year to show how much energy you have used over that time. Even these may be based not upon actual meter readings but ones estimated by your supplier.

If you have an online account with your energy supplier you should expect to have online access to your statements and bills.

What information should be on my bill?
Every energy bill should contain some key bits of information for consumers. The main ones are as follows:

Contact details for the supplier.
Your customer reference number or account number – this should be prominent on the bill and should be quoted whenever you contact your supplier.
Your current outstanding balance is usually in bold type.
Your name and address.
The dates the bill covers.
Your last meter reading, and your new one.
How many kilowatt hours of gas or electricity you have used.
How much your supplier is charging you for each kilowatt hour of gas or electricity.
Your specific site supply reference number.
energywatch’s contact details should be on the back of your bill, so that if you have a complaint you can not resolve with your supplier, we can help.
Emergency contact details should you experience a loss of supply or have any other emergency.

How and where can I pay my bill?
There are a number of different ways you can pay your gas or electricity bill, and a number of different places you can do it. Most energy companies will accept payment by cash, cheque, direct debit, standing order, prepayment meter, credit or debit card, online or by payment cards at regular intervals.

You can usually pay your bill at your bank, by post to your supplier, online on your supplier’s website, over the phone, at a Post Office or at a PayPoint or Payzone outlet (this is a free service, for your nearest outlet call 0845 6020236 for PayPoint or 0845 7660111 for Payzone).

My latest bill is much higher than usual
There are two main reasons why your latest bill may be higher than usual.

Your supplier has billed you to an estimated reading (see below) that is higher than the actual reading, and has billed you to the higher amount. If this is the case you should contact your supplier straight away with the correct reading and ask for a corrected bill to be sent.
Your supplier has been billing you to estimated readings for some time and has now got the actual reading*, which shows that you have underpaid previously. If this is the case you are obliged to pay for the amount you have actually used. For this reason, every time you receive a bill (especially if estimated) you should check that the meter reading your supplier has used corresponds to the actual meter reading and contact the company if not. If you do this the chances of you receiving a much higher bill at a later date are much reduced.

If you do receive a much higher bill and you cannot afford to pay it all in one go you should ask your supplier to offer you a payment plan to enable you to pay off the debt in stages.

* Suppliers are only required to make ‘reasonable endeavours’ to read your meter once every two years, which means that the majority of your bills are likely to be to an estimated reading. This is why it always pays to check your bill against your meter.

How does my supplier estimate my meter readings?
Energy companies produce estimated readings by looking at how much energy you have used in the past at the particular time of year. If you have newly switched they will either produce a standard estimate or contact the data collector to provide them with past readings.

What do the letters after the meter reading mean?
There are a number of letters that appear after the meter reading on your gas or electricity bill. Some of the most common include:

(E) – this means your supplier has estimated the reading
(A) – this means your supplier has used an actual meter reading obtained by a meter reader
(C) – this means your supplier has used the reading that you provided (OR, occasionally, this can mean a ‘company estimated read’)
(R) – this means the reading is the final one from a meter that has now been removed
(N) – this means the reading is the first one from a new meter
(F) – Final meter reading when leaving a property, discontinuing a supply or switching supplier

Some suppliers may use different letters, though most use these ones and there should also be a key on your bill to explain what each letter means.

How can I provide my own meter readings?
All of the major energy companies have a dedicated phoneline you can use to provide your own meter readings. This number should appear clearly on your bill. Some companies will automatically send you a fresh bill based on your reading, others may ask whether you want a fresh bill or have different policies as to when they will or won’t send you a revised bill. Check with your supplier if you are in doubt.

I haven’t had a bill for ages – do I still have to pay?
Consumers are legally bound to pay for their utilities. However, the Limitations Act 1980 prevents charges being recovered if the electricity or gas was used more than six years ago. In Scotland this period is five years.

Suppliers should at least offer a payment plan that allows you to repay any debt over the same length of time that it has built up. In other words, if you have not had a bill from your supplier for three years then, when a bill does finally appear, you should be able to spread the repayments over three years. However, if you accept a payment plan then you will not be able to change your supplier until you have cleared the outstanding debt.

However, as a result of the ‘super-complaint’ submitted by energywatch in April 2005 to the energy regulator, Ofgem (see below), energy companies have been told that, as of July 2006, they should no longer bill for any energy used by consumers more than two years previously where the company themselves has failed to provide a bill. As of July 2007, energy companies will be expected not to bill for any amount that dates back longer than a year.

What is the ‘super-complaint’?
Like other consumer watchdogs, energywatch has some statutory powers. In this case, under the Enterprise Act of 2002, energywatch can submit a ‘super-complaint’ to Ofgem about any aspects of serious concern in the energy market.

energywatch believes that, too often, energy companies’ performance when it comes to billing their customers is poor, and can sometimes cause serious hardship. We believe that consumers have a right to expect gas and electricity bills that are:

Accurate;
On time; and
Clear.

energywatch therefore submitted a super-complaint to Ofgem on billing. When it made its decision Ofgem set out three requirements on energy suppliers:

By July 2006 they have to set up and fund an independent body to resolve disputes between individual companies and consumers. This body will have the power to award compensation to consumers who have received particularly poor service.
From July 2006 they should no longer seek payment from consumers where they have not billed a customer for two years. From July 2007 this period should reduce to one year.
By July 2006 they should have reviewed the terms and conditions of the contracts they offer to consumers to make sure they are as simple as possible, comply with consumer rights’ legislation and are not biased in suppliers’ favour.

energywatch, as the gas and electricity consumer watchdog, will monitor suppliers’ progress in implementing these requirements to make sure they comply with both the spirit and the letter of the judgement for the benefit of consumers.