Energy Prices

[Clown Job]

 

 

[MONKMAN]

The same right wing arseholes who belittle those on benefits, are demanding the government intervenes with financial support to help pay the bills.

[mizfit]

8 minutes ago, MONKMAN said:

The same right wing arseholes who belittle those on benefits, are demanding the government intervenes with financial support to help pay the bills.

Whilst social media tends to be an echo chamber I’ve noticed over the last few days in increase In people calling out the government and energy companies. Do wonder if the tides turning and the next facist b*****d in Downing Street will be forced into something in a desperate attempt to keep their job.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

1 hour ago, MONKMAN said:

The same right wing arseholes who belittle those on benefits, are demanding the government intervenes with financial support to help pay the bills.

It's just the COVID situation magnified. Folk who were ordinarily nowhere near the benefits system were now having to claim UC (or try to) and often going mental at how little support the benefit system actually provides. Some of the calls we got were bonkers, especially through the summer of 2020. 

 

 

[carpetmonster]

3 hours ago, Clown Job said:

 

 

 

[Arch Stanton]

8 hours ago, mizfit said:

When do we start burning the businesses they Tory b*****ds in government are investing in? 
 

When do we start burning the Tory bastards in order to keep warm?

[GiGi]

Tories love the handouts patter. As if it's their fucking money and they're generously dishing it out.

It's taxpayer money, and taxpayer money that is currently being used to keep that fat c**t Johnson stocked in gold kitchen roll while refusing to actually do his job.

 

[Arch Stanton]

Paraphrased from a post on Twitter...

"The John Lewis 2022 Xmas advert is a family burning their clothes and furniture to create a fire. Upon the fire is the father, his limbs slowly roasting to provide food for his wife and children. All to the backdrop of a breathey female slowly regaling a version of D:Ream's "Things Can Only Get Better"".

[Al B]

Just had an email to say our bill for the quarter is ready. £600.74 for May/June/July with British Gas, having been switched over to them when People's Energy went tits.

3 bed semi with only the 2 of us living here, and obviously the heating hasn't been on once in that time period.

That doesn't seem right to me, but conveniently enough their website is unavailable due to maintenance, so I can't even look at the actual bill or my account to check it.

Quick question for the more learned amongst us....if I ever get on to their website....if I want to calculate the bill myself, is it basically just KwH x Unit price, plus Standing Charge x days in billing period, plus 5%?

Edited August 10, 2022 by Al B

[Left Back]

53 minutes ago, GiGi said:

Tories love the handouts patter. As if it's their fucking money and they're generously dishing it out.

It's taxpayer money, and taxpayer money that is currently being used to keep that fat c**t Johnson stocked in gold kitchen roll while refusing to actually do his job.

 

No idea about the gold kitchen roll but Johnsons job at the moment forces him to do nothing.  If he tried to make major spending commitments the civil service would f**k him off.

[Left Back]

2 minutes ago, Al B said:

Just had an email to say our bill for the quarter is ready. £600.74 for May/June/July with British Gas, having been switched over to them when People's Energy went tits.

3 bed semi with only the 2 of us living here, and obviously the heating hasn't been on once in that time period.

That doesn't seem right to me, but conveniently enough their website is inavailable due to maintenance, so I can't even look at the actual bill or my account to check it.

Quick question for the more learned amongst us....if I ever get on to their website....if I want to calculate the bill myself, is it basically just KwH x Unit price, plus Standing Charge x days in billing period, plus 5%?

Yes, unless you already owe them

money that they’re trying to claw back.

[Leith Green]

7 hours ago, GiGi said:

Tories love the handouts patter. As if it's their fucking money and they're generously dishing it out.

It's taxpayer money, and taxpayer money that is currently being used to keep that fat c**t Johnson stocked in gold kitchen roll while refusing to actually do his job.

Sunak said last night that there would be no more "handouts" (even though none of us have probably had the promised money yet anyway.

Truss - if possible, even more dense - said the way to deal with the energy price rises was tax cuts.................ignoring, of course, that about 50% of the population doesnt actually pay tax.

They really are thundercunts of the worst kind the tories.

Meanwhile in France, gas is capped at Oct 2021 costs, and electricity cant go up more than 4%

I dont acvocate violence, but riots in the next 6 months as food, fuel, heating and mortgage costs hit even harder.

Shambles.

[Al B]

6 hours ago, Left Back said:

Yes, unless you already owe them

money that they’re trying to claw back.

Cheers. Nope don't owe them anything, decided not to go with a Direct Debit as what they were after was nonsense, so we just pay for what we've used when we get the bill. The discount for paying by Direct Debit isn't enough to be worth losing control of the payments.

Their website also doesn't let you change your Direct Debit below their "recommendation". 

[HEY_SIDNEY]

8 hours ago, Al B said:

Just had an email to say our bill for the quarter is ready. £600.74 for May/June/July with British Gas, having been switched over to them when People's Energy went tits.

3 bed semi with only the 2 of us living here, and obviously the heating hasn't been on once in that time period.

That doesn't seem right to me, but conveniently enough their website is unavailable due to maintenance, so I can't even look at the actual bill or my account to check it.

Quick question for the more learned amongst us....if I ever get on to their website....if I want to calculate the bill myself, is it basically just KwH x Unit price, plus Standing Charge x days in billing period, plus 5%?

By the sounds of it, your opening read to start your account may be incorrect....or your latest reading to create the bill may be estimated.

Is the £600 for both gas and electricity?
If so thats £100 a month per fueland unfortunately theres also the chance that could be correct (elec more so than gas if you havent had heating on)

On the bill it should have your readings to show you how the bill is produced. All calculations should be on there. I'm not sure how BG work in terms of sending you bill or if its only available on your account via the website/app and you dont receive a paper copy.

Anyway its either the opening (change of supply) or latest reading for the bill that could be wrong.

Any more help drop a DM

[Al B]

Just as a wee update, finally got in to see the actual bill and breakdown and got to the bottom of it.

Although we're on quarterly billing, and it says YOU ARE ON QUARTERLY BILLING at the top, the bill is actually for 4 months and 7 days. Which is fine. I mean it's not fine it's fucking ridiculous...but in context, it's fine.

Also it seems the variable rate is variable as f**k! Which makes the bill more difficult to follow. They haven't calculated 1st April to 7th August, they have done 5 different calculations for 5 different time periods (some as short as 13 days), within that 4 month and 7 day period.

Honestly, if folk are on a quarterly billing cycle, send them a quarterly bill for what's been used in the corresponding quarter, don't make them have to forensically dig into it to find that you've actually billed them for some arbitrary time period!

[HEY_SIDNEY]

7 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So the problem is that unless you gave them regular readings just before they upp-ed the prices,  how did they knew what rate to apply to what usage?

Other than that it should still be easy enough to calculate what you should have been paying for that period and compare it to what you are actually paying.

They wont know what reads to use to apply to usage n they will have something called a Deemed Amended Calculator that will work our roughly what the read would have been on the date of the price change. Only way to do it, unless smart meter in property thats set up to take reads every half hour (the standard is monthly - you have to gain consent for it to be changed to half hourly), is to use that 'formula/calculator'

 

 

14 minutes ago, Al B said:

Just as a wee update, finally got in to see the actual bill and breakdown and got to the bottom of it.

Although we're on quarterly billing, and it says YOU ARE ON QUARTERLY BILLING at the top, the bill is actually for 4 months and 7 days. Which is fine. I mean it's not fine it's fucking ridiculous...but in context, it's fine.

Also it seems the variable rate is variable as f**k! Which makes the bill more difficult to follow. They haven't calculated 1st April to 7th August, they have done 5 different calculations for 5 different time periods (some as short as 13 days), within that 4 month and 7 day period.

Honestly, if folk are on a quarterly billing cycle, send them a quarterly bill for what's been used in the corresponding quarter, don't make them have to forensically dig into it to find that you've actually billed them for some arbitrary time period!

Diff calculations may be from the day you moved in to the day you called/interacted with them is one price, then when a DD is set up, they then take the % into effect, which changes price. This isnt backdated to when you moved it. Then the price increase. So theres 3 potential increase.

Then any potential change in tariff (i know you havent as you stated, but for anyone reading and have same problem it could be a reason)

[Left Back]

12 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So the problem is that unless you gave them regular readings just before they upp-ed the prices,  how did they knew what rate to apply to what usage?

Other than that it should still be easy enough to calculate what you should have been paying for that period and compare it to what you are actually paying.

Smart meter?

[Al B]

1 minute ago, oaksoft said:

So the problem is that unless you gave them regular readings just before they upp-ed the prices,  how did they knew what rate to apply to what usage?

Other than that it should still be easy enough to calculate what you should have been paying for that period and compare it to what you are actually paying.

Yeah we were well on top of that, made sure they got a reading on 31st March etc (although found out in May that they hadn't recorded it even though I had evidence of having submitted it, so I had to phone them and get that all sorted out retrospectively), and also regular readings in general.

In the end there's no issue and it all works out as it should, my only gripe is that at a time when many people are panicking about what their bill is going to be, and they know they are on quarterly billing, don't just send them an email with an amount owed on it, without any indication that it actually isn't a quarterly bill at all. (Their emails don't have your bill attached, just an amount owed, and you have to login to see your actual bill and any detail other than that. Which doesn't help when their website is down for maintenance half the time)

Either send me a quarterly bill and I'll pay it (we knowingly used the energy so I have no issues paying for it), or drop the whole "You are on quartely billing" thing and just say "you'll be billed whenever we feel like it"

In short, there might not be anything these companies can do about the charges, but they could certainly be a bit more helpful and have a bit more clarity. I'd imagine there are plenty people that an energy bill is double-dutch to.

[Al B]

6 minutes ago, HEY_SIDNEY said:

Diff calculations may be from the day you moved in to the day you called/interacted with them is one price, then when a DD is set up, they then take the % into effect, which changes price. This isnt backdated to when you moved it. Then the price increase. So theres 3 potential increase.

Then any potential change in tariff (i know you havent as you stated, but for anyone reading and have same problem it could be a reason)

Just to clarify, we've lived here for nearly 7 years, and have been with British Gas since last October when People's Energy folded. Actual readings are always submitted regularly, so we'd had bills from them prior to this one since we moved to them.

We've also never had a D/D set up with them. Apparently according to the bill, the Unit Price and Standing Charge went up on April 1st, then actually went down for a fortnight in late April and then back up again, so that's 3 separate calculations they have done just for that.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Al B

[Left Back]

4 minutes ago, Al B said:

Just to clarify, we've lived here for nearly 7 years, and have been with British Gas since last October when People's Energy folded. Actual readings are always submitted regularly, so we'd had bills from them prior to this one since we moved to them.

I was with an energy provider that went bust a couple of years ago (Our Power, before all the current shit show) and got switched to Utilita.  I'd had a bad experience with them previously so immediately started the process of switching away.  It took well over 6 months for them to actually sort out a final bill for me between Our Powers systems and Utilita's system so I could get away from them again.  Submitting regular readings still doesn't guarantee your bills are accurate I'm afraid.