See, this is how it is:
Quote:
Can my supplier estimate my accounts?
Suppliers should do their best to send you a bill based on an actual reading of your meter. If they cant access the meter, they can estimate the account, but they must be able to take an actual reading at least once every 12 months. It is your responsibility to make sure the meter is accessible. This relates to both gas and electricity.
Note that meter readers from Aurora Energy will not normally enter a property to read a meter if they cannot be satisfied that a dog on the property is unrestrained. This is for good reasons related to occupational health and safety.
An estimated bill is based on past use, taken from the same period over the previous year. This might not match the amount you're actually using. After you get an estimated bill, your next bill that is based on a meter reading may be higher or lower than you expected, depending on whether the estimate was lower or higher than your actual use.
If a bill is estimated, this must be clearly identified on the bill.
Quote:
Can a supplier bill me back past the current period?
Yes, it can issue an account for an undercharge or a catch-up bill.
In the case of an electricity supplier,there are limits on how far back the supplier can go. These are imposed by the Electricity Supply Industry (Tariff Customers) Regulations 2008.
An electricity supplier can recover an undercharge for a maximum period of one year before the date of discovery, even if the undercharging or non-charging has been for longer than that. This time period is only relevant for undercharging as a result of inaccurate metering of consumption. For undercharging which is the result of fraud or tampering with the metering equipment, there are no limits to how far the supplier can go back and recover.
To recover the amount of an undercharge, an electricity supplier must separately itemise the amount, state how the undercharge occurred and how it has been calculated. The supplier must allow you at least the same period to pay the account as the period in which the undercharge occurred for example, if the supplier is seeking to recover six months of undercharging, then they must allow you six months to pay the account.
Gas suppliers can also recover undercharges, but are not subject to such controls.
http://www.energyombudsman.tas.gov.au/m ... tions#four
...and here is where they get customers 'by the balls' as it were...
An 'estimation' is based on the trend of past electricity consumption, HOWEVER, if the past bills are all 'wrong' and they need to fix that and do a 'catch-up-bill', the 'estimation' can be anything they
want to estimate it at - do you get it?
In other words, the contract you sign that you'll be paying 'X cents per kilowatt' is a load of utter bulls***.
Because you NEED electricity to survive, they get off capitalising on that by using all of these 'loopholes' like the one I just showed you.
....and guess what? ALL electricity, gas and phone companies DO this. Contracts are not worth the piece of paper they are written on.
19 Jun 2014, 3:43 pm
