Woman shares how she cut her energy bill by £1,000 and urges others to do same
One woman has shared how she managed to get her energy bill down by nearly £1,000.
The woman told the Extreme Couponing and Bargains Facebook group that she managed to reduce her bill down from £1,550.75 to £593.53.
It was the first time she posted to the Facebook group of two million members and said she wanted to share her story as she thought it might help someone else struggling with the same problem.
She told the group that she was currently with E.on energy for both her gas and electricity and a direct debit set up.
She added: "To be honest, I just left my account to it."
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The Facebook user checked her energy account and saw that her bill was showing around £1,229.
Two weeks later she checked again and the price had skyrocketed by £300 and her account was showing her a bill for around £1,550.
The E.on account said the readings had come from the woman's smart meter however after checking her gas meter, the poster found that E.on had overestimated her gas bill by over 900 units.
The E.on customer looked into the issue and found that her standing charge was much higher than the maximum that can be charged by Ofgem.
In the post, she wrote: "I emailed them because when I looked into it their standing charges and charges per kw were waaay higher than the maximum that Ofgem shows.
"I know nothing about this I just googled it and it says what the maximum charges should be for gas and electric."
The energy regulator Ofgem says the standing charge has been capped at 46p for electricity and 28p for gas for customers on "default tariffs" and paying by direct debit.
Although she did not share what her standing charges were, she claim the energy firm was adding daily charges of £11 even when she was not at her property.
She also threatened to contact the energy ombudsmen about the situation.
After this, she received the good news that her bill was to be reduced.
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She said: "I’ve just got my new bill generated and it’s gone from £1550.75 to £593.53. So if you think your bill is wrong, it probably is! That’s nearly £1,000 difference - I hope this helps someone."
Her Facebook post has currently received nearly 3,000 likes and has garnered 756 comments.
A large number of the comments were from others who had been through the same experience, some asked for help as they were currently going through the same and others thanked her for sharing.
One Facebook user commented: "Well done you, that’s amazing, but if you’d just left it, look how much more you would have paid.
"It just goes to show that we all need to be aware of the prices that we are paying thankyou!"
One wrote: "Thank you I was also discussing this matter with my husband. We have been away and my smart meter showed the weekly usage which did not make sense, how could it be so much when we’ve not been in the property? So I said this is bloody fraud."
Another added: "I think the more people that know about this the better!! Thank you."
If you have a complaint with an energy company your local ombudsman may be able to help you with advice. You can find their website here.
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