Airtricity bills - complete joke.

CiniO

I switched my electricity to Airtricity last year on 3rd of July 2011.

My average electiricy use is usual at about 15 units per day, which coresponds to less than 1000 units every 2 months. That was the case for the last 5 years unchanged, and still is.

All was grand until my bill at 23 July 2012 (for period between 23rd May to 23rd July)
I submited a meter reading on 13th July in the evening. (customer reading)
In bill from 23rd July my reading was acknowledged, but they also included actual reading which must have been done by electricity guy on 12th July (a day before).
Here's the tricky part - he must have done it in the morning of 12th, while I did mine on 13th in the evening.
Also probably all washing was done then and drying, which resulted in difference between those readings of 46 units. And since then, that's what their automatic billing system assumes is our average daily usage - 41 units.

Problem is, that for 1 year from time of switching I was on cheaper tariff (so this was meant to be until 3rd July 2012).
Therefore my fill from 23rd July (for period 23May to 23July) was meant to have most units counted on cheaper rate.
Unfortunately they counted over 1000 units at new higher rate and only 185 units at old cheaper rate.
So according to them, I used 185 units between 23rd May and 3rd July, and then over 1000 units from 3rd July and 23rd July.
I thought this was ridiculous, and gave them a call.
After about 5 calls (total time of call over 1.5 hours including being put on hold) and reissuing bill twice case was sorted. (they had to reissue bill twice as by first time their computer system couted it even worse.
Anyway case was sorted and my bill was changed, which made quite significent differnce in bill value.

2 months later I had another issue again related to fact that they assumed my average daily use is 41 units like counted before, and therefore last few days after I provided my customer reading was counted on this rate.
I again gave them a ring, and he said this was too late to change direct debit by now, so he issued corrected bill and said difference will be deducted from my next bill.

And finally just today I got my next bill.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it - nearly 400 euro.

I have reminders set up on their web page to let me know about bill coming date so I can provide customer reading beforehand.
For some reason those reminders (mobile text + email) didn't work this time, and I only realised myself bill was coming and provided my customer reading 2 days ago. It look like this was too late, and my customer reading was not acknowlegded in the bill that arrived today.
Allright - I'll take it on my chest - it's my duty to provide customer reading in time, even though I was meant to get reminder which I didn't - but forget about it.
What happened actually in current bill - they calculated all period with the previous average of 41 units per day, giving usage of nearly 2500 units during last 2 months, while in fact I used less than 1000.

I'm sick of it. I'm not going to waste any more money and time for being on hold on their customer phoneline.

If they aren't able to maintain their automatic billing correctly, than it's their problem.

First thing on Monday I'm going to switch to different provider.

However my question is - can I go to my bank and cancel direct debit from Airtricity to make sure they won't take incorrectly counted bill?
I just want to wait until switch will go over, and Airtricity counts correctly how much I owe them, then I'm going to pay it.

Would I put myself in any sort of trouble by cancelling direct debit?
I just want to save myself another hour on the phone with them.

Thanks for replies.

slimjimmc

A DD mandate is simply the method you use to make payments. It's your mandate not Airtricity's so you can cancel the DD mandate at any time and the bank are obliged to comply despite whatever noise they might make. Cancelling DD does not cancel any debt you may have, it just means you pay using a different method.

The only issues I see with cancelling the DD is you might lose any discount given for choosing that payment method, but as you're leaving Airtricity that's not really an issue.

Keep an eye out on your account though. If Airtricity is a DD+ originator they might reopen the DD without your written instruction even though they're not meant to.

You should inform Airtricity in writing that you've cancelled the DD so that they can update their billing system and don't keep trying (or reopening).

CiniO

slimjimmc wrote: »

A DD mandate is simply the method you use to make payments. It's your mandate not Airtricity's so you can cancel the DD mandate at any time and the bank are obliged to comply despite whatever noise they might make. Cancelling DD does not cancel any debt you may have, it just means you pay using a different method.

The only issues I see with cancelling the DD is you might lose any discount given for choosing that payment method, but as you're leaving Airtricity that's not really an issue.

Keep an eye out on your account though. If Airtricity is a DD+ originator they might reopen the DD without your written instruction even though they're not meant to.

You should inform Airtricity in writing that you've cancelled the DD so that they can update their billing system and don't keep trying (or reopening).

Thanks for info.
That's what I'll do then. Inform bank to cancel DD. Send letter to Airtricity that I'm cancelling DD.
And I'll switch electricity provider, so new provider will take care of informing Airtricity of current meter reading, so they will have to issue new final invoice. (that's my understanding how it works)
Once I get it properly counted I'll pay it.
There's no way I'll let them take 400 euro from my account for electricy I didn't use.