@dantheman Hi, take a manual meter reading and compare it with the latest bill and the previous bills, they are all available in your account online. Your high bill is obviously wrong and you should be able to spot what the error is from the readings. Then the next time you speak to SP you will have all the evidence in front of you. Make sure that the bill readings are marked actual and not estimated.
@dantheman Do you have solar panels? and could your ground source heating be affecting the meter readings? Both of these can be recorded as costs rather than benefits if not installed correctly. Faulty meters are rare but do happen occasionally. I agree SP are not quick in resolving such problems so I hope in your case they do try harder. Can you see when your meter is recording peak demand and relate it to any other factor? But you should not have to watch your meter 24/7.
@dantheman Seems you have a good case, but SP do not react to Community posts, so you have to stick to customer services. The Ombudsman or Ofgem will need evidence of disagreement before they can take up a case.
Note, Do you have a smart meter? If not SP will quickly agree to replace your conventional meter with a smart meter. They are very keen to hit their installation targets. This would confirm or otherwise that your meter is over recording. You could then claim back the over recording.
Has this situation recently occurred or are you in a new property? Can you fix a point in time when you think the meter started over recording? Finally are your bills in line with using so many kwh? It is an outside possibilty that your statement of annual consumption is wrong and the actual billed amounts are more in line with average consumption. You could look back over your bills (all on line and you do not need SP to send them to you) and from the quoted meter readings check your high annual usage. Each bill shows the meter readings and also gives a statement of total annual consumption at each point in time.
I know it is a pain to do all this checking, but as you said SP admitted a Transposed Rate, and it could be that this whole problem is not a meter issue but human error at SP??
@dantheman Scottish Power probably never flagged it up because you never queried the bill over 3 consecutive years.... must have been in the region of £3000 - £4000 a year before you added the gas bill.
Just a word to the wise. When you contact the Ombudsman, the first thing they'll do is ask if you've followed the SP complaints process fully, and/or received a deadlock letter from them - my experience of the OS is that they're reluctant to do anything unless the customer has followed procedure to the letter.
Also, I wouldn't have the meter repaired or replaced (by SP or anyone) until you have acknowledgement from them in writing that they accept the meter is faulty. That way, you have possession of the faulty meter until a refund of your over-payment has been agreed.
Lastly, when smart meters are installed in non-standard installations - such as ground source, turbines, solar panels and the like - they have particular fitting needs so as not to record electricity generation as usage, as Davc said above. Personally, I wouldn't have smart meters put in if I had a non-standard setup.