Martin Lewis energy bills warning as some get bills after ‘two years’ | Personal Finance | Finance
Martin Lewis has voiced concerns over a practice he claims energy companies employ in the UK far too frequently that he insists should not be taking place. The money expert says he continues to hear of people being impacted despite regulations being in place to stop it occurring.
The personal finance expert is troubled about backbilling when it comes to energy bills in the UK. He says billing in the UK energy market is ‘incredibly complex’.
And he cautioned there are people being caught out all the time by energy suppliers when in reality they are actually entitled to protection. The issue was brought up as Mr Lewis addressed MPs at the latest hearing of the public accounts committee.
He told MPs: “We have a host of problems over billing. Billing is incredibly complex, especially in the energy world. We have the issue that you cannot be backbilled for more than 12 months. I think Ofgem [the UK energy regulator] has been cracking down on that, but I am still regularly contacted by people who have had two years of backbilling.”
Ofgem’s website states that its rules mean both domestic energy consumers and microbusinesses do not have to pay for energy used more than 12 months ago if you have not been told about what you needed to pay through a statement of account before; your Direct Debit amount was previously set too low to cover what you needed to pay; or you have not had an accurate bill for it before.
Mr Lewis told the hearing that despite these rules, people are still frequently told to pay up. He said: “If you do not know that you cannot be backbilled for over a year, you do not know that you can say, ‘I’m not paying for more than a year because it was your fault.
“There are technical rules – if you have behaved wrongly, it doesn’t apply – but, effectively, if they have not billed you for two years and it is their fault, they cannot bill you for longer than 12 months.
“But people do still get billed. One would surely think that in this modern digital world something is systemically going wrong in the companies in the way that we do this.”
Rules on back billing over 12 months in the UK
According to Citizens Advice, your supplier “cannot usually send you a bill for energy you used more than 12 months ago”. Its website says: “The back billing rules don’t apply if the supplier sent you a bill before the year passed and you didn’t pay. In this case, the supplier can still charge you.”
It advises those who find themselves in the situation Mr Lewis describes to write directly to their energy supplier. Citizens Advice says: “Tell them that you’re protected by the back billing rules and should only be charged for 1 year’s energy use.”
The website advises that if the company persists in attempting to charge you, you should lodge a complaint. This page on their website demonstrates how to do that.
