[KristyMum-]

Of course, generally you should check your bills anyway but heads up as this was my experience today.
It was a complete (the fellow I spoke to was quite pleasant, it's the facts of it that just crack me up)

Bill arrives in the inbox.
mmm... a little higher than usual. That's odd as we have been extra vigilant turning things off, we don't run aircon etc and the grid solar has been having a ball with the weather we've been having.
ok... off to check the bill.
scroll scroll...

hang on. There's no credit at all for the power we've generated from the solar...
ok. phone call.

all the usuals and then to the question. Roughly, this is how it went:
Me: I've just got a question about my bill. There's no credit on there for the power we've generated from the grid solar...
Synergy: oh... have you been getting credits before?
Me: yes, for the last few years it's been installed
Synergy: hmm... ok let me just have a look
Me: [waits]
Synergy: Um. It seems they didn't record the reading.
Me: oh... that's odd. both our use and output are read from the same meter.
Synergy: let me just check to see if there's an explanation why it wasn't read
[pause]
Synergy: it says they didn't record the reading because it was too high
Me: they didn't record the reading because it's was too high? Well... [quite calmly] following that, my reading for my bill is a little high, perhaps I'll just disregard that as well then. Look I'm not having a go at you personally, but you can understand where I'm coming from. Of course the reading is high... it's been very hot and sunny weather. Just because someone doesn't like the result, they can't just disregard it and 'not pay' for it.
Synergy Rep: yes, I understand that... [goes on to the next step]
(he was quite pleasant to deal with and as perplexed as I was I think)

the long and the short of it was that they read the meter, decided the reading for the amount of electricity we had generated was too high, so simply didn't record it and didn't credit/pay us for anything! No explanation, no note no nothing. Three months of summer solar-generated power and no credit whatsoever.
Perhaps hoping we wouldn't notice?

It cracks me up. If my meter use is high, I can't just disregard the result and not pay it because I don't like how high it is.

Result: Someone is coming out to re read (and actually record, this time) the meter. It may take about two weeks for them to come and re read it. The meter was read on the 6th March, so I'll read it again tonight 13th March and every night until they read it, to make sure the reading is at least roughly in line with those numbers.

Anyway. For those of you with Synergy and grid solar, it might be worth checking your bills to see if the same has happened to you.

Cheers

This post has been edited by KristyMum-: 13/03/2012, 03:53 PM

[Mintjelly]

How incredibly cheeky!! Glad you checked it

[~elle~]

Bloody hell.. what will they think of next.

[MichP]

K thats CRAZY! I AlWAYS check my bill, we've had issue before with not being correctly credited (never any problems charging us though!). At least they are coming to do a re-read, they initially wanted to charge us for the re-read for ours when I asked for it but then that there wouldnt be a charge if the originally reading was incorrect, which it was.

This post has been edited by MichP: 13/03/2012, 04:29 PM

[CallMeProtart]

WTF - classic!

[KristyMum-]

Mich how on earth do they get the amount wrong from the reading? That would worry me more in one way bc it's not always as obvious as our situation iykwim.

CallMeAl & Mintjelly - I know, right? I'm still saying it now and then 'the amount was too high so we didn't record it and didn't pay you'. It's really quite nuts if you reverse it as the consumer paying their bill - you defiantely couldn't say that!

~elle~ I don't know but I think I'll read the meter every week at the same time iykwim to kinda try and keep an eye on it.

How do you do yours Michelle? Do you regurlarly record yours? I always meant to but just didn't. I think if I keep the sheet on the fridge that might help...

This post has been edited by KristyMum-: 13/03/2012, 06:39 PM

[mama2carysbailei...]

Thanks for the heads up I will try to make sure I have a proper look in future, just glad with solar we are in credit.

[MichP]

K for the life of me I could not work out where their original figure came from. They were supposed to come and do the re-read while I was home so that they could tell me where the figure came from (although I doubt that they would have been able to) but they came a day early while I was at work (not happy when I found out as I waited around for them to come on the day booked.)

I used to note the readings every day but its dropped off a bit to a few times a week.

[creepersgonnacre...]

send them the bill!

[dsk72]

Haha - that's laughable. I'm with you, I decided not to pay your bill because I thought it was too high.

I read my meter each week and have a spreadsheet to record usage, generation and units sold and this gives me a bill prediction (just a simple average based on current consumption). The closer we get to billing time, the more accurant the bill prediction becomes.

(On a side note - it's interesting to see how our usage spike when hubby is home!)

Cheers