Our gas bill for the quarter ending 9 May 2016 showed our gas consumption to have suddenly shot up almost three times compared to the corresponding period in 2015. From approximately 1600MJ the reported consumption went up to 4700MJ despite the fact that we had been travelling a lot in the period concerned.
I telephoned AGL and found out that bill was based on an estimate, not meter reading. Apparently the gas distributor in this area had not been providing meter readings for this period and so AGL simply issued bills based on the average household consumption in the suburb, not our consumption profile.
I provided my meter reading immediately and the bill was revised a couple of days later. The true consumption turned out to be only 1005MJ, far below our past averages.
Like electricity supply, which employs a common network of poles and wires by third party distributors, the gas supply system also employs a common network of piping, with each supplier delivering its products to the households contracted to them via these networks through meters installed and read by the distributors. Billing is based on the distributorsâ readings. When the readings are not provided, the power and gas companies use estimates.
Our neighbourhood is probably full of high gas consumers, including restaurants, for the average consumption to be so much. Obviously AGL prefers to overcharge than undercharge its customers, deliberately ignoring each
customerâs own consumption profile.
AGL might argue that the actual consumption figure would have corrected itself on the next bill once meter readings were again provided by the distributors, but what if this had happened to a poor pensioner on a very tight budget and couldnât pay the first, bloated, bill?
Something ought to be done about such opportunistic, exploitative behavior.
