Issues with AGL's billing, meter reading, & customer service

I hope you will be publishing a warning for the next occupant! Perhaps leaving a note somewhere they will find it as well as formally lodging the issue with the agent/owners.

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Yes. The owners are planning to move back so we’ll be reminding them of the problem when we leave. I had contacted the previous tenants too. They were using bill smoothing was what they told me.

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I guess I should have twigged sooner, and I see the suggestions are all here one way or another! I have established that 1)the meter number is different to the meter number on the bill, and 2) the meter reading is completely different to that shown on the bill (on 24 Feb this year the bill showed the reading (end reference) as 9618). As you can see in this recent photo here in May it’s 8150! I think AGL may finally be taking my complaint seriously now that I have pointed these things out to them. But just a question in re the NMI - which is the NMI quoted on the bill. Is it normal to have it written on in Texta like this? Thanks.

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Pleased you seem to have identified what is probably a long standing billing error. The one in textra is curious and as unprofessional as one could expect, but that NMI is eleven digits. From Ausgrid

In Ausgrid’s network, it ranges from 41020000000 to 41049999999.

and on that basis it seems dinkum.

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It’s finally pleasing you can have a way forward and what is a very direct illustration of the likely cause of the billing discrepancies.

I think this type of smart meter is used all over. It is the same as those I have installed in Qld.

Both of ours have a sticker with a service provider’s ID printed and a hand written permanent texta NMI number appropriate to Qld. I guess the installer is issued a meter at random from stock and separately an NMI number for the intended premises. I recollect one installer recording both the meter serial number from the bar coded meter manufacturers label as well as the NMI.

At a rough guess the meter reports over the mobile network using an internal code based on the meter serial number. This would need to be separately matched at the other end to the NMI assigned to the meter.
I observed no action to enter the NMI into the physical smart meter at install, and watched as the installer wrote the assigned NMI on the meter after it was up and running! Plenty of scope for a big FU!

P.S.
The big FU may actually be with the energy distributor who at least in Qld is the one who installs and operates the metering. The retailer is at arms length, although you would expect they would ask you to check the numbers match as a first cause in considering any complaints?

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Thanks once again. The first time I complained the provider (AGL) told me that they had checked with the supplier (Ausgrid) and that the billing information was correct. Yes, they seemed to see that as the end of their responsibility. But this time round, now that I have more information and following a visit by an electrician, I hope they take it further and sort it out.

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Well, finally, good news!! AGL has finally admitted that they were charging us for the wrong meter (and it has only taken two and a half months and all of your help here, an electrician’s visit…). Our original bill to the end of February, after discounts, was $448.58. Turns out it should have been $74.84 (and, as I tried to tell them, we were not averaging 19kwh a day). Bit of a difference there. Our second bill, just now, was $111.37. End result? We are still in credit to AGL for more than half of the original bill.
Once again, thanks for your help and advice, and thanks for listening.

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It was a pleasure to help and always great to know about a good outcome. They would probably struggle to accurately determine the initial reading of your meter when you moved in since they did not know it existed. Have you considered asking for compensation from being improperly billed against a nebulous baseline? Nothing ventured nothing gained! It could be so simple as an AGL themed dartboard or better, additional account credit.

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Ha, ha! AGL dartboard…there could be a market. We’re just happy to have it sorted and to have had an apology…with a credit balance.
But if we get a bill for the electrician who came, I’m thinking of asking him to sort it out with AGL.
An added bonus is that my husband has now become interested in shopping around for energy. Long years of loyalty to AGL didn’t guarantee any special treatment when a problem arose.

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Hi there. We’ve just realised that we’ve been overcharged by AGL for electricity since 2013. After months of arguments and AGL not doing anything to address the issue, we finally managed to get a new meter and already we are seeing a huge decrease in our supposed usage. We’ve finally (hopefully) got an investigation launched. I’m wondering if this has happened to anyone else and whether it’s likely we’ll get refunded for 7 years of massive overcharges?

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I guess it may depend on when you commenced your complaints about the over charging?? Could you prove that it was 7 years old or only more recently did you become aware?

I think 7 years might be a bit hard unless you could show they were aware of your ongoing 6 or 7 years of complaints and the reasonings behind your claims. Engaging with a Lawyer particularly one who is familiar with such long term issues may be worthwhile to gauge chances of success.

As to people having problems with their meters in fact my mother and father did many years ago and the meter was defective and was replaced but I think they only got about 6 months of adjusted usage credited. There has been mention on this site about meter problems but I’m not sure that many were about over-reading ones.

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Thanks for your reply. We’ve been having some really high bills this year, because they’ve been estimating our usage and adding a 30% increase each quarter! It’s so dodgy. So I decided to do a very thorough review of all the bills which is where I discovered our 2 person household is apparently using the same daily amount as a 7 person house ! So we’ve just told them we believe we had a faulty meter. I just wonder where they have a responsibility to proactively contact high energy users and give them tips to help reduce their bills ! That way we may have picked this up sooner.
I realise it’s our responsibility to analyse our bills but it still, you’d hope your provider would be able to see outliers and be a bit proactive.
We’ve only just discovered this issue, so it will be interesting to see how they respond. Our expectations are low based on our interactions to date. Happy to provide an update if you’re interested.

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My previous and present suppliers both have this information on each bill in this format.

Jan
image
Aug
image

The average usage is adjusted for each monthly invoice.

AGL’s sample bill apparently has this presentation.

image

Some utility companies have limited historical bills on your account website, or if you have your historical bills, you should see trends regarding how your use tracks your locality and if it has gone off relatively recently, that should show up also. All points for discussion with AGL as may be appropriate.

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Thanks Phil. Lucky we have our paper bills from 2013! But yes our fault for not checking this! Since we have our new meter we have gone from daily usage of about 84 to under 20! So that would indicate our old meter was faulty and I guess what I’m hoping is that we can show this has been the case since our first bill 7 years ago!

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Substitute AGL for RACV and Gas Bill for insurance and I have almost exactly the same issue except that I had the DD going for some time before it went wrong. Many times I was told it was sorted, I kept all the references and they kept saying it was OK until I got a disconnection notice so I was obligated to pay directly or else get cut off. Definitely not a bank problem as all other DDs work correctly. And on top of all that the Resolution Centre which is quite close here in Adelaide is closed to the public with the Covid excuse. Distinctly unhappy with AGL but the alternative <Origin is apparently no better

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Welcome tot he community @peter.hart

Since individual companies are each more or less competent in various ways I moved your post to this topic extolling some wonders of being an AGL customer.

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Couldn’t believe the disgusting behaviour by a customer service person when advising closing account to go to another provider. Boiled down to blatant bullying (or attempts to). We may have considered returning at some point, depending on the discounts and deals going, but now, no way… they need to train their overseas staff better or get rid of them. No amount of discount will get us back with AGL. Not sure where bullying every got positive results.

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Hello and welcome to the forum.

If you care to read through this thread you will see that you are not alone in the way you feel about AGL.

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Solar Saver plan from AGL

I am amending my previous post (apologies) as it was in error - there is a saving.

You get to export up to an average of 14 kwh each billing period (say 30 days) and make 4.8 cents more than other plans they have (10 cents per kwh versus 5.2) . In return your daily service charge is 6 cents more ($1,31 versus $1.25). This means that if you export at least 1.25 kwh daily you should not lose. If you export the maximum of 14 kwh daily for 30 days you would get $20.16 more for the feedin but the supply charge would only be $1.80 more for the month. There are other differences in the billing that make it hard to estimate what saving are possible as prices change with times/seasons apparently.

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Not unique to AGL, but solar does appear to be a rip off because once you have solar the rates go up and they return some of it as a FiT. The money saved is often limited to what one uses of their own solar output unless they are located in comparatively cloudfree regions.

Many of the plans are sneaky as you discovered. It pays to read the fine print and often costs not to read it. If one keeps a spreadsheet of actual use and plugs in new plan details one catches the slights of hand during comparisons and not after switching.

For info which state are you in, and did you use a comparison tool such as https://compare.energy.vic.gov.au/ (not iselect, comparethemarket etc that are operated by the companies for their own benefit)?