Electricity Meter Mix Up

PGL

I live in a 2-storey duplex, while there is a single storey apartment above us on the third floor. There's three of us living in the duplex while one person lives in the apartment above us. Both of our electricity meters are positioned side by side outside our front door on the ground floor.
Here's the thing: our electricity providers have been reading the wrong meters i.e. I have been getting billed for the apartment's usage, while our neighbour has been getting billed for our usage. Our neighbour spotted this error, when she noticed that her bills were much too high for one person. She got in touch with the ESB about the mix up with meters, however they have not been in touch with us. Our latest bill strangely lists both our meter and our neighbours, but all other previous bills had our neighbours meter number.
Anyway, in a nutshell, we have been underbilled for quiet some time, while on the flip side, our neighbour has been overbilled.
Does anyone know what is going to happen in this scenario? The fact that our meter number now appears on our bill suggests that ESB are making moves to resolve the mistake. However is there a possibility that we could be back billed for our under-payments? What are our rights in this situation? As far as I see it, the mistake lies with the ESB who got the meter numbers mixed up from day one.
Any advice is much appreciated!

Stoner

move from electrical to ESB CS

Electric Ireland: David

Hi PGL,

I'm sorry to hear of the mix-up. As soon as we are informed of such situations (by one or other of the customers involved, as is usually the case) we arrange for an ESB Networks technician to go out to the premises to investigate.

Until confirmation from ESB Networks is received, confirming that a problem does indeed exist, we would not be in a position to advise the other affected customer(s). As you can appreciate, we would not want to alert customer(s) only to alarm them. When we have the facts at our disposal, we can then settle the situation in an appropriate manner.

PGL wrote:

However is there a possibility that we could be back billed for our under-payments? What are our rights in this situation?

See our terms and conditions, section 3c and 3e in particular. However, please remember that we make every effort to accommodate customers in accordance with their individual circumstances, and if a customer is retrospectively billed for any reason, we would not always expect payment in full up front (and, on the flip side as you say, we would not withhold a credit if one were due).

Please feel free to PM me your account details if you would like me to look into the matter further for you.

Thanks,

David.