Extremely high bill

flas

Hi, recently in a new apartment, which is a tiny 1 bed apartment,just two of us who both work full time so dont be in the place from 6:30 in the morning until 5 in the evening,5:30 some evenings, and have spent the grand total of one weekend in the apartment in that time,thats from the friday morning at 6:30 until sunday night,around 7 we get back to it.
got our first bill and it was €150 for the 60 days, thought ok its high but its the first bill,maybe it was high with Christmas etc, but it still said it was a CR(customer read??), then today received our second bill, which was €200.53, which as you can imagine was quiet a shock! It wasnt an estimated bill, the landlord had said that he had got the meter read and it doesn't say estimate on the bill, or E anywhere,it says CR again.. this is where it got my attention as over the last 60 days we have been away for a good bit of it, when the big snow happened from the tuesday to the sunday we were not in the apartment,no heating no nothing on, then we were away for a four day weeknd, a 3 day weekend and another 4 day weekend, so a good two weeks of that time there was nothing powered on in the apartment, everything plugged out,except the fridge!

Called the landlord who explained that our meter is in the house at the front, which is a letting agents, so we dont have direct access.im going to ring and arrange to get in and have a look at our meter tomorrow afternoon, and also while im in there flip our mains switch and see if the meter continues to run. The same landlord owns 4 different properties all together beside each other, im thinking we are paying somewhere for electricity that is not ours. How would we know and what would we do if it is the case someone else is using electricity from our shoe box apartment.

Our old apartment was easily two,maybe three times the size of the one we are in now with old storage heaters and never ever had this problem with bills so high, highest would ever have been €120, during winter and we would have been in it a lot more,every weekend etc.

It seems completely out of the ordinary.

Sorry for such a long post, I just want to investigate it and know what exactly to look for. Thanks for your time

Electric Ireland: Brige B

Hi there,

Thanks for your message.

If you wish to confirm that you are being billed for the correct usage at your premises, then we recommend that you can confirm the meter reading at the meter in the property against the meter reading on the bill, making note of the RM Serial number on the meter, which is also shown on the bill.

If the RM Serial Number on the meter does not match the RM Serial number on the bill, then it may be possible that you are being billed incorrectly.

This could be caused if there was confusion regarding which meter belonged to which property, particularly if all four properties mentioned are registered in the landlord's name, and in a similar area.

To confirm is the account in your name? If so, could you please send us a private message with the following details?

• Your full name
• Your address
• Your account number
• Your telephone number or date of birth
• Confirmation you are the account holder (Yes/No)

We can then look into this matter in further detail for you.

If the account is not in your name, then we will be limited in the assistance that we can provide you with here. For Data Protection purposes we would need to speak with the account holder.

If the property is not in your name, then we would recommend registering it in your name. We can then discuss the usage at the property in more detail with you.

Should you have any questions regarding the above, please let us know.

Thanks,
Brige