Inspector If you have an old school gas meter can you submit higher meter readings and pay already before the price hike? It’s sort of same logic with a prepayment meter in theory isn’t it. Would that be legal?
I find it hard to see how they’d justify claiming it was illegal. After all, my gas supplier has a long (30+ years) of sending estimated bills, at least one in every two bills and sometimes more, and a 100% (but see last two paragraphs) record over OVER estimating how much we’d use. Any sensible rationale for estimating my actual usage would be based on the readings for the same period in previous years, while being aware there are factors that would cause variances, like unusually cold (or warm) weather for the time of year, or even whether we were or weren’t going away on holiday during a given period. Lifestyle changes too, like whether kids had grown up and moved out. So year-on-year cmparisns will have a level of variances, though they could (if they wanted) compensate somewhat for weather/temp differences by averaging usage differences across a large enough sample of users.
Estimates are, clearly, exactly that. But when I get a 100% record of over-estimates and all that varies is how much they over-estimate by, and in those decades (with SAME supplier) not a single instance of under-estimating, I start to get very suspicious and not a little cynical about how those estimates came about.
So if it’s legal for them to always over-estimate, and then demand payment always in the favour of their cash-flow, it’s hard to see a logic for them moaning if they get gamed the same way back.
I could also argue it’s not even fraud. I mean, if I were (and I’m not, but hypothetically) over-estimating bills it will ONLY work in my favour if the assumption that prices rise in the future period that my over-payment refers to. While that currently seems likely, it isn’t guaranteed. An unexpected resolution to the causes of the rises could change that, and so could goverment action, if it happens. Over-estimating usage now, and pre-paying at that rate, in anticipation of yet uncertain price rises could end up costing more than just submitting accurate usage records.
What makes me rather annoyed is that my last gas bill, for the first time in my experience over those 3+ decades, actually has UNDER-estimated our usage. The inference? The next actual reading will correct that, and we’ll be expected to pay the new higher (assuming prices do go up, as predicted) rate for gas we used months earlier that they paid lower historic wholesale prices for. What a surprise. Not.
Do I think 30+ years of usage over-estimates, then given current pricing predictions the first ever usage under-estimate, is a coincidence? Well, dear reader, do you? So guess who submitted an actual reading when I saw the under-estimate? Yup. The same cynic that has been doing that every time they over-estimated, for most of that 30 years.
