Meter mix up brings rebate

A SIDFORD woman has received a �1,500 gas bill rebate after a meter mix-up left her being charged double what she should have been.

Pat Whittaker, of Brookside, School Street, had her meter changed seven years ago and switched from British Gas to Southern Electric in 2006 to get a cheaper deal. But the bills kept rising.

Pat said: “Last winter was the crunch time; they wrote to me to say they’d put the monthly direct debit up to �100. We became paranoid about putting the gas on.”

She contacted Southern Electric to question the hefty bills. “I told them we must have a gas leak, they said keep an eye on the meter,” she said.

It turned out the company was still charging on the old four dial meter rather than the new five dial one.

A Southern Electric spokesman said: “When we took over the supply we did it in good faith on the information we’d been given, but the previous supplier had failed to update the meter serial number on the national database. As soon as the problem was highlighted to us we issued the rebate.”

He advised customers to check their bills against the meter readings.