Thousands of UK gas customers 'overcharged due to metric and imperial measure mix-up'

Energy suppliers have made the mistake of reading imperial meters as metric, and vice versa (file photo)
Shutterstock / angelo gilardelli
Hatty Collier15 August 2016

Thousands of gas customers in the UK have been overcharged by energy suppliers making a simple mistake with their meter readings, it has emerged.

Companies have been confusing measurements from older imperial meters, which measure usage in cubic feet, with modern metric ones, which measure based on cubic meters, the Financial Times reported.

While the mistake has benefited customers whose metric meters will have been read as if they were imperial, some customers with imperial meters may have been overcharged by more than 130 per cent.

Eon, one of the UK’s biggest suppliers, found several hundred customers had been overcharged.

The firm said: “Our investigatory work is continuing but these customers will not have to take any action. We will update further as our work progresses.”

Energy watchdog Ofgem has asked all other suppliers to check their billing records to determine how many consumers might have been affected by the error.

Energy UK, the industry body, told the Financial Times it was working with companies “to investigate and address a gas metering issue” which had potentially affected “an extremely small number of accounts”.

“Anyone who has been affected will be contacted directly and any incorrect billing or charging will be sorted out as quickly as possible, including any refunds where necessary,” it said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT