25 September 2007
Energy suppliers are seen as the worst offenders for miscalculating household bills, a survey of UK households has shown.
A study by uSwitch.com of UK consumers found that the gas and electricity industry came top of the list for inaccuracy out of ten well-known and used industries including water companies, communication providers, banks and building societies.
Some 8.2 million energy customers have received incorrect bills from their energy company during the last two years, while over one in five people rated their energy bills as inaccurate or very inaccurate, the research showed.
Indeed, around 10.4 million energy customers who have estimated energy bills say they have been forced to pay out up to as much as £134 per year to their energy supplier after initial estimates turned out to be wrong.
Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com said: "This is not about individual suppliers letting the side down - this is a wake-up-call for the entire energy industry which has been compared with others and found to be sorely lacking.
"Despite well publicised changes to billing systems and promises to put their house in order, suppliers continue to let their customers down - no other industry operates such a hit and miss approach to accuracy."
Ms Robinson suggested that forthcoming smart metering projects would help to improve accuracy of household energy bills by resolving "the issue of estimated meter readings". However she added that this would only be effective if the government commits to supporting a national roll-out.
"Hopefully this will tackle the major discrepancies between estimated and actual bills, which we believe are the root cause of the industry's poor track record for accuracy," she concluded.
© 2008 Adfero Ltd
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