EBS Estimated bills

Hi, sorry if wrong site.

I got my EBS bill yesterday and they had attached a note telling me that my meter had not been read for over 17 months and that I should call with a reading. I read the meter this morning and it is well over their estimates. ( about 800.00 euro ) . What I would like to know is will I have to pay this in full or would they allow me to pay the short fall over the next year. Not really in a position to repay in one hit. Are they not Legally obliged to have read the meter in the last 17 months ???

Any advise would be great appreciated

I'd say nothing - not give them the official reading and pay an extra 150 or so over the next 5 bills - then you're almost clear and they can read it officially.
If they couldn't gain access to read your meter over the past 17 months then it's hardly their fault?

justasking2 said:

Hi, sorry if wrong site.

I got my EBS bill yesterday and they had attached a note telling me that my meter had not been read for over 17 months and that I should call with a reading. I read the meter this morning and it is well over their estimates. ( about 800.00 euro ) . What I would like to know is will I have to pay this in full or would they allow me to pay the short fall over the next year. Not really in a position to repay in one hit. Are they not Legally obliged to have read the meter in the last 17 months ???

Any advise would be great appreciated

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Call them and agree what you owe them or you will end up paying for electricity you used 17 months ago at today’s unit price. Once you have agreed a value you will be able to agree a payment schedule. Paying them back over 12 months is reasonable.

Thanks for that, will give them a call and sort out some sort of repayment plan.

Oh and Bren1916 my meter is outside the house so not sure why its not been read for so long.!!!

Can we assume you mean ESB bill?

Same happened me and I naively (sp) rang one day with the meter reading. Turns out we owed €600.
I have an ESB easypay card so I can just pay a few bob off here and there in the post office.

Saying that I still owed €75 when the next bill came two months later, and there were no probs. I'd never be able to pay €600 on one go.
Do you have an easypay card?

justasking2 said:

Thanks for that, will give them a call and sort out some sort of repayment plan.

Oh and Bren1916 my meter is outside the house so not sure why its not been read for so long.!!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, you are unlikely to get stung for the full amount in one go. They'll readjust your payments so that they will charge something more like what you actually owe on a per monthly basis plus some of the arrears amount.

We had a problem like this where we are on the monthly payment option. Turns out they estimate what you are likely to owe (and their estimation software is poor to say the least) and then re-balance when they read the meter. What ended up happening cos of their crappy software was that for about 4 or 5 months in a row we'd be paying about 40 euro a month and then all of a sudden it would jump to 150 a month for a few months.

We set up an online payment facility so that whenever we reckoned we were being under charged we could pay the bit extra manually!
(bizarrely you could tell from the bill....they'd tell us how much we used, how much we owed and then inexplicably that they were only going to charge us a completely, and usually way less, different amount *sigh*)