Our bill has increased by 65% in the past 3 months, we pay by monthly budget, but it's the highest it's ever been. Even allowing for seasonal variations and the price increase, I'm concerned.
My bill too is a lot higher than usual.
There is a notice in the latest bill explaining their new billing system. The bill shows 2 bills, one pre-price increase, and one post-increase. To complicate things, one of the bills is estimated so there is probably a correction amount to account for between the estimated and actual readings.
All in the customers interest of course.
BTW, the link in the previous mail is broken - too many httpsin the URL.
Pretty much had a heart attack when I seen my bill. It's 130-150 more than any of the previous 6 bills. I know that there was a price increase but I wasn't expecting that. I've gone through last years bills and the number of units I've used is also double previous bills & they weren't all estimates.
Haven't checked the metre yet cos it's in the basement but will check first thing.
I contacted the E.S.B. regarding the hike in increases. In the last bill I got, I was informed that there was a standard increase of 4% due to inflation etc. There was also an increase of 7% due to the high cost of fuel. On contacting them, the fuel prices have considerably dropped and I asked the question " as banks up the interest rates when rates climb, and drop them when they go down - fuel prices have dropped are we going to see a reduction in our bills. I'm still waiting for a reply.
Got our latest bill yesterday and nearly dropped when I say it was a good EUR130 more than normal.
Read the enclosed leaflets and there seems to be a change in billing periods meaning that the latest bill is actuall for a three-month period as opposed to the standard two-month period. The next bill will be for the standard two-month period.
Kind of strange cause the bill is for the period till the end of Feb so all readings are estimations. Seems like a kind of a quick one to pull - they are effectively now getting paid one month in advance. Also, they'll pull in a lot of additional revenue this month from switching the billing periods.
I don't think we got any notice from them that they would be changing the billing periods nor that it would result in a higher bill (i.e. an extra month's charge). I'd imagine this would be troublesome to any families out there on a tight budget.
Value Ireland has done some research on the options in the electricity residential market since it's opened up to competitors for the ESB on February 19th.