The 30-year-old encodes his gas meter readings through his supplier’s app. “We pay an additional advance each month in order to build up a savings pool. Then at the end of the year we always get some money back when counting“says Nick.
A few weeks ago, the couple received a simulation of their annual gas bill which runs from September 2022 to September 2023. It is with amazement that Sofie and Nick discover the salty note of 26,245,239.96 euros with for future advances 6.56 million euros to be paid monthly until the next annual invoice. “I no longer knew where to turn (…) So my heart raced. At work, I had to take an extra half hour break to recover.”
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In order to clear up the situation, Nick decides to call a former employee of Luminus with whom he had already concluded a contract. The latter replies that everything on the supplier’s platform has to be paid for.
For its part, the gas supplier points out that the amount of 26 million is an estimate of the annual bill introduced by the customer himself.
A customer error to one comma
Indeed, according to the communication manager of Luminus, the customer must enter the numbers before the decimal point. In Nick’s case, the digits after the decimal had been added to the counter. “If the meter reading deviates from normal consumption, a warning is displayed, but the customer can ignore this message and click away”, says the communication manager.
Nick had also written the three decimal places on his gas meter. Its gas consumption then corresponded to ten million cubic meters. However, in September 2022, he had received a gas reading which amounted to 10,772 cubic meters but Nick had introduced two days later 10,772,407 cubic meters of gas.
The man was finally able to change the settings of the application and everything was back to normal.
