Reader question: How can I tell whether supplier and grid operator are charging for different services or whether the same costs are being billed twice?
After switching suppliers, you suddenly have two electricity bills for your Austrian rental flat. Both show the same address. That alone does not prove a duplicate claim: energy supplier and grid operator are different contracting parties. Joint and separate billing are possible. With the separate variant, one bill for energy and one for grid usage can correctly stand side by side. [ECRechnung]
The following checking procedure is an editorial aid for your own electricity contract. It does not concern house electricity costs distributed via the tenancy or any private split between flatmates.
First, assign the documents
Place both complete bills, the previous annual statement and the notification of the supplier change side by side. Note for each document the issuer, invoice number, affected metering point, service period and payment method. The address helps with assignment; with multiple connections in the building it alone is not sufficient for the decision.
Also mark what the document demands: a balance from a statement, future instalment payments or a correction of an earlier document. Otherwise you might be comparing the annual claim of one company with the payment plan of the other.
Identify the billing model from the content
E-Control describes a joint invoice, in which grid components are also billed via the energy supplier, and separate billing. In the latter case the supplier only invoices its share; many taxes and levies then appear on the grid bill. [ECRechnung]
Therefore search both documents for the specific service blocks. Does the supply invoice actually show a grid item or only energy? Are the same costs already charged on the second invoice, or a separate grid share? A higher grid invoice by itself is not proof of an error.
A fictitious comparison without a price claim
In a purely invented example invoice A shows €420 energy costs for the same concluded period. Invoice B states €280 for separately billed grid components and levies. For the sake of the example it is assumed that A does not include these components. The two cost blocks together amount to €700, before already applied payments are examined.
An old household list then still shows a previous combined monthly amount. This is not taken into the cost calculation as a third additional invoice. First it is clarified which earlier payments are credited in which statement. The invented numbers are neither market prices nor a statement about typical cost shares.
Name a possible duplicate item precisely
Suspicious is not “two letters”, but a concretely matching cost block: the same connection, the same service period, the same service and a claim that appears to have been raised again despite earlier settlement. Even then it remains necessary to check whether one document explicitly corrects or replaces the other invoice.
Record the citations with page and item designation. Ask the respective company the concrete question whether and where the item is already included or credited. Share the extracts needed for clarification for that purpose, rather than transmitting private account folders at random. The request and its answer are stored in the billing case.
Combine claim and actual payment
Finally compare the amounts claimed with the payments actually made and respectively credited. A missing payment receipt and a double service billing are different error patterns. A mere sum of all debits without period and recipient does not reliably resolve either.
You should raise unresolved discrepancies in good time; an unexamined suspicion does not entitle you here to withhold all payments. If the information does not explain the specific items, prepare exactly this evidenced difference for further advice. The result is either a comprehensible separate billing or a specifically described outstanding claim issue.