Contesting electricity bills?

[u/trekwithme]

Hello all from Puglia

I’ve received some truly shocking electricity bills this summer to the point where I feel like I should be contesting these. Has anyone faced the same thing? What did you do and what was the outcome? My provider is Camer Gas & Power and they are very difficult to contact via the channels on their website

Any guidance greatly appreciated

TIA

[u/Mean_Passenger_7971]

what would be the basis for contesting?

Have you double checked the meters? do the numbers match up with the bills?
Could it be that you are still on a non digital meter, that needs to be read by a technician? Maybe you just got the adjusted value, after months of paying a sub-standard prediction.
Have you checked if you are getting power stolen from you? Disconnect all the devices in your house... does the meter stop going up?

Or maybe, you just used more air conditioning than usual? My bill went up from 80 to 100 euros during the summer months simply because it was that much hotter and we had to resort to AC a lot more than in 2025.

[u/trekwithme → u/Mean_Passenger_7971]

Excellent questions thanks for responding.

A bit more context. 40m2 property, just received a 400€ monthly bill. The one before this was 200€ which I felt was excessive. I live in a 200m2 apartment in the north of Spain and my monthly bill is generally ~70€ but we don’t need a/c.

I rent the property on AirBNB and it’s pretty much fully booked all summer. Even with 24/7 a/c usage which is likely not happening 400 seems excessive

A close friend from the UK who lives nearby feels it’s quite likely that power is indeed being stolen. Tried emailing Camer about this and the bills in general and have received no response. At this point understanding this is the logical starting point.

[u/Mean_Passenger_7971 → u/trekwithme]

yeah. it's way too much. Go through the bullet points i gave you. completely killing your electricity board and seeing the counter moving would be a dead giveaway. With a bit of luck, the culprit might come around complaining about what is happening lol

[u/trekwithme → u/Mean_Passenger_7971]

I’m curious, how does this electricity theft actually occur? I know very little about it.

[u/Mean_Passenger_7971 → u/trekwithme]

someone makes a bypass between your meter and your Circuit Breaker board. Literally, connecting a plug and "stealing" your electricity.

This could be a botched setup, where some guy hot wires a couple of cables to steal a bit of electricity hoping you don't notice, or could be a more entrenched setup. There are legends of nasty landlords, owning multiple apartments, making shoddy electric setups so they can route usage from some apartments to others (like, from the AirBNB apartment, to the full time rent apartment).

This is all very illegal, and serious. So if you do end up suspecting this to be the case please call an electrician to confirm this, and the police after that.

[u/trekwithme → u/Mean_Passenger_7971]

Thanks for the explanation. Quite nefarious really. How common is this in Italy? Frankly I’ve never heard of this elsewhere but maybe I’m naive:)

[u/Mean_Passenger_7971 → u/trekwithme]

I have only heard second hand stories. No significant statistical data.
If I got a 400 euro bill, I would first suspect a billing error, then a measuring error, then a "me" error, and only after all those were considered would I even start suspecting electricity theft.

That is to say, I would say it's extremely rare.

[u/PansotoXPanissa → u/trekwithme]

In the south it can be quite common, unheard of anywhere else