Well...it's that time of year again, yup. It's the time where we all check our gas & electricity meters and expect a small chunk of change back from electrabel.

Well...boy was I in for a shock when I found out I owe over 600 euros!

Background info: There's two of us living in a 65 m^2 apartment. We've actually lived here about 10 months of the year and were away on trips for the other 2. I have no TV, no radio, just two laptops, an A+ rated washing machine, and a dishwasher.

So how the hell could I have used more than 2,200 euro in gas & electricity?!

I wish I'd have checked up on utility suppliers earlier, Nuon costs more than 1 cent/kWh less than electrabel. That would have been over 400 euros savings for me.

STAY as far as you can away from electrabel. Never even look their way!

I have had the same issues with Electrabel. After a long, long debate about how much my energy bill was, I refused to give them any money until it was sorted out - had already been 2 years! So, they refused to deal with me and I changed to Eandis. My bill has gone from 170.00 per month to 65.00 and Electrabel had to finally give me over a 1000,00 back.

Many people have had the some problems. I also have the phone issue with Belgacom and Proximus - the costs do not make sense for what I use. So I changed my cell system from monthly invoices to pay-as-you-go. My cell phone bill is now close to 60.00 less each month with the same usage.

Sorry - forgot t say, I also send some text messages and make some calls via Skype. For 10.00 euro, I get so much more service.

So any advice on how I should handle this?

I will be switching companies for sure. But what about the amount that I "owe" them?

What will happen when you agree to change to another provider, is that a final reading will be done and either you will get money back, or they will send you a final bill. You can tell them how you will pay it i.e. when I was told I owed them money (which was wrong) I said that any outstanding money would be paid over 3 months - they were OK about this, but not happy. As it turns out, they ended up owing me money.

If you have reached the end of the road with your service provider - change. It is such a breath of fresh air. Be honest with what you can manage and consider that the change over has to be managed, so that you have no break in service.

Good luck and let me know if you need anything else.