Martin Lewis '12 month' rule warning as he says 'people do still get billed'

Martin Lewis '12 month' rule warning as he says 'people do still get billed' The money specialist says he still hears of people being affected despite rules being in place Martin Lewis has raised concerns over a practice he says energy companies use in the UK far too often that he warns should not be happening. The money specialist says he still hears of people being affected despite rules being in place to prevent it happening. The personal finance expert is worried about backbilling when it comes to energy bills in the UK. He says billing in the UK energy market is 'incredibly complex'. And he warned there are people being stung all the time by energy firms when in fact they are actually entitled to protection. The matter was raised as Mr Lewis spoke to MPs at the latest hearing of the public accounts committee. He warned MPs: "We have a host of problems over billing. Billing is incredibly complex, especially in the energy world. We have the issue that you cannot be backbilled for more than 12 months. I think Ofgem [the UK energy regulator] has been cracking down on that, but I am still regularly contacted by people who have had two years of backbilling." Ofgem's website says that its rules mean both domestic energy consumers and microbusinesses do not have to pay for energy used more than 12 months ago if: - you have not been told about what you needed to pay through a statement of account before - your Direct Debit amount was previously set too low to cover what you needed to pay - you have not had an accurate bill for it before Mr Lewis told the hearing that despite these rules, people are still frequently told to pay up. He said: "If you do not know that you cannot be backbilled for over a year, you do not know that you can say, 'I’m not paying for more than a year because it was your fault. "There are technical rules - if you have behaved wrongly, it doesn’t apply - but, effectively, if they have not billed you for two years and it is their fault, they cannot bill you for longer than 12 months. "But people do still get billed. One would surely think that in this modern digital world something is systemically going wrong in the companies in the way that we do this." Rules on back billing over 12 months in the UK According to Citizens Advice, your supplier "cannot usually send you a bill for energy you used more than 12 months ago". Its website says: "The back billing rules don’t apply if the supplier sent you a bill before the year passed and you didn’t pay. In this case, the supplier can still charge you." It advises people who are told to pay up in the way Mr Lewis explains that they should write to their energy supplier. Citizens Advice says: "Tell them that you’re protected by the back billing rules and should only be charged for 1 year's energy use." The website says that if the firm continues to try to make you pay, you should complain. This page on their website shows how to do that.