Your Bill Hero subscription starts on the day you sign up and complete your annual subscription fee payment. Bill Hero subscriptions will auto-renew on the anniversary of your start date, unless cancelled. We hate sneaky subscription renewals too Bill Hero adopted the annual subscription model because it provides a manageable mechanism to support the continuous bill monitoring and comparison service that Bill Hero provides. However, we're aware that a year can be a long time, and an annual subscription renewal can come as a surprise. We've taken steps to mitigate this: - Your upcoming renewal date is prominently displayed in a dedicated panel in every results email we send to you. This is intended to keep the approaching renewal visible, so you're not surprised when it finally arrives - We also send a dedicated renewal notice email seven days before we initiate a charge for your renewal payment. Cancelling a new subscription under the Savings Guarantee Every Bill Hero annual subscription comes with a money-back Savings Guarantee, which applies to the first bill(s) analysed and compared for you. This means that if you're already on a competitive plan, and Bill Hero cannot find the guaranteed annualised savings for you after analysing and comparing your first bill(s), you can cancel immediately for a full refund. If you're eligible for the Savings Guarantee, your 'below guarantee' results email includes instructions on how to initiate the cancellation. To cancel your subscription and request a refund, simply reply to any Bill Hero correspondence clearly stating your intention to cancel. Bank handling of refunds When a refund occurs very soon after the original payment is made, some banks may process the refund by reversing and deleting the original debit transaction instead of creating a new and separate credit transaction to your account. This can mean that all records of your Bill Hero subscription transaction may simply disappear from your bank statement. After a refund is initiated, funds will typically be credited to your account within 1-2 business days. However, the official advice from our payments platform provider, Stripe.com, is that it can take up to 10 business days for a refund to be fully processed and appear in your account. If you believe something has gone wrong with your refund, please contact our friendly support team at [email protected]. Cancelling an Active subscription Our policy is that cancellation of an Active subscription will take effect at the end of the current subscription period. If you cancel, Bill Hero will continue to monitor, analyse, and compare your bills for the remainder of the current subscription period. However, auto-renewal will be disabled, and the subscription will end at the end of the current subscription period. To cancel your subscription, log in with your personal email address and click the subscription card for the subscription you want to cancel. You'll be invited to leave brief feedback about your experience with Bill Hero. Please take a moment to provide us with some feedback on your way out - your honest feedback is valuable, and helps us improve the service. Cancel your active subscription If you encounter any issues during the cancellation or refund process, please contact us at [email protected]. Our support team is ready to investigate and resolve any concerns you may have.

Energy Industry

Back-billing

When can a retailer issue a back-bill? There are a few different scenarios where you may receive a back-bill: - You moved into a new property but did not set up a new supply agreement at that time, so you consumed energy without a contract in place - Your current retailer has had issues with their billing system - Your previous bill(s) were based on estimated usage, which proved to be less than what you actually used - there was an error in a previous bill, or it was based on an incorrect meter reading What if I don't have a supply agreement? If you've moved to a new property, and did not set up a new energy supply account with a new retailer, then any energy consumed without an agreement in place will fall under a 'Deemed Contract' with the retailer previously serving that property. Deemed contract arrangements are governed under Division 8 of the National Energy Retail Rules. When the financially responsible retailer becomes aware of energy being consumed under a deemed contract, it must provide information about: - The retailer's contact information; - Details of the prices, terms and conditions applicable to the sale of energy to the premises concerned under the deemed customer retail arrangement; - The customer's options for establishing a customer retail contract (including the availability of a standing offer); - The consequences for the customer if the customer does not enter into a customer retail contract (whether with that or another retailer), including the entitlement of the retailer to arrange for the de-energisation of the premises and details of the process for de-energisation. This means that the retailer can still bill you for your usage, under the Deemed Contract terms, even though you did not specifically enter an agreement with them at all. If you do not set up a supply agreement with a retailer, and if the current retailer remains the 'financially responsible' retailer, they ultimately are able to disconnect the energy supply to the premises. Deemed Contracts will be priced at the prevailing Default Offer rates for your location - this will mean that if and when the back bill arrives, it will be priced at higher rates than what you could have accessed under a market contract. What are the limits on back-billing? Retailers can issue back-bills, to a maximum of 4 months in Victoria, or 9 months in NSW. These limits apply if the need for back-billing is the fault of the retailer. If it's your own fault—for example, if you've refused access to your property for meter reading—then these time constraints may not apply. If they issue a back-bill, they must offer a payment period equivalent to the duration of the back-bill period, and they can not charge interest on the back-billed amount. Where can I go for more information and help? Your state-based Ombudsman can provide additional information and assistance if you receive a back-bill from a retailer. State| Ombudsman| Link ---|---|--- NSW| EWON - Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW| https://www.ewon.com.au/page/customer-resources/high-and-disputed-bills/backbills-and-delayed-bills VIC| EWOV - Energy & Water Ombudsman Victoria| https://www.ewov.com.au/common-complaints/delayed-and-catch-up-bills QLD| EWOQ - Energy & Water Ombudsman Queensland| https://www.ewoq.com.au/news-and-publications/articles/high-energy-or-water-bill SA| EWOSA - Energy & Water Ombudsman South Australia| https://ewosa.com.au/consumer-resources/trouble-with-energy-or-water-bills/electricity TAS| EOT - Energy Ombudsman Tasmania| https://www.energyombudsman.tas.gov.au/common-issues/high-bills

Bill Hero FAQ

All about email forwarding

Bill Hero needs to receive each of your bills to perform the analysis and rank your options for switching. Our email forwarding system makes it easy for you to have Bill Hero monitor and compare every bill automatically, without you even needing to lift a finger. How does email forwarding work? Bill Hero automatically creates a unique email forwarding address for you to use with your retailer(s). They send bills to your Bill Hero forwarding address, and we auto-forward each message to your personal address. ℹ️ Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward messages that are sent to a correct and current email forwarding address. You'll receive each forwarded message in your personal inbox, within about 10 seconds of it being sent. Routing your retailer emails via the email forwarding system means that Bill Hero can detect every bill as it passes through, and will automatically analyse each one for you. How are Bill Hero email forwarding addresses allocated? Your Bill Hero address will usually be created with the same username as your personal email address, but at the billhero.com.au email domain rather than at your personal email domain. We call this the 'friendly address'. ℹ️ If your personal email was [email protected], your auto-generated Bill Hero address would be [email protected] If your personal email address has a common username, it's possible that the corresponding billhero.com.au forwarding address might already be in use by another Bill Hero subscriber. In this situation, the Bill Hero system will fall back to using a unique 'long-form' address, with the username based on an internal unique code. ℹ️ An illustrative example of a long-form Bill Hero forwarding address is [email protected]. Every Bill Hero subscriber automatically gets their own unique long-form address, but we only display and use it if your friendly address is already in use by a different subscriber. How do I use my forwarding address? A Bill Hero email forwarding address is just another standard email address, and it can receive email in exactly the same way as any other email account. You can set up your energy retailer account(s) to send your bills and account correspondence to your Bill Hero email forwarding address instead of directly to your personal email. Either give the retailer your Bill Hero forwarding address when you set up a new account, or call their customer support team and instruct them to replace the contact address on your existing account with your Bill Hero forwarding address. All messages sent to your Bill Hero email forwarding addresses will be auto-forwarded immediately to your personal email, so you'll still receive all your bills and account correspondence within about 10 seconds of them being sent. All forwarded messages are sent verbatim, including the exact email content and any attachments that were present in the original email. The only difference is that we add an identifier to the original subject line, so the Subject: line for all forwarded emails will start with: [Forwarded by Bill Hero] - All forwarded messages are sent from the custom Bill Hero address and email domain [email protected], but the reply to: address in each forwarded message will remain the same as it was in the original email, so if you reply to a Bill Hero forwarded email, your reply will go to the originator, not to Bill Hero. How do I find my unique email forwarding address? You can find your personal forwarding address by logging in to the Bill Hero Subscriber Portal at https://portal.billhero.com.au How can I tell the difference between email messages that Bill Hero forwards from external senders and Bill Hero's own email messages? Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward messages that are sent to a correct and current email forwarding address. However, we do also send our own Bill Hero messages, such as your comparison results and email responses from our support team. Forwarded emails originating from external senders will always come from the unique email subdomain forwarder.billhero.com.au. Bill Hero's own email messages will come from the main Bill Hero email domain billhero.com.au Potential Misuse Bill Hero never initiates any emails delivered through the email forwarding system. We only ever forward them. The email forwarding system is not limited to forwarding bill emails from energy retailers. It will immediately forward any email addressed to a valid Bill Hero email forwarding address. All forwarded messages are sent verbatim to the subscriber's corresponding personal address. You can test this anytime by sending your own email to your Bill Hero forwarding address. If you or your retailer shares your Bill Hero forwarding address with other senders, this system will also forward their messages to you. It's possible that an external party could obtain your Bill Hero email forwarding address and use it to send spam or other unwanted messages. ⚠️ Spam If you're being spammed through the email forwarding system, please get in touch with our support team at [email protected], so we can investigate and block that sender.

Bill Hero FAQ

Does Bill Hero handle solar?

If solar is present in your bill, Bill Hero will include it in your comparison. Solar appears as a separate line item in each bill, displaying kWh exported, the feed-in tariff (FiT) rate earned per kWh exported, and the total dollar value of those exports. All the other elements of your electricity bill are subject to GST, and the individual line items may be displayed with or without GST. Solar feed-in revenue is GST-free, so the dollar amount displayed on the bill for solar FiT is the amount that will be applied. Bill Hero handles solar by taking the total solar kWh exported amount from your bill, and using that in the calculation of what you would have been charged under every other plan available to you—so if there's a competing plan that offers a higher feed-in tariff, then the dollar value of your solar kWh export will be higher for that plan, and this will be included in the comparison. Solar is only one element of your bill, and Bill Hero compares on the overall bill amount, not only on the solar component. So it's possible that a competing plan might offer a great solar feed-in tariff, but the consumption charges may not be so great, and that plan may not rank very well overall. Bill Hero finds the plan that would have delivered the best overall outcome for you, including feed-in tariff, consumption and connection charges, and other elements in your bill like discounts and incentives. QLD solar meter charges If you live in Queensland, you'll see a separate solar meter fee line item in your bills. This fee can vary between retailers, and it's not always documented in the fact sheets for each retailer, so it's not possible for Bill Hero to reliably include this fee in our comparison. Bill Hero treats the solar meter fee as a once-off fee and excludes it from the comparison. If this affects you, you will see in your results email summary that the bill amount, which includes the solar meter charge, will be different to the comparison amount, which is the dollar amount Bill Hero will base the comparison on. Capped solar system size plans Some retailers make their plans and feed-in tariffs available only for households with solar systems below a certain kW rating. Bill Hero handles this by filtering out these plans if we know your solar system is above the cap. For new Bill Hero subscribers, we ask a question about solar size as part of the sign-up process. You can also inform us of your solar via Bill Hero support at [email protected], so that your comparison results will automatically be filtered to exclude any plans you're not eligible for due to your solar system size. Block rate feed-in tariffs It's becoming more common that retailers offer feed-in tariffs, where the feed-in rate changes after a kWh exported threshold is exceeded. There may be two or more steps in the solar FiT rate. Some retailers have started using a $0 stepped rate to deliver the same outcome as a capped solar plan. For example they might offer a higher FiT rate for the first step, a lower FiT step for the second step, then $0 FiT beyond that. Bill Hero handles stepped FiT rates, including $0 rated steps automatically, and will price the value of your kWh exports accordingly. VIC minimum FiT In Victoria, the Essential Services Commission previously set a mandated minimum FiT that retailers had to offer. Retailers were free to offer FiT rates higher than the minimum if they chose to. Feed-in tariff rates have been declining over time due to falling daytime wholesale electricity prices, resulting in the ESC’s final FIT determination for 2025-2026 setting a near-zero feed-in tariff flat rate. The Victorian Government deregulated the solar feed-in tariff, recognising that the minimum rate was effectively set at zero. Bill Hero uses whatever is the FiT offered by each retailer to calculate the value for your solar kWh exported under each plan in your comparison. Premium feed-in tariff schemes There are a variety of legacy state-based schemes set up a decade or more ago that offered premium feed-in tariffs for early adopters of solar. None of these legacy schemes is available for new solar installations. The Victorian Premium Feed-in tariff scheme ended in November 2024. In general, your eligibility for these schemes does not change when you switch between retailers. The still operating schemes include: - QLD: Solar bonus scheme - SA: Distributor feed-in tariff - ACT: Premium Feed-in Tariff It used to be common that retailers would apply the premium FiT entitlement separately, and in addition to their own standard retailer FiT, and if you're eligible for a premium FiT, your bill could include both a premium FiT component and a retailer FiT component, with these elements sometimes broken out into individual line items in your bill. More recently, it has become less common for retailers to pay their own retailer FiT for households that are already eligible for Premium FiT. Since late 2024, Bill Hero no longer assumes that retailer FiT will be paid on top of Premium FiT. Where Premium FiT is detected in a bill, the pricing for the other plans in the comparison will assume that only the Premium FiT will apply, and any available Retailer FiT will not be calculated into the alternative plans. This has the potential effect that Bill Hero may understate the potential solar credit available under those plans. We think the risk of this occurring is a lesser evil than the risk of overstating the potential solar credit, which could lead to switching to a plan that proves to be less attractive. Bill Hero can detect when your bill includes a premium feed-in tariff and handles this by separating any retailer FiT revenue from the Premium FiT revenue. The Premium FiT component is transferable when you switch between retailers. Its dollar value does not change, so it is automatically added to the comparisons for each competing plan.

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