A LONE widow got a nasty shock when a company billed her almost £5,000 for using two month's supply of gas and electricity.

Christine Chorlton said she was horrified to be told by Atlantic Electric that she had used 24 times more power than normal.

"I was so shocked when I read the bill that I scalded myself by accident," she said.

"I had been preparing the dinner and draining the water from the potatoes, but I jumped in fright and the water splashed my stomach quite badly."

But the confusion over Mrs Chorlton's bill, which arrived on Saturday, did not end there. As she continued to read the small print the 51-year-old realised she had been billed by the company she had abandoned in October last year because she had been dissatisfied with the service.

"I had always been with ScottishPower but decided in August last year that I wanted a change and switched companies," she said on Monday.

Terrible

"But then the new company started ringing me at all times of the night asking me to read my own meter which I thought was terrible.

"So two months later I decided to switch back to ScottishPower."

Mrs Chorlton said ScottishPower had charged her only £200 since October 2002. "If they are saying I've only used that amount then how can someone else tell me I owe so much more over the same period?" she said.

"I've been told that it is under investigation."

It is not the first time Mrs Chorlton has experienced a run of bad luck.

In February she spent three weeks in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, instead of five days in a picturesque Scottish town after she fell ill on holiday.

Then after being discharged from hospital, she was forced to find her own way back to Knutsford because her Shearings coach - along with her holiday companions - had long since departed. The company later apologised for the mishap - saying they did not realise she had been released from hospital - and she was offered a free trip as an apology.

Mrs Chorlton, whose husband Anthony died seven years ago, is now looking forward to a five-day break in Scarborough over Christmas.

But this week there was a little bit of good news.

In a statement to the Knutsford Guardian, Atlantic Electric and Gas said Mrs Chorlton would not be asked to pay.Chief executive Jeff Percival said the problem stemmed from an incorrect meter reading provided by ScottishPower.

"We have now been able to produce a bill for the proper amount," he said.