electricity bill

emmahughes_3

i tried to switch from British gas (had both electric and gas with thme) last August to Sainsbury's. i owed some arrears to British Gas and Sainsbur's rang me to tell me they could nto do the switch becasue British Gas would not allow them to unless i paid the arrears. i arranged to pay the arrears of by monthly instalments and this was completed recently. last month i received an electricity bill from ~Sainsbury's going back to last August. I thought i had been paying for gas and electric to BG but it turns out that i was only paying them for gas.

my questions

i thought i remembered seeing somewhere that utility companies such as gas and electric who had not sent a bill for a long time could only ask for the last three months or was this just wishfull thinking.

any commments greatly appreciated.

batmansmellsfunny

As far as i'm aware there is no three month limit and i've heard of suppliers claiming arrears going back years. It may be possible to get the balance reduced, you might get some knocked off if the supplier was at fault but this may only be a token amount. Had they sent you any letters or notifications out that indicated the contract had started from August. If they signed you over in August you should have recieved a copy of the contract, if not you may be able to argue that the company reduce the bill as it is partly their fault. Then try and negotiate an affordable figure for the remainder, if that fails ask for a prepayment meter to be installed, you will pay slightly more per unit by this method but the debt will be automatically taken off the meter at a low rate and it may help you budget.

Hope this helps

Premier_2

emmahughes wrote: »

i tried to switch from British gas (had both electric and gas with thme) last August to Sainsbury's. i owed some arrears to British Gas and Sainsbur's rang me to tell me they could nto do the switch becasue British Gas would not allow them to unless i paid the arrears. i arranged to pay the arrears of by monthly instalments and this was completed recently. last month i received an electricity bill from ~Sainsbury's going back to last August. I thought i had been paying for gas and electric to BG but it turns out that i was only paying them for gas.

my questions

i thought i remembered seeing somewhere that utility companies such as gas and electric who had not sent a bill for a long time could only ask for the last three months or was this just wishfull thinking.

any commments greatly appreciated.

Yep, wishful thinking.

It's actually 12 months, not 3 months, so as you only moved to Sainsburys last August, they are perfectly within their rights to bill you for all consumption.

However, perhaps you need to pay a little more attention to all the bills you receive and what they relate to. You appear to be both confused over who is actually supplying you for what and what bills you are actually paying. Never pay any invoice unless you know exactly what it's for and you agree you owe the money. If in doubt, always ask the company who sent the bill to explain why they believe you owe them the amount invoiced.


Edit: just checked out your other thread too :cool:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1021595