British Gas, just received bill for 16 months

harborjenny

I hope someone can help me regarding bill for Gas

I have been reading some of the posts regarding energy companies either not reading the meters for Gas or Electricity and then customers getting a large bill.

Can someone please help me. Story is a bit long winded, but the questions are;

• Can we pay an outstanding bill (only just received after 16 months) in the same time as it has taken for them to send it, e.g. payments monthly for the next 16 months)? I do not have the money to pay it in one go.

• I had signed up for dual fuel discount, but as they only took payment for electricity can I claim for this?

• I heard somewhere that if they failed to visit after you had made arrangements for them to attend, you were entitled to get a payment from them for your inconvenience, is this true and if so, how do you apply.

• We had a contract for a year for homecare 100, I spoke to someone to cancel when they called and they have still continued to take money from my account and the amount has increased, can I legally stop the direct debit (and how) and can I claim the money they have taken since the end of the 1st years contract.

• I have just read that they can only claim 12 months but how can we say what the reading was 12 months ago?

Thanks for reading.

Details are here if it helps.

We moved to property about 16 months ago and gave readings to British Gas, set up direct debits, got letters confirming Direct debits and forgot all about things, money was going out of our account, though didn’t check too closely to be honest.

Just before Christmas we thought there was a bit more money in the bills account than we had anticipated, so went though all the bills and discovered to our horror that we had not been paying for the Gas and hadn’t had a bill in since moving.

Contacted British Gas to explain the situation and gave details, they explained they had set us up, but got confused with previous address and moved us back in there, but new person realised the name was wrong contacted them so they moved us out and forgot to put our details on our address, so had lost all the data.

Anyway they said it would take a couple of weeks to set us up again, they couldn’t take bank details as we were not set up, but would contact us.

Meanwhile a meter reader came round asking for the person who used to live at this address, explained situation and filled in form giving our details, but still no one contacted us.

I had a letter from British Gas a few weeks ago saying they had not inspected the gas meter and had legal powers of entry if I did not comply, tried to call the number on the letter, but as it was addressed to the occupier it took a couple of days to sort the new date out. Before anyone turned up on the new date, there was a card which stated they had tried to visit but couldn’t gain entry, I wasn’t too concerned as the new date was a couple of days in the future and I had made arrangements to be at home for the visit. They never turned up.

Next we were ‘door knocked’ by Southern Electric, their prices looked better than BG and we explained the situation to them as we were concerned we had not paid for Gas to date.

Southern Electric said not to worry we could transfer to them and when the reading went in British Gas would soon bill us.

Well we have now received a bill.

Look forward to hearing from someone.

Jen

Flexible_Friend

Make sure they calculate the bill at the correct tariffs throughout the period and not just at the latest tariff rate.

Ask for compensation for not billing you quarterly as they should've done.

harborjenny

Flexible_Friend wrote: »

Make sure they calculate the bill at the correct tariffs throughout the period and not just at the latest tariff rate.

Ask for compensation for not billing you quarterly as they should've done.

How can I know what the correct amounts should be as they never read the meters and I didn't either.

I did query the electric part when an estimated bill arrived and I gave a reading, but they baffled me with their reply so I didn't get anywhere in the end.

Cardew

Loads of questions.

They will use the closing(last) meter reading of the previous occupant as the start reading for you. It will be difficult for you to dispute that meter reading now as you should have noted that reading when you moved in.

You say you had correspondence addressed to 'the occupier'. That is perfectly legal and if you use any gas/electricity you have entered a 'deemed contract' for that use of energy.

Certainly they can only bill you back for 12 months if they haven't produced a bill. However the operative word is 'produced' a bill - we couldn't for example claim to not to have received a bill!!

I don't know the position when they sent the bill to the wrong address.

You should get retrospectively the dual fuel discount.

It is not clear from your post if you have signed to transfer both accounts to Southern.

It is normal practice for BG to allow you to pay back the outstanding balance over the time it took to build up. However you will not be able to do this and transfer to another company. BG will block your transfer with a large sum outstanding.

I suggest in the first instance you get to speak to a manager and 'negotiate' a reduction off your outstanding amount . BG are normally pretty good about this, but of course moving to another company will not help.

All in all, apart from the possible 12 months back billing, you are in a pretty weak position IMO as, to be blunt, you have not taken any steps to manage your account. Moving company will not help your cause!

If you want to stop a Direct debit(for Homecare) you should write to the company and your bank to stop it.

BG will(must) have written to you to tell you that the DD payment was to increase. If they didn't(again they only have to prove it was sent) you can claim back the money from your Bank under the Direct Debit guarantee. However again if they have taken several payments at the new payment(and you didn't notice) you will have no case to claim back as you have been under cover.

In any case do not BG have a cancellation fee for Homecare?

harborjenny

Cardew wrote: »

Loads of questions.

They will use the closing(last) meter reading of the previous occupant as the start reading for you. It will be difficult for you to dispute that meter reading now as you should have noted that reading when you moved in.

You say you had correspondence addressed to 'the occupier'. That is perfectly legal and if you use any gas/electricity you have entered a 'deemed contract' for that use of energy.

Certainly they can only bill you back for 12 months if they haven't produced a bill. However the operative word is 'produced' a bill - we couldn't for example claim to not to have received a bill!!

I don't know the position when they sent the bill to the wrong address.

You should get retrospectively the dual fuel discount.

It is not clear from your post if you have signed to transfer both accounts to Southern.

It is normal practice for BG to allow you to pay back the outstanding balance over the time it took to build up. However you will not be able to do this and transfer to another company. BG will block your transfer with a large sum outstanding.

I suggest in the first instance you get to speak to a manager and 'negotiate' a reduction off your outstanding amount . BG are normally pretty good about this, but of course moving to another company will not help.

All in all, apart from the possible 12 months back billing, you are in a pretty weak position IMO as, to be blunt, you have not taken any steps to manage your account. Moving company will not help your cause!

If you want to stop a Direct debit(for Homecare) you should write to the company and your bank to stop it.

BG will(must) have written to you to tell you that the DD payment was to increase. If they didn't(again they only have to prove it was sent) you can claim back the money from your Bank under the Direct Debit guarantee. However again if they have taken several payments at the new payment(and you didn't notice) you will have no case to claim back as you have been under cover.

In any case do not BG have a cancellation fee for Homecare?

Thanks for taking the time to reply, sorry it is rather lengthy and sort of confusing.

The address changed to the occupier for the gas only towards the end after I had contacted them just before Christmas when I realised they had not taken money from account for the gas (they had written to me, at the beginning with my name saying they had set up the direct debit) I have a copy of this, I can probably dig out the notes of who I spoke to and roughly when, to say I was trying to sort this out (not sure if they keep phone conversation records), I know they called me back after I had been on the phone for about an hour and I remember they gave me a direct line no to call them back on too.

I don't know that they sent a bill to the wrong address, just our names appeared on our previous address, the people there then told BG we had moved out (after they originally had the new occupants names on it and BG realised the error and corrected for our old address but forgot to set us back up again, but even put the people who used to live here back in this address - I found this out in the conversation I had just before Christmas).

Yes it is both gas and electricity we moved over, I even got a call from BG when they got the details of us moving, they called to say they had details to say we were going and they said they could offer better rates,would we consider staying, I asked if it could be backdated, and could they put the details in writing, they said they would call back about the backdated bit, but never did! I didn't think to take a name, cos I expected they would, never got a letter either, there's a surprise!

As I said I did contact them as well as when a meter reader came to visit and take a reading I filled in the form giving our name as they had the previous occupants name on their form. What more could I have done at the time!

What is this about 12 months back billing, does that mean I should only pay for 12 months worth of gas? How does it work?

As for them sending a bill and them only having to prove they have sent it, the only bill I am aware of is the recent one I have received (address to occupier), surely if they sent a bill before and it was unpaid they would have sent a reminder and then cut us off etc, so that must mean they have not sent a bill before hand as the back of the bill is broken down into 4 estimated reading of units and the final part just says 1st 1167 @ 6.151 total £71.78 and remainder at 2.58 totalling xxx - let's just say it's an obscene amount!, as to what the costing should have been at any given time how do I find out or does this seem reasonable for BG?

One of the reasons for moving was the cost is cheaper with new supplier, plus the fact I have tried on more than one occassion to sort this out, they mucked it up even after I gave them my details again, then they lose them. Who would I need to contact about negotiating payment?

Is there some independent company who can help as it is quite a sum of money to pay in one go, yes I have been putting money aside since Christmas, but not enough to cover all of it.

As for the Homecare I spoke to someone at the time, they called me, he was not exactly polite when I said I didn't want to continue and hung up, would they keep phone records when they call customers? I do not recall having a letter from them to say charges were going up.

Jen

SwanJon

harborjenny wrote: »

I don't know that they sent a bill to the wrong address, just our names appeared on our previous address, the people there then told BG we had moved out (after they originally had the new occupants names on it and BG realised the error and corrected for our old address but forgot to set us back up again, but even put the people who used to live here back in this address

Wrote a reply earlier but looks liek the interweb ate it. Pretty much said what Cardew did.
The bit in bold could be an issue if they were sending bills addressed to the previous occupier to your new address. The only way you'll find out is by asking, same as negotiating payments - as Cardew says they'll be more likely to give you a long term arrangement if you are their customer.

They will estimate reads for 12 months ago (and price increases) for you based on other reads.

Check your electricity bills to see if you have been recieving a DF discount, if not, ask for it.
You could phone BG Services and ask them about the Homecare. Depending on how long ago it was they probably could find the call as they regularly sell on outbound calls and so they need to be recorded.

Cardew

As I understand it:
You moved to the property 16 months ago(March 2007).

You say that the address changed to the occupier "just before Christmas".

If that correspondance included a bill(addressed to the occupier or yourself) then you owe all the money.

If the first bill BG produced was the large one that is outstanding and for 16 months, then they can only go back 12 months from that date that bill was produced i.e. you will get the March to July 2007 element written off.

However BG know that rule inside out, and if they have billed you for the whole 16 months, it is probably because they believe you are liable for the whole amount.

As you have applied to leave BG it is very doubtful that they will allow the switch to take place until you have paid what you owe in full.

You are also very unlikely to get any 'goodwill' concession by way of a reduction from them ' again as you are leaving.

The position is that you owe for at least 12 months gas(and possibly 16 months) and it is a debt you need to pay. They will probably give you some time to pay off the debt while you remain their customer. However if you don't agree to their terms, they could play 'hard ball' and insist you get a pre-pay meter installed.

As for Homecare., again as I understand it!

You don't recall having a letter, yet you rang to cancel and the guy hung up on you when you told him you wanted to cancel.

BG always send a letter confirming the cancellation.

Despite this, you did nothing in writing to your bank or the company.

Several payments at the new rate were taken without any action from you.

You have been covered up to the present date!

If you can give the time/date and name of the person you spoke to, they might be able to trace the recording of the call you made.

However you can hardly expect them to trawl through scores of thousands of telephone calls(a monumental task) to trace a call.

Sorry if I appear not to be helpful, but as i said above, your only glimmer of hope IMO is that your 16 month bill might get reduced to 12 months.