Warning - BG sending false final demands

Master_G_2

Be aware that British Gas are sending out final demands and threats of legal action for money that is not owed.
I was on prepayment (token) meters for gas and electricity until September 2007 when i asked them to change them to credit meters. There were many problems re missed appointments etc and when i tried to resolve these i was promised numerous call backs from managers, none of which transpired. In the end i switched to Scottish Power because i could no longer put up with the appalling customer service. The transfer went fine and i received and paid my final bills for around £30 each in March 2008.
All was quiet until last week when i received a letter stating my final bill of £370.31 was outstanding. I called them and pointed out that i had paid my final bills. The rep on the phone confirmed this and said that the outstanding amount was for the prepaid electricity. Neither of us could understand how there could be anything outstanding on a prepaid meter so he told me he would get a manager to call me to explain. As expected, no-one called.
Today i received a final demand threatening court action. I called BG and, as usual i was given the fob off that "all the managers were in a meeting". I refused to hang up and said that if i did not get this matter sorted immediately it would be i who would be taking the legal action. Sure enough a team leader came to the phone. He could not understand either why they were demanding the £370.31 and had to investigate further. To his credit, he did call me back and explained as follows:
Token meters did not take into account fluctuations in the gas prices so they had been switching them to 'Key' meters that meant they could send price changes directly to the meter. Their billing department had run a program in June 08 to adjust the bills for prepayment customers (even though we should no longer have an account with them). Mine had been recalculated from May 02 when we joined BG to Sept 07 and showed we owed £370.31. He told me that the letters should not have sent as BG had made the decision to write off all historical debts. He apologised for the error and the distress the threat of legal action had caused me and my wife and offered £3.60 to cover the 90 minutes i had been on the phone. I told him that his offer was an insult and to confirm by e-mail that we did not owe them anything. The email has now arrived confirming that the amount has been written off and that "there will be no further compensation".
Luckily i had kept my final bills that had been paid in March so i knew i did not owe anything but i am sure that i am not the only one to receive this demand for monies not owed. I wonder how many 'vulnerabale' people will have paid them or are currently worrying about impending court action.

Cardew

It is rather ironic that BG are getting criticism here.

The fact is that you do owe the money; however BG are one of the companies that have decided to write off that amount in this situation as a gesture of good will - they don't have to write it off.

Some other companies will insist that you pay all the money you owe.

So BG are the good guys, albeit they made an administrative error in their procedures, and get all the criticism. Other companies who insist that the debt is paid back escape criticism.

To add salt to the wound your post implies that BG are making this error for lots of their customers

As for being 'insulted' by the offer of £3.60 compensation for a company who are decent enough to write off your £370 debt - Mmmmm

spiro

I have to agree with Cardew, it has been in the public domain for over 18 months that there is a problem with suppliers being able to change tariffs on old electicity token meters. That is why OGFEM has asked suppliers to accelerate as much as possible to replacement of token meters with new key meters which can be updated remotely. As I put in a thread I started, if you have a token meter do yourselfs a favour and call your supplier to get it swapped (doesnt cost you), they are trying hard to do it but not all customers are helpful in terms of being in when engineers call.

Oggyoi

spiro wrote: »

I have to agree with Cardew, it has been in the public domain for over 18 months that there is a problem with suppliers being able to change tariffs on old electicity token meters. That is why OGFEM has asked suppliers to accelerate as much as possible to replacement of token meters with new key meters which can be updated remotely. As I put in a thread I started, if you have a token meter do yourselfs a favour and call your supplier to get it swapped (doesnt cost you), they are trying hard to do it but not all customers are helpful in terms of being in when engineers call.

Hi Spiro
I have just received a demand from N-Power for an electricity prepay meter, saying they had not changed the rate I should have been billed at.
It was one of the new meters that had the key as opposed to the horrible paper tokens.
I am far from happy about this as it was the new machine, and obviously they set it up installed it.

Can anyone else help and advise my position here ?

Thanks in advance

Oggyoi

Obviously not

Master_G_2

Cardew wrote: »

It is rather ironic that BG are getting criticism here.

The fact is that you do owe the money; however BG are one of the companies that have decided to write off that amount in this situation as a gesture of good will - they don't have to write it off.

Some other companies will insist that you pay all the money you owe.

So BG are the good guys, albeit they made an administrative error in their procedures, and get all the criticism. Other companies who insist that the debt is paid back escape criticism.

To add salt to the wound your post implies that BG are making this error for lots of their customers

As for being 'insulted' by the offer of £3.60 compensation for a company who are decent enough to write off your £370 debt - Mmmmm

You are missing the point of my post. BG had made a decision to write off the debt so I DO NOT OWE THE MONEY. I agree that it was good of them to do so and accept that it was demanded in error. But as the demands were system generated it was more than just an administrative error and my point was that some people who have not kept accurate records and/or feel uneasy with the threat of legal action may just choose to pay the monies demanded but not owed. Are you suggesting that they should not be criticised for sending out false demands even in error?

greenbee

Oggyoi wrote: »

Hi Spiro
I have just received a demand from N-Power for an electricity prepay meter, saying they had not changed the rate I should have been billed at.
It was one of the new meters that had the key as opposed to the horrible paper tokens.
I am far from happy about this as it was the new machine, and obviously they set it up installed it.

Can anyone else help and advise my position here ?

Thanks in advance

If you buy a key from a different supply to the one that supplies your power, then the prices won't update remotely (they're updated via the key), so that may be the reason you've got a debt. If not, ask them to explain how their updates work, and how soon they are applied after the price rise is put in place.

MrBlonde_2

Master_G wrote: »

Be aware that British Gas are sending out final demands and threats of legal action for money that is not owed.
I was on prepayment (token) meters for gas and electricity until September 2007 when i asked them to change them to credit meters. There were many problems re missed appointments etc and when i tried to resolve these i was promised numerous call backs from managers, none of which transpired. In the end i switched to Scottish Power because i could no longer put up with the appalling customer service. The transfer went fine and i received and paid my final bills for around £30 each in March 2008.
All was quiet until last week when i received a letter stating my final bill of £370.31 was outstanding. I called them and pointed out that i had paid my final bills. The rep on the phone confirmed this and said that the outstanding amount was for the prepaid electricity. Neither of us could understand how there could be anything outstanding on a prepaid meter so he told me he would get a manager to call me to explain. As expected, no-one called.
Today i received a final demand threatening court action. I called BG and, as usual i was given the fob off that "all the managers were in a meeting". I refused to hang up and said that if i did not get this matter sorted immediately it would be i who would be taking the legal action. Sure enough a team leader came to the phone. He could not understand either why they were demanding the £370.31 and had to investigate further. To his credit, he did call me back and explained as follows:
Token meters did not take into account fluctuations in the gas prices so they had been switching them to 'Key' meters that meant they could send price changes directly to the meter. Their billing department had run a program in June 08 to adjust the bills for prepayment customers (even though we should no longer have an account with them). Mine had been recalculated from May 02 when we joined BG to Sept 07 and showed we owed £370.31. He told me that the letters should not have sent as BG had made the decision to write off all historical debts. He apologised for the error and the distress the threat of legal action had caused me and my wife and offered £3.60 to cover the 90 minutes i had been on the phone. I told him that his offer was an insult and to confirm by e-mail that we did not owe them anything. The email has now arrived confirming that the amount has been written off and that "there will be no further compensation".
Luckily i had kept my final bills that had been paid in March so i knew i did not owe anything but i am sure that i am not the only one to receive this demand for monies not owed. I wonder how many 'vulnerabale' people will have paid them or are currently worrying about impending court action.

Reading this post just reminded me of something. Its not really to do with the post but just as a warning to people who read this. I work for British Gas and it is becoming apparent that there are fraudsters in operation who are calling customers saying that they work for for British Gas debt collections. During the call they will try and take credit/debit card details from you to pay something off the outstanding balance that does not exist. I personally have received two calls from concerned customers. The account was checked and there was no outbound activity from British Gas.

Im just one person in thousands of call takers and the fact that ive had two calls in the last few days regarding this shows how big a potential problem this may be...