BG direct debit increase when in credit!

A_Nice_Englishman

For comparison, here is my experience with BG

Gas account was £168 in credit. This was refunded (without me even asking) and the monthly DD stayed at £41

Electricity account was £35 in credit. No refund. Monthly DD increased from £15 to £25

backfoot

Provided you have sufficient consumption history it should be fairly easy to establish a fair estimate of annual cost. Divide by 12 and the monthly direct debit is calculated irrespective of the start point.

Easy isn't it. not for BG as they randomly generate excessive direct debits amounts irrespective of circumstances. Having moved from standard to Click Energy 5 (25% cheaper),they randomly generated a gas DD increase of 50% higher and 66% higher on electricty.

Now that takes imagination or a faulty computer.

Needless to say,after complaining, the gas is now back to £30 which is correct and I am waiting for the leccy to be put right.

Jokers.

1carminestocky

Cardew wrote: »

Then report it to OFGEM.

That'll scare 'em. Err, not. :rotfl:

I find it very difficult to comprehend how anyone not *in some way* connected to BG could find this sort of practice anything but 'suspicious', to be honest.

backfoot

1carminestocky wrote: »

That'll scare 'em. Err, not. :rotfl:

I find it very difficult to comprehend how anyone not *in some way* connected to BG could find this sort of practice anything but 'suspicious', to be honest.

Hasn't this been going on for ages with BG?

How do customer's bring this matter to a head without 'having to' change supplier? Can you amend your own DD via your bank to pay the correct amount?

In my best Brucie voice 'eeeerrr higher my luvs'.

Cardew

backfoot wrote: »

Can you amend your own DD via your bank to pay the correct amount?

A DD agreement between a company(any company) and an individual. It is, as the name suggests, an agreement; both parties need to agree on the amount to be paid.

It is the supplier who gains your authority to get your bank to pay the money they consider necessary; you sign to that effect. So they stipulate the amount the bank pays, not you.

If you cannot reach an agreement, your only recourse is to cancel your Direct debit payments and pay by Standing Order, Quarterly or pre payment and in many cases suffer a financial penalty.

If I could stipulate the amount of my DDs(all 20 or so) I would pay 1p a month, and get the DD discount where applicable!

fishingcinema

im glad i have stumbled upon this my mum is over £100 in credit for her electric and has just been told they want to increse her dd from £50 odd a month to £125 surely this can not be right??????

bmac

Cardew wrote: »

You believe that Centrica, via BG, are making that income from domestic accounts in surplus?


No doubt this will get repeated and repeated until it becomes an established 'fact'.

Are you not aware that CAB and other 'social' groups have been savage in their criticism of all the Utility companies for doing exactly the opposite of your accusation - i.e. letting too many DD customers get massively into debt.

Read through this forum and by far the majority of complaints are that huge debit balances have built up(£hundreds/thousands) and are repaid over one, two, or several years - interest free of course.

The other 'theory' banded about is that the Utility companies set their DDs deliberately low so that customers get into debt and cannot switch.

Seems like 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'

Why not contact ofgem and report Centrica for such abuse; you might get an interesting reply.

1. Just because the majority of people complaining on this forum about DDs are 'in debt' does not make them representative of the 1.6 million BG DD payers. There is a tendency amongst members of forums in general to feel themselves representative of the population at large whereas they are only representative of themselves;
2. There is no reason why both policies cannot be in place as BG has an interest in both. Keeping large surpluses from one group, those, perhaps, with a good credit record, helps their balance sheet and keeping others 'in debt' makes moving providers difficult and ties them into BG.

Win, win for BG.

The problem is that, as customers, we are damned whatever BG do.

selbmag

Last year with AEG we became £350 in debt with Gas and £265 in debt with electricity.

This was following a switch and they had obviously underestimated our usage.

The DDB was recalculated. They clearly show this recalculation on the bill.

(Current balance + estimated usage over next 12 months)/12.

The DDB have now reduced as they re-calculate every 6 months.

Voyager2002

bmac wrote: »

1. Just because the majority of people complaining on this forum about DDs are 'in debt' does not make them representative of the 1.6 million BG DD payers. There is a tendency amongst members of forums in general to feel themselves representative of the population at large whereas they are only representative of themselves;
2. There is no reason why both policies cannot be in place as BG has an interest in both. Keeping large surpluses from one group, those, perhaps, with a good credit record, helps their balance sheet and keeping others 'in debt' makes moving providers difficult and ties them into BG.

Win, win for BG.

The problem is that, as customers, we are damned whatever BG do.

An interesting theory.

However, BG has demonstrated that it is spectacularly incompetent at administration. I cannot believe that it is capable of the level of sophistication required to identify those customers to be kept in surplus, and those others to be kept in debt. No, anything they do is more likely to be c*ck-up than conspiracy.

1carminestocky

Their computer system reportedly cost over half a billion pounds, maybe the press reports of BG suggesting it's not working right are just a smokescreen. Maybe it's working exactly as planned. (Yes, I am joking)