British gas - challenge your DD increase!

littletommytucker

I work for British Gas. The payment plan as you are all aware is calculated over 12 months. Lets say your direct debit started in March, and your normal annual consumption was £1200, so a DD was set at £100 monthly for you.

This would have all worked out fine, if the prices hadnt increase on July 30th by 42% for customers paying by Direct Debit.

Recently something we call "rapid reassements" has been switch on.. to ensure that everyones account balances at £0 when there 12 month payment scheme has run its course.

So its now November, and you have just five payments left on your 12 month payment plan year, these of course are the heaviest five months of the year.

Your Januray bill will be 63% larger than it was last year, and your March bill would be 42% larger... once you add these price increases onto your two heaviest bill, you will all see why it seems that your DD's have increase so much inspite of being in credit.

Come april when your 12 month payment plan starts again, the usual calculation of:

1 Years Consumption X Current Price of Gas / 12 Months

will be used to calculate your new payment amount, and would stay at that if prices, and your consumption stayed the same for a year.

The energy companys are NOT doing this to gain profit, as the ombudsman heavily regulate that the suppliers DO NOT gain interest on customers credit balance's, for the obvious reason that they could exploit this in the way everyone allready seems to think they are doing.

They are unfortunatly just passing on the effect of the price increase to the customers, that despite being heavily publicised, nobody has seemed to realise because there summer bills have still shown credit because barely any gas has been used.

Hope this helps clear things for everyone.

Of course remember that if you desperately do want your DD reducing, its worth noting that British Gas staff are alocated a 10% reduction limit to customers, and anyone reducing a direct debit by more than 10% comes up on a report to there managers. Now obviously there are a few occasions where an advisor would have to reduce a DD more than 10%, but anyone found to be doing it more than usual would be disciplined. So just remember if you really do want it reducing more than 10% then be EXTRA nice.. because its all down to there discretion. I make exception for 2 or 3 customers a day.. usually the ones that are just dead nice and chatty. NOT the ones that come on the call screaming, or equally the ones that try some sob story about there husband dieing of cancer slowly last winter, and now that he has passed on they wont be using as much gas as normal! Or the customers that tell me they have a mathmatics degree and can work out what they should be paying better than we can.

If you dont like it SET UP A STANDING ORDER! That way you will get a statement for any debit oweing at the end of each quarter.

dooby

littletommytucker wrote: »

I make exception for 2 or 3 customers a day.. usually the ones that are just dead nice and chatty. NOT the ones that come on the call screaming, or equally the ones that try some sob story about there husband dieing of cancer slowly last winter, and now that he has passed on they wont be using as much gas as normal! Or the customers that tell me they have a mathmatics degree and can work out what they should be paying better than we can.
.

I understand you might be trying to be helpful, advising people to be 'nice' on the phone, but really... to have that attitude is absolutely appalling.

Especially seeing as BG calculations are well documented as often being wrong.

There are some people who are genuinely worried and upset about their bills this year, some are so scared of using heating that they are taping bubble wrap to their windows and wearing multiple layers, coats and hats and scarves indoors and then they get someone as unhelpful as you on the phone who won't help them because what? you don't click with them?

It's a bloody disgrace! This is the worst thing i've ever had to read on here and you should be utterly ashamed of yourself, as should all of you that work there and go along with this.

As for being disciplined if you were to help out too many people, something needs doing about that. I can't believe you're all just taking this, what sort of people are you?

littletommytucker

I totally agree with what your saying. But if a Direct Debit was simply reduced then people would just end up having to pay debt on top of their consumption at a later date and causing more problems. Of course we allways manually reassess customers DD to make sure the system is working it out correctly, and then will gladly reduce this by 10% if the customer insists they are going to be cutting back... and they could have it reduced by a further 10% come there next bill if they have proved they are doing just this.

Any debit on a direct debit scheme is just always carried forward, the customer is never asked to pay it in full when there bill arrives, so the only way that the system can work is by the concrete readings that are input into it.

And like i said previously if customers genuinly cant afford it, then they can just set a standing order up, or have a payment card, and they would just need to pay any excess they use when the bill arrives.

Magentasue

I've asked for my DD to be cut a couple of times. I'm always nice! I've always worked out my annual usage and costed it and divided by 12 and rounded it up. I can't remember the person on the phone ever just giving in but if you explain the maths, they generally get it. When you put it to them, my annual bill is going to be x and 1/12 of that is y, they have to agree. I've had this, 'I can only reduce it by whatever', but when I've said 'But that means I'll be paying £300 a year more than I need to, they concede, go offline for a few minutes and come back with it sorted. You don't have to be rude but you have to be assertive - if you've done the maths (and no, I haven't got a maths degree) and persist, they back down. In my experience. Haven't done it for a year or two but will probably do so again after Christmas because I got a high DD payment on switching. Am happy to pay it over the winter 'cos this is our first full winter here and I can't really give an accurate annual usage for this house.

1carminestocky

littletommytucker, oh dear. It's not as if BG actually need someone like you to ruin their reputation, is it? You are better at own goals than Richard Dunne. Keep it up, mate, I'm finding it all incredibly amusing. Comedy gold.:rotfl:

littletommytucker

lol 1carminestocky.... im just saying it how it is. I thought people would be interested to know, seen as tho its such a hot topic. I dont particularly enjoy my job, and i dont feel the need to sugar coat the way the system works. It is obviously unfair because when it is reassed it should be spread out over 12 months, but this isnt the case. But obviously on the flip side if this had been done for the past few years, then customers would have never caught up with there debit, and would be in a very large debit now.
However this probably wont be a problem any more because prices are hopefully going to come down.
My previous post wasnt trying to help there reputation, i was just trying to give people an insight, but i guess il just shut up if your just going to laugh at me.

1carminestocky

littletommytucker wrote: »

lol 1carminestocky.... im just saying it how it is. I thought people would be interested to know, seen as tho its such a hot topic. I dont particularly enjoy my job, and i dont feel the need to sugar coat the way the system works. It is obviously unfair because when it is reassed it should be spread out over 12 months, but this isnt the case. But obviously on the flip side if this had been done for the past few years, then customers would have never caught up with there debit, and would be in a very large debit now.
However this probably wont be a problem any more because prices are hopefully going to come down.
My previous post wasnt trying to help there reputation, i was just trying to give people an insight, but i guess il just shut up if your just going to laugh at me.

I know you are, that's what is so funny, mate :beer:

RHYSDAD

Oh dear...i'm with British Gas, click energy 6 and their customer service judged by some on here isn't exactly flattering. I don't pay any monthly direct debit, i just submit meter readings quarterly and then am billed appropriately for what i've actually used. At least i think that's what happens!! Am i right???

jackieb

1carminestocky wrote: »

My theory on this one is BG seem very happy to quote you very low DDs when you have just joined them (in my case, even after I'd told them how much I should be paying per month. They still tried to get me to pay £40 per month less! I needless to say insisted on paying my calculated DDs). They do this so that if you are the type who regularly switches, the debit balance you will inevitably run up in a very short space of time will dissuade you from switching. Once they are happy you are not the constant switching type they seem only too happy to get you overpaying, lol.

You just described me lol I've stopped switching for that reason. They'd lower the DD to a stupid amount (I think all companies I tried did this) and i'd always end up with a huge jump in my DD after their annual reviews. :rolleyes:

~daisy~_2

we had the same problem - dd went from £35 to £92 - we were £27 in debt to them at the time.....
i phoned asking for it to be reduced - they would only go down to £82 and that was with a fight
hub phoned the next day - straight away with no problem it was reduced to £54

no logic at all IMO - figures out of thin air