British Gas

beckyv

Hi

I am looking for some advice really.

My cousin moved into a new rented house about 2 months ago. When she moved in she phoned british gas straight away to inform them she is the new tenant and give the meter reading. She took the gas card, put gas on and then it took £6 for debt and left her with £4 which in this weather obviously didnt last very long. She phoned British Gas who said they would sent out someone with a new card. This took a few days and she had to lend money from family to pay for gas. The new gas card alas did exactly the same thing. She called them again and they said they would not come out untill she had no gas at all, even if she had 1p they would not come out.

At that point she was 8 1/2 months pregnant and living in a freezing cold house as she could not afford to properly heat it. Having to go to families house for baths and so on. This has gone on for 2 months with them sending out new cards by courier one of which was really rude to her because she took to long to get to the door!

She went into labour 6 days agao and the baby came three days ago by emergency ceserian. During that point she had to keep going to families houses for hot baths and so on. So now she has a three day old baby in a freezing cold house and can even bath him. Again she goes out just to get warm. We have all lent her money for gas but cant keep doing so. The response from British Gas today was basically tough we will come out when we can borrow some money!!!:eek: It is her first baby as well.

They are not the type of people to complain or really kick up a fuss, so i have called consumer direct who have said they will get back to me in an hour and get someone out from British Gas.

Am i doing the right thing, how do i get this sorted asap, anyone else have any expierence of this?

I am fuming:mad:

Pink_fluff

Have she gone through the settings on the meter? How much debt is on it? Phone Bgas with the settings and they should be able to help.

filmnoir

They have to come out immediatley to reset the meter as if she is the new tennant the meter is set to accumalte extra from the debt from the pervious tennant.

beckyv

Hi

I dont know about the settings, but they have been out many times and sent loads of new cards to supposedly 'fix' the problem. So i think they are acting like they are trying to fix it?

beckyv

filmnoir wrote: »

They have to come out immediatley to reset the meter as if she is the new tennant the meter is set to accumalte extra from the debt from the pervious tennant.

Thats what i thought but this has been going on for 2 month now!

Joyful

The new card should have reset the meter.It is correct the Meter Operators will only call when there is no money left in the meter though. Hopefully Consumer Direct will escalate and get this resolved for your Cousin. It sounds like it needs someone to physically reset the meter.

SwanJon

If you move into a house, they need 3 days notice to send someone out/post out a card.
They cannot put extra credit onto the meter if there is any credit there. If they sent someone round they couldn't do anything. I think it is to do with the software on the meter.
This shouldn't have taken 2 months and feel free to complain.

beckyv

Thank you for all your kind replies, it seems to be sorted.

After i spoke to consumer direct they phoned British Gas who phoned and apologised. They say they have now reset her meter and are crediting her initailly £20. All she had to do was put on £10, which she did. This seemed to work as this time it only took 29p. Which is still not acceptable but better than £7. They also reckon that the £20 credit will be on within the week.

They have said they have reset the meter from there end so i am confused as to why they could not do it in the first place?

I will be keeping an eye on it though!

Im just happy they have heat!

SwanJon

beckyv wrote: »

this time it only took 29p. Which is still not acceptable

I take it she had been in emergency credit or off supply?
This 29p will be the meter reaclibrating between the two tiers.
If you use emergency credit, all the gas used is charged at the cheaper rate, and when you top up it takes back the EC + the differnece in price between what was charged and what should have been charged.
It does the same kind of thing when you are off supply as the contract is for 670kWh/quarter at the higher rate. The meter spreads this out normally (~7.4/day), but if no gas is used one day it needs to recalculate to make sure the 670 is met by the end of the quarter.

welshlil

I hope you come back to look at this, if the young lady in question is not working, is she on the energy care plus scheme this allows you a discount depending on your income