Shock gas bill - £737! Please can you help?

redmandarin

My first gas bill with British Gas has just arrived. I'm really shocked! :eek: In July 08 I switched to a fixed tariff (and avoided the recent increase). BG had the lowest fixed price tariffs, so I switched to BG for both Gas/Electricity.

My monthly gas direct debit payments began at the end of September and I was advised that they should be £96 a month, so I've paid £384 for the last quarter. But the bill is for £737.30 (and that's minus £20.62 DD discount) and I still owe £368.51. It's an actual reading.

I'm a private tenant, with two bedrooms (one med, one small), a lounge, kitchen, bathroom (+ hall, stairs and landing), no double glazing or roof/cavity wall insulation. There are 6 central heating radiators, but no gas fires. Cooking is gas (one hot evening meal for two each day, plus occasional heated soup/beans for lunch). The shower is gas, used twice a day for 30 mins total.

My partner is at work during the day. I am at home most days, but I switch the heating off when I go out and have it on low during the day/evening (a bit too cool really, but we try to wrap up well) and switch it off during the night.

Please can anyone advise me as to whether they think this bill is correct? Thanks.

alessev1

Hi there,
I don't know how this is possible, but it's seems very high bill.
I live in 2 bed house , my children are in school during the day, so we use the heating after 4p.m up to 9p.m. also in the morning from 7.30 to 9, but if i am home and it is cold i switch on. Ussualy i keep 18'C. My last bill for a three months was £130, and i was really pleased, as i also use gas for cooking.
My provider is EDf and i have gas and electricity(£30p.m.) from them,
and i do not have any tarif or any special deals.So this amound which you get for your bill is very high indeed.

Cardew

Was the start meter reading actual as well?

As you switched in July this is a bill for 6 months.

Do you have a combi or a hot water tank?

30 mins showering per day will use a huge amount of Hot water!

A 6 month bill of £737 is obviously high, but in a poorly insulated flat, with you home all day and those showers! - perhaps not unexpected.

redmandarin

Thanks alessev1.

I think its very high too! On my past usage British Gas calculated that my direct debit should be £96 a month. So for the whole quarter this would mean a total of £386. But the bill is for almost twice this amount!

BG stated that my fixed monthly tariff is approx 10% higher than their standard tariff, but this doesn't account for the huge bill.

I had a new gas meter fitted before Christmas, which was set at 0000 - could the new meter be at fault?

Please can anyone shed any light on why this bill is so high?

Scrumshie

This sounds like the problem they were talking about on Watchdog the other week. Customers that have had new meters which read in cubic metres of gas used versus the bill which is calculating in cubic feet. Making a difference of 2 to 3 times the value. Check your meter and the bill to make sure that they are using the same units.

Cardew

redmandarin wrote: »

I think its very high too! On my past usage British Gas calculated that my direct debit should be £96 a month. So for the whole quarter this would mean a total of £386. But the bill is for almost twice this amount!

You said you switched to BG in July and this is your first bill. So it is for 6 months not a quarter.

Also if they needed to quote you a direct debit of £20 a month to get you to switch, then they would have done so.

All the call centre, or switching site operators are interested in is their commission and they need you to switch to get that commision! So all companies entice you with a DD that you find acceptable.

redmandarin

Cardew wrote: »

Was the start meter reading actual as well?

As you switched in July this is a bill for 6 months.

Do you have a combi or a hot water tank?

30 mins showering per day will use a huge amount of Hot water!

A 6 month bill of £737 is obviously high, but in a poorly insulated flat, with you home all day and those showers! - perhaps not unexpected.

Thanks for your reply Cardew. When I switched I took a reading and gave this to both my new and old supplier. I then paid the full balance outstanding to my old supplier.

The bill date is from 25 Sept, so it is for 4 months and it states the 1st reading (on the new meter) as 0022, which is estimated for some reason. The current actual reading is stated as 0805.

It is a combi boiler. I have a 6 min shower max - the remainder is used by my partner - who does everything in a too leisurely fashion!

My concern is that even though British Gas is expensive, and my tariff is 10% higher than their standard tariff and I am now at home during the day (when I wasn't before) surely the bill shouldn't be nearly twice the figure that BG indicated, in their direct debit payment calculation, based on my past actual usage.

redmandarin

Cardew wrote: »

You said you switched to BG in July and this is your first bill. So it is for 6 months not a quarter.

Also if they needed to quote you a direct debit of £20 a month to get you to switch, then they would have done so.

All the call centre, or switching site operators are interested in is their commission and they need you to switch to get that commission! So all companies entice you with a DD that you find acceptable.

I wasn't enticed by a call centre or switching site operator! Being a good MSE'er, I switched online with Money Supermarket! The monthly figure was arrived at by British Gas after the switch took place. Are you suggesting that they just pluck a figure out of the air when each new customer joins them? Surely it would make better economic sense to calculate how much gas a customer is likely to use, based on their past usage? That way they can try to ensure that enough money is withdrawn from customers bank accounts each month to cover the bills.

And I didn't find £96 a month acceptable - it was more than I had been paying with my last supplier - and even more than I had expected to pay, even taking BG's higher prices and fixed tariff into consideration!

redmandarin

Scrumshie wrote: »

This sounds like the problem they were talking about on Watchdog the other week. Customers that have had new meters which read in cubic metres of gas used versus the bill which is calculating in cubic feet. Making a difference of 2 to 3 times the value. Check your meter and the bill to make sure that they are using the same units.

Thanks a lot Scrumshie (great name). I'll check this out.
Also, I don't appear to be getting dual fuel discount, which would be a help - I don't know if this applies to fixed rate tariffs though.

wakeupalarm

redmandarin wrote: »

Thanks for your reply Cardew. When I switched I took a reading and gave this to both my new and old supplier. I then paid the full balance outstanding to my old supplier.

The bill date is from 25 Sept, so it is for 4 months and it states the 1st reading (on the new meter) as 0022, which is estimated for some reason. The current actual reading is stated as 0805.

You need to make sure your final reading from the old meter was correct, did you make a note of this when they changed it?
They state your starting reading of the new meter is 0022 and your currenr reading is 0805, have you checked this.

notbritishgas

I think scrumshie may have hit upon your problem. It is possible that your new meter is metric and your old one was imperial. If they are still billing you as for an imperial meter then the bill will be 2.83 times higher than it should be.(for the period after the new meter was fitted) It seems strange that they estimated the start reading on the new meter.
Check your bill and see how many kwh the units are converted to on the new meter.
Is the current reading on the bill of 0805 similar to the reading now.