PowerGen/British Gas trying to rip me off

LovingYourWork

When we moved in we were still with PowerGen and after three weeks they sent us a gas/leccy bill for £250! They told me it was only what British Gas had given them (meter reading) and I needed to speak to them so I spoke to BG and they told if I pay PowerGen they would give us free gas/leccy until our meter reached the reading I gave them, which was a more than it should have been. Any way, I read the bill from PowerGen again and I want to pay the true amount and not the estimate, BG said it would takes weeks to work out the real cost and I should just pay PG, is there any way to get them to give me the real cost because they are quite adamant that I should pay up.

smidgey

If you didn't supply BG with an actual reading 5 days either side of your start date with BG then they will have estimated your start read.

Sounds like they have over estimated the reading and you have a larger bill than normal with your previous supplier.

BG are advising you to pay the bill as a change of supplier disputed read can take 6-8 weeks to resolve in which time Powergen will continue to chase you for payment of the bill.

As the read is over estimated it will mean that your next bills from BG will be either nothing or smaller than usual until your meter passes the actual reading that is on the bill you pay to Powergen.

LovingYourWork

So can I get a proper bill because £250 is quite a lot for me to pay.

ex-energywatch_adviser

Assuming that you transferred to BG to benefit from cheaper rates, you would be better off insisting that BG use a more accurate transfer reading in order to get as many units as possible on their side.

Contact Eon to tell them what you are doing and ask them to put the account on hold, which I'm sure any of the Eon reps who post on this site would agree is not an unreasonable request.

E.ON_Company_Representative

Hi lovingyourwork,

When you change your supplier the transfer normally takes around 4-6 weeks. The final stage of the transfer is the gaining supplier obtaining a meter reading to start the account from. This same reading is sent to the losing supplier and the final bill produced to it.

If there is a discrepancy such as in your example the reading needs to be amended via an Agreed Reads Dispute, this dispute can be raised by either party, and takes around 28 days to be completed.

During this time no reminders for payment of the disputed balance will be sent. Once the dispute is resolved a new meter reading for the switch date will have been agreed and Powergen/E.ON will amend the final bill and British Gas will change their start reading to match.

If you would like me to raise this for you I can, just send me a private message with your post code and house number and I can get the wheels in motion.

Hope this is helps.

Brian

Vestra

This is really simple, you have changed over and BGas have provided Eon with a cos deemed read, which is an estimated change of supply read. What you can now do it dispute the COS read (British Gas is likely to have a department that deal with this, however I would recommend getting Eon to dispute the read as they will be able to ammend the bill instantly)

You will probably find the advisor will try and not want to speak to you as they don't supply you. Before you phone you need two meter readings 5 days apart then with these they can re estimate the reading from the change of supply date, rebill your account and then they will send that reading to British Gas.