British gas charging for pay as you go?

saraho1703

I have recently moved house (april) and I am not paying for the gas and electric in my new home so I emailed British gas about closing both my accounts, the electric was DD and the gas was on a pay as you go meter. I was almost £200 in credit for my electric so told them I wanted a refund. They replied with no hassle and told me I would recieve the refund via cheque in the next 14 days. 24 days later I emailed them again and recieved a call apologising for the delay and that the cheque would be sent out ASAP. 2 days following this call, I was emailed by BG and told that I owed over £100 on my gas.
Can this happen on a pay as you go account or have they once again made an error (I have had many problems previous that have all been resolved)?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

It is possible to build up a debit on the older pre-pay meters if the meter has not been adjusted to increased rates.

However I understood that normally BG write off this debt(unlike some companies). Of course that wouldn't happen if, for example, you had not allowed BG access to adjust the meter(not suggesting this happened) or there were other disputes.

Joyful

First things to check for is missing payments and the reading they closed your account to. Also if there was any debt from you added on to the meter it may not have been paid back.Gas meters are usually correct as it is the electric token meters that did not get the tariffs adjusted.

Also if there has been a meter exchange payments may have gone into a suspense account.

Call up and go through above with BG. I work for them.

5562

Is it not immpossible to owe such as large amount on a prepay meter. My understanding is that you can only go into £10 debt at most before the gas is cut off by the meter.

Take this up with BG before you pay.

KimYeovil

5562 wrote: »

Is it not immpossible to owe such as large amount on a prepay meter. My understanding is that you can only go into £10 debt at most before the gas is cut off by the meter.

Take this up with BG before you pay.

The prepay meter may not be updated with changes in price in a timely fashion. Some of them have to be manually altered. You'd end up paying a lot more if you had to pay for tens of thousands of temporary meter adjusters being summoned to alter the meters on the day of a change!