British Gas DD hike

idingsdale

Hi All,

Was looking for some advice on my Electricity with BG. I've been with them for a year now, paying £35.50 fixed DD on an Economy 7 Fixed price 2011 tarrif. It's only a small, well insulated 1 bed flat and I'm sensible about my usage so the price seems about right.

For the year, the bills have been floating between just in debit and just in credit. They have just sent me my latest bill based on an estimate which has pushed my account £55 into debit. They also included my updated DD at £67 - nearly double! :eek:

Now according to my calculations, 35.50 x 12 + 55 = £481 and they want to charge me £67x12 = £804!

The odd thing is, I have submitted a meter read every time I've had a bill by email, but only one bill is showing as "customer read" rather than "estimated" in my history.

So what should I do - what rights do I have to tell them to keep my DD as it is, or increase it to something more sensible (say £40)?

amtrakuk

Surely if you're on a fixed price until 2011 then the cost per unit will not increase until 2011. Couple of things might have happened to explain;

Has you're usage has gone up?

Have you just gone onto the price fix 2011 tarrif? - The rates might be higher to what you were paying on your old tarrif, this is common to get you "hooked" onto a more expesive tarrif by giving warnings about how the price of gas & electric /may/ go up in the winter adviseing to protect yourself before its too late.

It might be worth phoning them up asking them for a reason why they have nearly doubled your Direct Debit they should be able to tell you.

Bark01

Sounds like you've only been paying for what they estimated you were using and they have ignore your submited reads up until now.

If that is the case then it sounds like you have been underpaying, so the new DD amount will be for the new amount you are estimated to use (based on actual reads)+ recovery of debt built up over the last year.

If this is the case then I'm not sure what you can do other than offer to pay the debt off it full in one payment? You might get some money off (good will gesture) if you complain based on the fact that they have ignored your submitted reads.

idingsdale

amtrakuk wrote: »

Surely if you're on a fixed price until 2011 then the cost per unit will not increase until 2011. Couple of things might have happened to explain;

Has you're usage has gone up?

Have you just gone onto the price fix 2011 tarrif? - The rates might be higher to what you were paying on your old tarrif, this is common to get you "hooked" onto a more expesive tarrif by giving warnings about how the price of gas & electric /may/ go up in the winter adviseing to protect yourself before its too late.

It might be worth phoning them up asking them for a reason why they have nearly doubled your Direct Debit they should be able to tell you.

I signed up to it a year ago but this was when I had moved into the flat so had no previous usage to go on. They set the DD at 35.50 at that point.

I dont mind increasing the DD to cover the slightly higher than expected usage, but the increase they are talking about is £400 not £50!

Bark01

idingsdale wrote: »

I signed up to it a year ago but this was when I had moved into the flat so had no previous usage to go on. They set the DD at 35.50 at that point.

I dont mind increasing the DD to cover the slightly higher than expected usage, but the increase they are talking about is £400 not £50!

As I said above part of this increase will be to cover the debt that built up over the past year. So if allt hings are equal this time next year the DD willl come down as you will have paid of you debt.

amtrakuk

I think the best thing you can do is phone them up and ask if you can come to some arrangment.

My father had the same problem when he moved into a house with storage heaters. he thought he was on to a winner when they set the DD to £25 a month! Was in a simular situation but sadly I dont know how he resolved it.

It would be nice if the energy companies held historical data on the usage so new tennants can have an idea on how much the average running costs of a property are.