British gas demanding £500

Caroline73_2

My DD amount seems to change every 6 months or so. I got behind last winter so my DD was upped and now I am in credit so it has gone down. I'm with BG so I am at a loss to understand why they haven't done this for you. I also don't understand how you didn't know you weren't behind - don't you have statements?

Derek_Duval

Joyful wrote: »

Customers will still get statements so can see whether their payments are covering their usage before the assessment times. It is then up to the Customer to call and advise their DD needs changed. Then all these situations would stop occurring.

Why can't british gas automatically assess when required? Yes the customer should be responsable for the own finances, but in the real world this isn't always the case. Allowing me to build a £780 debt over 20 months is irresponsable. It's because of this sort of carelessness from finacial instituations we're in a worldwide financial crisis.

mattcanary

This problem is partly down to British Gas and partly down to you. Don't palm away all the responsibility!

Caroline73_2

Derek_Duval wrote: »

Why can't british gas automatically assess when required? Yes the customer should be responsable for the own finances, but in the real world this isn't always the case. Allowing me to build a £780 debt over 20 months is irresponsable. It's because of this sort of carelessness from finacial instituations we're in a worldwide financial crisis.

They always do with my bill. It's reviewed every three months.

Joyful

Originally Posted by Derek_Duval
Why can't british gas automatically assess when required? Yes the customer should be responsable for the own finances, but in the real world this isn't always the case. Allowing me to build a £780 debt over 20 months is irresponsable. It's because of this sort of carelessness from finacial instituations we're in a worldwide financial crisis.

If your bills were estimated and not corrected the system would keep under or estimating the reads. For 20 months of correct reads and the account not being reassessed there may have been a problem.Were your bills estimated? If so you needed to correct them.

Derek_Duval

Joyful wrote: »

If your bills were estimated and not corrected the system would keep under or estimating the reads. For 20 months of correct reads and the account not being reassessed there may have been a problem.Were your bills estimated? If so you needed to correct them.

I supplied a reading every quarter online, & the meter was read by a meter reader about every 6 months. When I asked why they had never reassessed me they said "Because of the price reduction we have had we are suspending our direct debit reassessments". The price reductions were after I'd been with them 14 months though!