British Gas have doubled my D/D for elctricity!!!

chris1972_2

Hi All

I had a major shock when I was informed that BG wanted to increase my D/D for elctricity from £34 pm to £69 pm. When I challenged this with a customer advisor I was infomred that we owed them close to £400 on the previous 12 months and that this figure added to the estimate for the following year is where the increase has come from. Now ok I admit I get ebills and often don't look at them, but I have had paper versions of the previous bills sent to me and I have yet to go through them, but I am still startled that they haven't notified me before that this was the case.

Do you think I have a case for complaint with ofgem?

many thanks

Chris

KimYeovil

No. You don't.

LeeSouthEast

Not really. You didn't check your bills, and now owe them some money which they've allowed you to pay monthly rather than demanding it all in one go.

Cardew

It is your responsibility to check your bills and compare meter readings on the bill with actual readings.

BG are quite within their rights to take the £400 in a lump sum(they have to notify you in advance of course) as it is a debt.

However instead they are giving you an interest free loan.

JasX

its up to you to check your bills against the meter and if thats all thats happened and the money is just to cover your normal useage and debt thats well within their rights.

some slippery energy companies (eg Npower who tried it with me), seem to have a habit of trying to up your DD to cover phantom future useage (they sent me a calculation based on me doubling my average annual use for the comming year for no particular reason and insisted i needed higher DD payments to cover it) and if this is the case its quite easy to challenge...

DVardysShadow

chris1972 wrote: »

.... Do you think I have a case for complaint with ofgem?

Not yet you don't. You blew that when you took your eyes off the bills. From now on make sure your bills are correct to your meter and chase them up. If it still gets out of hand, you would have a case

NeverInDebt

chris1972 wrote: »

Now ok I admit I get ebills and often don't look at them

Do you think I have a case for complaint with ofgem?


Chris

There lies your problem lazyness for not checking and no you dont have a complaint you got one person to blame and thats you, hopefully lesson learnt

keefyboy_2

EDF are pretty good at upping your Direct Debit as well, last year we suddenly saw on our bank statement that EDF had taken a DD from our account of £95, no notice given, nothing on the Bills either, they do jhave to give you 10 days written notice if I remember correctly from the Direct Debit Mandate.
I phoned them up and would only speak to a supervisor and asked her why had the DD been put up, Why was I not informed.... The supervisor was very apologetic and aid she would look into it and ring me back..

I'll give her her due she did ring me back, and said that the reason it had gone up was because there was a bill outstanding of over £400 on the previous years bills. When I asked her to check her records as I had only lived in this house for well under a year. She was a taken aback a little to say the least and said oh yes we have over ESTIMATED your forthcoming bills for the next year... I told her outright that I could not afford that amount, she then reworked the figures and working on my usage in the last 10 months the DD was reduced from £95 down to £59........

In answer to not notifying me of the change in the DD amount giving me notice "it must have been a computer error.... They did pay me £20 compensation.....


So DO read your Statements

and if they up your DD then challenge them about it..

Chrysalis

if you check your bills and its clear you use more than you pay then that is effectively your notice as at some point that money has to be paid back.