British Gas & Southern Electric

nuster100

A few years back, I moved into a flat that has its electricity supplied by southern electric.

I changed the supplier to british gas as it was cheaper and british gas started taking my payments.

I started to get letters warning of unpaid bills from southern electric, and checked with british gas who confirmed they were supplying my electricity. I informed southern electric of this, but kept receiving bills which I then ignored after confirming again that british gas were supplying the electricity.


I moved out in 2009 and moved back to southern electric at my new house and they have now added a £2000 bill to my account.

After ringing them, they have informed me that the flat was on "superdeal" and actually had 2 mpan numbers, one for domestic supply and one for heating, and an erroneous transfer may have taken place.

After ringing british gas, it would appear that they have only been billing me for the "heating" and not the consumer part of the supply.

Where do I go from here? Help!!

Thanks in advance

Jay

spiro

The bill(s) you got from Southern before you moved to BG would have had 2 MPANs (S numbers) and 1 or 2 meter serials numbers, they will have put one on each bill or both on one bill

Based on what Southern have told you then the BG bill will only have had 1 MPAN (S number) and Southern will have continued to send you bills for the other MPAN (S number).

This implies that:

a) When you contacted Southern the CSA did not realise you had 2 MPANs, and
b) When you received the bills from Southern you did not realise that these for for 2 different MPANs.

The bottom line is that you have used it and will have to pay for it. The best you can hope for is that Southern may reduce it because you have contacted them and they did not tell you that they were still supplying part of the elec.

nuster100

I have just spoken to british gas, and they have said that they are going to set up another account and bill me for the other mpan number as they did not take it over when the account was transfered.

I beleive they can only bill for a year, is that correct?

Jay

dogshome

Hi nuster100 - An interesting one
So far as SE are concerned, there would be no chance of raising the " No back-billing beyond 12 months" agreement as SE were sending you bills

I'm surprised that BG are agreeing to bill the missing MPAN from the Switch date, as this does open up the possibility of the "No Back Billing" agreement, (Was this just verbal from the Customer Service desk or is it in writing) but putting that aside, it would seem that as you switched because BG's tariff prices are lower that SE's, it would be better to have the unpaid power billed by BG than SE

nuster100

It was verbal from the customer service desk, however they are going to get a account specialist/manager to call me to set up an arrangement.

It sounded to me like they admitted liability for the mistake over the phone, but will see what pans out when the manager calls me.

Will just have to keep southern electric off my back until this is sorted, they have threatened me with disconnection so far, so will ring them again tomorrow, I think that has more to so with my direct debit bouncing and not anything else though.

Jay

spiro

It may be that they only take over the 2nd MPAN from now.