Free gas no more! Am I in trouble?

xInsiderx

rosscobley wrote:

Please dont judge me or send me PM's. You dont know who i am or what i do. God i hate people who think they know it all as well. You dont know everything and prob never will. just because you work for bgas dont think that you know what is going to happen in this case. I know for a FACT that a meter will be installed without a MPR number being raised and i have had to deal with customers that this has happened to before... I can't be 100% that the customer will not be charged BUT I am 99% sure that they wont. If they do get back billed i will stand corrected this time but until then please dont PM me and try and tell me about the job i have been doing for years.

I AM SO GLAD YOU AGREE!! I have worked in the industry for 4 years...(not as long as some others) but as does Ross, I come across these sort of things on a daily basis. What Ross has said is right...unless the supplier have the MPRN previously registered, they cannot bill for past gas used.
Would you go to a Hovis factory directly and get a loaf of bread, and then expect to pay Tesco 2 days later because they've got the rest of the batch? No...I didn't think so!

xIx

BritishGasWorker

OK! its come to law quoting time!!

Before we continue..it is nice to see peeps helping on here but please check your facts first..this has come from energywatch..

Consumers are legally bound to pay for their utilities. However, the Limitations Act 1980 prevents charges being recovered if the electricity or gas was used more than six years ago. In Scotland this period is five years.

Suppliers should at least offer a payment plan that allows you to repay any debt over the same length of time that it has built up. In other words, if you have not had a bill from your supplier for three years then, when a bill does finally appear, you should be able to spread the repayments over three years. However, if you accept a payment plan then you will not be able to change your supplier until you have cleared the outstanding debt.

However, as a result of the ‘super-complaint’ submitted by energywatch in April 2005 to the energy regulator, Ofgem (see below), energy companies have been told that, as of July 2006, they should no longer bill for any energy used by consumers more than two years previously where the company themselves has failed to provide a bill. As of July 2007, energy companies will be expected not to bill for any amount that dates back longer than a year.

I hope that this now clears this up...also if you note on the orignal post that Xoserve has visited the property, that means there will be a meter and a Meter ref registerd, it will be upto the gas transporter to bill.
Lets hope that this puts pay to the bickering and picking on each other from the diffrent energy company on here...I have a proven track record of 100% on these boards when it comes to utilities, and many many thank yous.

Cheers

andy

BritishGasWorker

rosscobley wrote:

Well you would think that but you would not believe the amount of people that get away with it. The only people that can bill you are the suppilers eg Bgas, Npower, SSE... Xoserve are like Transco they own the pipe work and look after the meters and hold all the metering info... Now If the MPRN number is not registered or there is no Mprn number for a property then a supplier can't bill the customer until they take supply of that MPRN. There is no way that a supplier can backdate the COS (Change Of Supply) process so they can only bill from the day they take supply. Like i said some time you will have a supplier that has the Mprn registered to them but have not billed it due to not knowing a meter is there are just a mistake of not setting up an account for a customer in these cases the supplier will back date all the charges. But as xoserve are asking him to register to a supplier then that means its a shipper less supply (gas companys are called shippers) and can only be billed as of the date a new supplier gains it via the COS process and that can take up to 28 day from the day you sign up to a gas supplier

ARghh of course there is an MPRN for the property, it will have been given one AS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SOMEONE LIKE TRANSCO WHO FITTED IT, and you will find that this will appear alot more since company are now checking for mystery meters at propertys...

rosscobley

We will have to agree to disagree. We will soon find out. Not going to get in to an arguement over this. I tryed to help. Like i said im not 100% that they will not back bill but from the people i have delt with they never have. Looks like britishgasworker has to be right @ the end of the day he works for british gas and they are always right and never get anything wrong do they. i have given my views but without more infomation i cant be 100% about anything as can no one on this site.

rosscobley

BritishGasWorker wrote:

OK! its come to law quoting time!!

Before we continue..it is nice to see peeps helping on here but please check your facts first..this has come from energywatch..

Consumers are legally bound to pay for their utilities. However, the Limitations Act 1980 prevents charges being recovered if the electricity or gas was used more than six years ago. In Scotland this period is five years.

Suppliers should at least offer a payment plan that allows you to repay any debt over the same length of time that it has built up. In other words, if you have not had a bill from your supplier for three years then, when a bill does finally appear, you should be able to spread the repayments over three years. However, if you accept a payment plan then you will not be able to change your supplier until you have cleared the outstanding debt.

However, as a result of the ‘super-complaint’ submitted by energywatch in April 2005 to the energy regulator, Ofgem (see below), energy companies have been told that, as of July 2006, they should no longer bill for any energy used by consumers more than two years previously where the company themselves has failed to provide a bill. As of July 2007, energy companies will be expected not to bill for any amount that dates back longer than a year.

I hope that this now clears this up...also if you note on the orignal post that Xoserve has visited the property, that means there will be a meter and a Meter ref registerd, it will be upto the gas transporter to bill.
Lets hope that this puts pay to the bickering and picking on each other from the diffrent energy company on here...I have a proven track record of 100% on these boards when it comes to utilities, and many many thank yous.

Cheers

andy

Oh by the way this applys to Suppliers. They havent got as supplier yet. as per the letter they have had sent to them. Gas transporters cant bill a customer can they. only a supplier can bill the customer and only from the cos date. I really dont think you have a clue do you

Gal

So glad I didn't go into depth on this one. Lol

BritishGasWorker

I know tell me about it,, by the way ross is also masonic..

rosscobley

BritishGasWorker wrote:

I know tell me about it,, by the way ross is also masonic..

............ lol

HappyShopper3

I'm keen to know the outcome and see who is right.

xInsiderx

rosscobley wrote:

Oh by the way this applys to Suppliers. They havent got as supplier yet. as per the letter they have had sent to them. Gas transporters cant bill a customer can they. only a supplier can bill the customer and only from the cos date. I really dont think you have a clue do you

The original poster will have to keep us posted...but as far as my experience goes, i'm with Ross on this...i've heard of a supplier back billing when they've owned the supply for X amount of years, but they cannot bill for something they haven't supplied...(my original point!)