British Gas bill just arrived. Very confusing.

tomstickland

Now, I work in engineering and spend a lot of my time doing spreadsheets and degree level maths etc. I've just received a gas bill and it's taken me 30 minutes to work it all out.

After checking all of the numbers I've finally worked out that they've applied 3 sets of prices:
days / first 2.466 KWh / rest of KWh
first 4 / 8.74 / 6.7
middle 38 / 10.19 / 8.1
last 4 / 12.53 / 8.1

On the bill it's annotated as "price change reading" and "Tariff change reading".

They've added my economy 7 and normal readings together and calculated using the above rates. So, my Economy 7 seems to have been ignored.

I've redone the calcs using my average daily and Econ 7 usage rates and even lumped together on those rates my bill is £27 versus the £37 they've estimated.


Edit: finally made sense of the bill!

Basically, 2 payments of £29, minus one recjected £29 payment. Total input £29. Total bill £37.77 + £1.88 VAT, amount owing £10.65.


Could they make it any more difficult to understand?

Anyway, got to phone the idiots up now.

justtoclarify_2

tomstickland wrote:

Could they make it any more difficult to understand?

What and have you understand your bill first time, that just would not make business sense.

RoCas

I didn't even understand your explanation (not your fault ... me being thick), never mind the bill !

tomstickland

LOL, pleased to see it's not just me.
I phoned them up and after a lot of flannel I finally go put through a more senior advisor.
She said "Oh, I'm sorry my colleague has put you through without explaining why".
Anyway, turns out that I talked to the one woman in British Gas who actually knows what's she's talking about.

Results were:
dispute - the unit discrepancy is too small for a dispute so I should just pay NPower and I'll pay BG less. This would explain why the dispute never worked properly. Noone else seemed to know this.

Economy 7 - they've got me on the wrong tariff and will update the records and my bill will be adjusted accordingly

Can't input current meter readings because they're less than the start readings - just wait until my real readings overtake the website units and it'll all sort itself out.

I finished by thanking the woman and asking if BG had a poor business model with cheap call centres, lack of training and high staff turnover. This results in lack of knowledge, "couldn't care" attitude and customer dissatisfaction. She pretty much agreed.

frivolous_fay

What number did you manage to get through on?

tomstickland

Via the standard customer helpline number, the key moment was when I got passed through to a higher authority.

I think the key with getting things done is to keep going until the standard call centre staff reach the point of desparation and the they gladly pass you through to someone who knows what they're talking about.

masonic

tomstickland wrote:

I think the key with getting things done is to keep going until the standard call centre staff reach the point of desparation and the they gladly pass you through to someone who knows what they're talking about.

I think you were lucky. When I've had dealings with their CS staff, I've been told I'm being put "straight through to one of their colleagues" only to be dumped to the back of the phone queue or put through to another department. I remember one occasion where I was passed between 4 different people in a call lasting over 90 minutes before I eventually gave up and put the phone down. Thank goodness for callbacks, eh.

frivolous_fay

tomstickland wrote:

Via the standard customer helpline number, the key moment was when I got passed through to a higher authority

Sorry, what is that no.? None of the ones they have supplied me are staffed by people who can be bothered to pick up the phone.

tomstickland

0845 9555200 I think it was.

masonic

tomstickland wrote:

0845 9555200 I think it was.

It looks like that might be their complaints line. :shhh: If only I'd known about that number when I was a customer of theirs.

justtoclarify_2

tomstickland wrote:

Can't input current meter readings because they're less than the start readings - just wait until my real readings overtake the website units and it'll all sort itself out.

Had that problem, all fine and dandy until my meter readings exceeded their start reading; where upon they managed to bill me using meter reading their system would not accept as the start reading up to the current meter reading.