British Gas bill just arrived. Very confusing.

Cardew

justtoclarify wrote:

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.

?????

Not understood

tomstickland

He means that the online billing wouldn't accept his current readings because start readings were higher, but then the bill arrived using the lower start readings. I think.

justtoclarify_2

Cardew wrote:

?????

Not understood

I registered for electricity at a new property gave my start meter reading over the phone and online of 2000. First bill, starting figure is 2100, I queried it and they say old customer paid up to 2100 on an estimated final reading. I give them my current reading they said go away until the reading is higher than the one on their system. Being an honest person I query it a couple more times and was told the same thing. Six months later my meter reading passes 2100 and I supplied my meter reading. Now I expected to be charged from 2100 to 2150, as they have told me on several occasions. Instead they billed me from 2000 to 2150, now in the grand scheme of things it was not a lot of money, but they would not accept my meter reading on the three occasions I contacted them and told me that the previous customer had already paid for the electricity. Since the price had gone up in the six months, they calculated the bill in their favour, ignoring my intermediate meter readings.

The final outcome was they agreed to bill me from 2100 to 2150.

I had a similar thing happen when I switched suppliers, gave my meter readings on the day of the switch to both suppliers. New supplier messes up the gas reading and tells old supplier a higher reading than the reading I gave both of them. Error in favour of my old more expensive supplier, amount too small for new supplier to raise a dispute. The old supplier hid behind the rules governing switching saying they could not accept my meter reading only the one given by the new supplier. Anyway it was to their benefit so no reason for them to get upset and as ex-customer I had no leverage.

Much metaphorical foot stamping later and new supplier finally understands why its not in my interest to pay old supplier more than I owe, raises a dispute and bill from old supplier is ammended.

tomstickland

I don't understand why switching seems so difficult -I've spent hours on it. Oddly entertaining though.

Maisie

masonic wrote:

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.

I had the same trouble being passed around phone queues on Saturday morning. They've given me 2 credits on my bill totalling £81.94 so being a MSE'r wanted a refund. (Better in my pocket than theirs). First operator said why have you got 2 accts. I said I hadn't it's your new system. She didn't know anything about new system. Said she was passing me to another dept and I held on for 15 mins listening to 'want the best gas barbecue deal?' or new boiler on the queuing system. Got fed up with waiting so put the phone down. Have just emailed them so wait to see if they reply(https://www.house.co.uk).
.
No wonder British Gas came top of Martin's worst company poll.

What is the 'callback' you refer to? I didn't hear that option on the queuing system.

Cardew

justtoclarify,

Clarified!

masonic

Maisie wrote:

Have just emailed them so wait to see if they reply(https://www.house.co.uk)

Don't hold your breath . E-mail is the only 100% effective way I found of getting your query totally ignored.

Maisie wrote:

What is the 'callback' you refer to? I didn't hear that option on the queuing system.

Have you not noticed the little 'Call Me' buttons dotted around the house.co.uk website? The callback just dumps you into the queue with everyone else, but at least you are not paying. I used to schedule callbacks to my mobile so I could get on with other things while waiting to eventually get through to someone.