no way of paying huge bill with British Gas

Yasha

I moved in to my 2 bed semi last october and was put on a payment plan of £15 on gas and electric. I paid it every fortnightly and today I get a gas bill for £600! Theres no way i can pay this as i only get 100 a week and have a baby and a 10 yr old to look after. And that £600 is just the gas..not both.
what are the options here? apparantly at one point in 6 weeks i used £300 worth of gas. I cant understand this as i only ever have the heating on the lowest it can go and nothing else in the house is gas. Its a combi boiler, quite new and looked after. The windows are good quality double glazing and the house is insulated.
Im worried sick and british gas just want the money.
Can anyone offer any advice on how i can deal with this?

mattcanary

Does your bill state you have an imperial meter or a metric gas meter? Does this tally up with the actual gas meter - ie: does the meter say ft3 (imperial) on it or m3 (metric) on the front of it?

If they don;t match up this would have a huge impact on the bills you are getting an they would be very wrong.

Premier_2

Yasha wrote: »

I moved in to my 2 bed semi last october and was put on a payment plan of £15 on gas and electric. I paid it every fortnightly and today I get a gas bill for £600! Theres no way i can pay this as i only get 100 a week and have a baby and a 10 yr old to look after. And that £600 is just the gas..not both.
what are the options here? apparantly at one point in 6 weeks i used £300 worth of gas. I cant understand this as i only ever have the heating on the lowest it can go and nothing else in the house is gas. Its a combi boiler, quite new and looked after. The windows are good quality double glazing and the house is insulated.
Im worried sick and british gas just want the money.
Can anyone offer any advice on how i can deal with this?

£15 per month is extremely low, especially as you say you have a baby & 10 year old to look after.

Check the bill as the above poster suggests, but if it really is correct them you must manage your usage much better. Read the meter regularly and only use what you can afford.
As for the existing charges (assuming them to be correct) speak with your supplier now and try to arrange a repayment plan.
If all else fails, they will install prepayment meters and recover the debt that way. It will probably be a lower collection rate on a PPM but the overall cost may be higher as you will not get the discounts you could be getting with a credit meter

savemoney

£15 per month I assume for both utilities is extremely low, we pay £95 per month for both utilities and believe me I try and be frugal when I can, not easy with 3 adults complaining they are always cold and one with a disability. If you cant pay as said they probably fit a pre paid meter. Did you give utility company a ring when you moved in so you arent paying for someone else's usage? Try and agree to pay more off debt per month but that said £15 per months is well very very low, I doubt that would be for most peoples to cover theer usage unelss youa way 5 days a week