Help pay monthly scheme but got a massive bill

Donkey_3

Hi All
August last year we had gas fitted & a combi boiler at this time we choose to move to British Gas to supply electricity & gas.

Our old supplier was Power gen who we paid a set amount fortnghtly we kept the same scheme going with BG, and at the same rate per fortnight thinking that now we have gas heating cooking ect that we will actually be over paying and that they would just refund us the difference between what we paid & what we used.

Well it seems that they have not read the meter until Now over a year later & they are talling us we owe them £600 No S***.:mad:

So I phone them it seems that there has been no mistake all our payments have been recieved but the payments were not high enough !! (They seemed to be high enough for Power gen!)

Well I get through to a Manager eventually who appologises and says as way of an apology he would let us have a 20% reduction. Nice but that still leaves the best part of £500 to pay he says we will be given time to pay it But due to Arthritis I am not working so this is a big poblem.

Is there anything else I can do to try & reduce the money they want or should we just accept his offer & pay it back bit by bit

deanos

End of the day its up to you to make sure the meter has been read,didnt you find it funny not getting a gas bill every 3 months ?

Donkey_3

We got Gas bills but they estimated the Electricity I just can,t see how the payments for the electricity are the same as when we were all electric which covered it fully ! and now heating water & cooking are Gas & we owe them £600 as well as all the payments we have made.

deanos

So the gas reading were correct, but they didnt increase the payment plan, had that happen with me and Powergen, £100 discount is quite large to be honest, not sure what others would suggest but i would ring and sort out a new payment plan they shouldnt expect it all at once, as you have used the Gas.


BTW you have checked the gas readings on the bill against them meter to check its correct ?

Dont forget there has been a few price rises.

HalfPint

British gas will automatically amend your payments to accomodate the amount due and to cover the amount you are using.

Im paying off £400 arrears - yes we did use it and it was our fault for not having the meter read regularly - we only got estimates for ages

Our monthly payments were hiked up from £26 to £96 a month so expect a large increase.

Having said all that, I got our latest bill last week and we are now down to £256.00 :j - Yes this was an accurate reading!

Not a lot you can do really, unless you suspect the meter is faulty (which they will charge you to check if it's not faulty).

British gas aren't the cheapest, I'm moving as soon as the arrears are paid off. Be honest with them, if you used it you've got to pay for it. Once paid, look at shifting supplier to a cheaper one.

Sorry, haven't helped much Good luck getting it sorted.

Laura x

Donkey_3

deanos wrote:

So the gas reading were correct, but they didnt increase the payment plan, had that happen with me and Powergen, £100 discount is quite large to be honest, not sure what others would suggest but i would ring and sort out a new payment plan they shouldnt expect it all at once, as you have used the Gas.


BTW you have checked the gas readings on the bill against them meter to check its correct ?

Dont forget there has been a few price rises.

Thanks for the replies

However Just to clarify the gas is fine it's the electricity bill thats £600 on top of the payments we have made