Unusual British Gas situation

carl310166

I pay British Gas monthly by DD for both fuels. Every year they review my account and change the payments accordingly, this year i was expecting a big rise in payments.

Last month my Electricity bill duely arrived and my payments were to increase from £19.50 per month to £75.00 per month to take into account the increase and to pay off what i owed for the year, now i was fully expecting this, so much so, i rang them up and paid the arrears off (£253) so my payments would only now be £31.00 per month.

O.K, everything normal so far !

I was not looking forward to my Gas bill dropping on the doormat, but last week the bill arrived and it said that they owed me £301.00, to say i was shocked was an understatement....now i do think this is a mistake, but i rang them anyway to ask for the credit to be sent back to my bank account,i rang them and they told me the payment was already on it's way back anyway.This morning a letter arrived to say my monthly payments would be decreasing from £30 per month down to £7.50 per month.

I am not trying to get out of paying what i owe, but i am going to wait until BG find out themselves,as this happened to anybody else?

furndire

I would be ringing and insisting they pay back the amount that they owe, and pay the direct debit at the rate they wanted. I'd probably even think of switching and telling them so.

Cardew

Presumably the bill is based on an incorrect(estimated?) previous or current meter reading?

furndire

Its the fact that they made OP pay off an extra £235 and then have the cheek to keep it - whether or not based on mis-readings that would have really annoyed me.

lab-lover

my payments review arrived this week too. gas payments up from43 to 88 pounds a month. electric stays about the same. phoned BG told them couldnt afford 88ponds a month, they were no help at all. switched to atlantic 2 hours later,i would say try and sort this out then switch..

carl310166

The readings are correct, that's why i don't know how they have completely messed up the gas bill.

I paid the electric arrears off with my credit card (paid off in full every month)

They did refund the gas bill amount, they had already transferred it back into my account before i rang.

Cardew

furndire wrote:

Its the fact that they made OP pay off an extra £235 and then have the cheek to keep it - whether or not based on mis-readings that would have really annoyed me.

I know its the fashion to knock BG on this Board, but where in any of the posts have BG said they are keeping the money?

In line with normal BG policy they have returned the credit balance; and the OP said so in his initial post. So what have BG done wrong?

What I cannot understand from the OP's post is this statement:

I am not trying to get out of paying what i owe, but i am going to wait until BG find out themselves

What are BG to "find out" if the readings, on which the bill is based, are correct?

carl310166

Cardew wrote:

I know its the fashion to knock BG on this Board, but where in any of the posts have BG said they are keeping the money?

In line with normal BG policy they have returned the credit balance; and the OP said so in his initial post. So what have BG done wrong?

What I cannot understand from the OP's post is this statement:



What are BG to "find out" if the readings, on which the bill is based, are correct?

Because there is no way i have only used £60 of gas for the whole year, i have checked the meter readings, there must be an admin/computer ?? error somewhere, and they will find it in the end, it's just a matter of time/

tripled

If it's not an admin error I suppose a couple of other possibilities are they overestimated last year's settlement bill and also carried some credit forward (would have to have been a fair amount though), or possibly your meter has developed a fault? I know of a recent case where someone had a bill (to proper reads) for £5.77 for 3 months gas with the heating on every day. No way that would be right! If you think the meter is overregistering bg would charge you to have an inspection, however underregistering I'm sure if you asked someone would come out like a shot. Meters don't go wrong very often though.

pondie1

we had prepay meter taken out in jan 06.all year we have had bills comin in credit getting more every month,we aint payin them a penny,its someone elses credit they cant find out the problem to sort it they say,we have spent months on the phone,energywatch keep sayin they have sorted it and close the enquiry,all we want is a bill we have stamps on cars to pay bills whenever they arrive,and when it is sorted we will be switching both electric and gas

furndire

Cardew wrote:

I know its the fashion to knock BG on this Board, but where in any of the posts have BG said they are keeping the money?

They should automatically have sent a cheque out instead of dropping direct debit to such a low amount.