British Gas Bill from 2 years ago!!!

watson1312

Hi Folks. Am hoping for some advice. My mum moved house in May 2009, she had been with BG prior to this and had arranged through them to continue getting her gas and electricity from them. When she left her old property she took her final readings from both meters. shortly after moving into her new address she recieved a bill based on actual readings which she then settled, I cant quite remember what it was exactly, but there was some confusion at the time, that took us ages to get to the bottom of. It turned out that they had several different accounts open in my mums name....anyway, to keep this concise, she payed what she owed them (£113.00) and shortly afterwards changed to a new provider Scottish Power. End of.......But 2 weeks ago she recieved a letter of apology from BG stating that they had made a mistake and that according to their records they owed her a refund from her old address (that she left 2 years ago) for the amount of £113.00. My mum was confused but wasn't surprised as our experiences of dealing with BG way back when always left us confused. Anyway, the amount was credited to her account. The next day she recieved another duplicate letter of the one she had just recieved, followed on the next day by a letter stating that according to their records she owes them £130.00 from the address that she left 2 years ago. Confused? I promised her I would go on MSE to see if anyone could advise. My mum paid what she thought was due way back when. It was an actual bill and as far as she was concerned she had settled up with them. Does anyone know what the rules are regarding recieving bills after a certain amount of time? My mum doesn't have much money to spare, she struggles as it is. She absolutely would want to do the right thing, but surely there is grounds for complaint after such a long period of time?
Any advice would be great, thanks in advance for reading.

Cardew

Technically they can claim for up to 6 years for outstanding debts - if it is indeed a valid debt of course.

BG bill separately for Gas and Electricity. Could it be that the £113 refund was for gas and the £130 bill for electricity? or vice versa?

As your mother has obviously acted in good faith, I would certainly take the matter up with BG's complaints dept and get a formal letter explaining in detail the situation and why it has taken so long to raise a bill.

watson1312

Thanks for your response. After spending literally the best part of a full day sat sifting through all the old bill statements which we had luckily kept hold of, it would seem that the amount that they are now claiming for is for the electricity between feb and may 09. The "final" bill based on actual readings for some reason only went up till feb 09. Which leaves 3 months elec unpaid for, which we are only just noticing now after scrutinizing each statement. The thing is, she had several "final" bills through and in all good faith paid what was owed. I will follow your advice though as I do think that there is fair cause for complaint. thanks again.

watson1312

Ok, sorry for not updating this earlier. I recently sent an email to British Gas on behalf on my Mum. It took me the best part of a day to write it, including all the info and a timeline for their reference. Neither my Mum or myself has even attempted to contact BG by phone as we know from experience that they are absolutely useless and the whole complicated affair would be too much to try to communicate through a phone call. Anyway, after attempting to use the BG websites complaints page to submit the email we were constantly told that despite adding all the required fields there is a "system error" and have therefore sent the email to customercomplaints@britishgas.co.uk and also to britishgascustomerrelations@centrica.com. So far we have had no response from them. In the meantime it seems that the debt has now been passed to LCS Leeds, who are now sending my Mum letters/ automated phone calls threatening legal action. After reading up on a few different threads re LCS it seems that it's not a good idea to call them.....Sigh.......There's been a lot of time and worry put into this so far. Tonight I am going to print off the email I composed and send a hard copy to BG Complaints Management team. I'm also going to have to write a letter to LCS explaining the situation and enclose a copy of the letter I have sent to BG too. Please can anyone advise further on this? My mum simply isn't capable of sorting this out herself and my time is so stretched at the moment. Just want to get this sorted once and for all. We'd really appreciate any further help and advice. Thanks in advance.

t0rt0ise

What you need to do is transfer your email to a letter and send it to British Gas complaints.. the address is on their website.. send it by signed for post. I found that emails never got answered.

watson1312

Well, result!!!! Sorry for delay in updating this. Basically I made several attempts to complain via the BG website only to be informed that there was a system error. So I sent the complaint via email to BG complaints. BG do state that they aim to respond within 48 hours. A week later and nothing. I printed off the letter of complaint and sent it recorded delivery. Shortly after I received an email back from BG saying that they were extremely sorry for the upset that this had caused my mum, that they were writing off the debt and that by way of apology they would be sending some flowers to my mother. The flowers did turn up eventually (after being sent to the OLD address!!!!) Anyway, there you go. Got a gripe with BG? Don't waste your time using the online form, save yourself the time and effort and print off your letter/send it recorded delivery, I think it's the only way you can expect anything to be done. To be fair to BG I will have to say that once they responded, it was all dealt with very quickly and pleasantly. Hope this is of help to anyone else who finds themselves in the same situation.

bengasman

Cardew wrote: »

Technically they can claim for up to 6 years for outstanding debts

No, they can't. It's only one year if they did not send a bill during that period.

Cardew

Originally Posted by Cardew
Technically they can claim for up to 6 years for outstanding debts

bengasman wrote: »

No, they can't. It's only one year if they did not send a bill during that period.

Did you not notice I said 'debts'.

The discussion was about it being a valid debt or not!!!!

vax2002

No invoice = no debt
Bengasman is correct IMO

Cardew

vax2002 wrote: »

No invoice = no debt
Bengasman is correct IMO

Everyone, but everyone, surely knows about the 12 month back-billing rule!!(Bengasman's point)

The OP posted:

I cant quite remember what it was exactly, but there was some confusion at the time, that took us ages to get to the bottom of. It turned out that they had several different accounts open in my mums name....

What I posted in June in reply to that post was:

Technically they can claim for up to 6 years for outstanding debts - if it is indeed a valid debt of course.

Please note the caveat "if it is indeed a valid debt of course"

It is blindingly obvious that if a bill had not been raised then it is not a valid debt!!

However to quote the OP(again) 'there was confusion - several accounts open - etc'