British Gas-Rip Off

terjac3

Ive just had my gas bill for the last quarter. British Gas are asking for £110.48p. For the same quarter this time last year my bill was £51. We have gas central heating(which has not been on since march),a gas cooker and shower. After emailing british gas to find out why our bill has doubled from this time last year,i was told that it was because they had changed our old imperial meter to a metric meter and that Imperial meters measure gas in 100s of cubic feet. The cubic feet are multiplied by 2.83, to change this to metric so in effect one cubic foot is equivalent to 2.83 cubic meters. Im just getting the feeling that ive being ripped off. Did they know that by changing my meter,my bills would go sky high!!

shellsuit

Apparantly, from April to July this year, we have used just over 3 times more gas, than we did in the same period last year.

I haven't a clue how they work that out!

We already pay BG £100 a month just for gas and now they want another £244 from us?

The mind boggles...

macman

terjac3 wrote: »

Ive just had my gas bill for the last quarter. British Gas are asking for £110.48p. For the same quarter this time last year my bill was £51. We have gas central heating(which has not been on since march),a gas cooker and shower. After emailing british gas to find out why our bill has doubled from this time last year,i was told that it was because they had changed our old imperial meter to a metric meter and that Imperial meters measure gas in 100s of cubic feet. The cubic feet are multiplied by 2.83, to change this to metric so in effect one cubic foot is equivalent to 2.83 cubic meters. Im just getting the feeling that ive being ripped off. Did they know that by changing my meter,my bills would go sky high!!

Whoever emailed you needs 'sending for retraining'-or just firing.
If you look at your bill, you will see that you are billed in kWh (not in cu m or 100's cu ft). Certainly the conversion factor from the meter units is different for each type of meter, but the end result in kWh is exactly the same.
Meter units measure volume only. The conversion to kWh's measures actual energy used according to the other variables-the formula is clearly set out on your bill.
The reason you bill has doubled is a) prices have gone up about 30% since the same period last year and b) your kWh consumption has been much higher.
Forget about the bill in £'s, look at the actual kWh usage across the 2 bills.

macman

shellsuit wrote: »

Apparantly, from April to July this year, we have used just over 3 times more gas, than we did in the same period last year.

I haven't a clue how they work that out!

We already pay BG £100 a month just for gas and now they want another £244 from us?

The mind boggles...

Post your actual kWh figures. Monthly DD amounts have no relationship to actual usage.
Have you had a meter change? Are you being billed for the correct type of meter?

shellsuit

macman wrote: »

Post your actual kWh figures. Monthly DD amounts have no relationship to actual usage.
Have you had a meter change? Are you being billed for the correct type of meter?

We don't pay by DD, we pay £50 a fortnight by card, hence the £100 a month.

No meter change, meter readings all correct and tally up.

Haven't changed what we did last year at all.

We moved into this house last March and have a back boiler which I know are expensive to run, but can't understand why the useage has more than tripled for the same period?

I wanted to switch last week, so was shocked by the latest bill and of course can't switch now as we have a debt with BG.

spiro

Agree with what macman says. If you think your gas bill is wildly out then you should always check that both the meter and bill match in terms of unit of measurement. The meter will either have ft3 (cubic feet/imperial) or m3 (cubic metre/metric) stamped on it. The bill should be calculated based on the same basis.

For elec things are simple because your meter records in Kwh so 1 unit on the meter is 1 unit of elec, for gas the meter records in cubic units which they have to be converted into Kwh hence the complex calcualtion on the bill.

As has already been said, when posting on this forum always quote Kwh not £s as tariffs etc make £s a lot less meaningful than Kwh.

dogshome

Hi terjac3 - For your bill to double for this last Qtr compared to the same last year, points up that there is possibly a problem with the meter readings when you changed meters - You should have been left a card on meter change day showing what the reading was on the old meter when it was taken out.

On the bill there should be two sets of calculations, one for the Imperial meter and another for the Metric meter - Check that the End reading on the Imperial part of the bill coincides with the reading on the card - If it's not the same, reject the bill in WRITING

Either you misunderstood BG's explanation of Metric v Imperial gas volumes or what you were told was just plain wrong
Each meter unit on your old Imperial meter measured out 100 cubic feet of gas - Your new Metric meter units deliver one cubic metre, which is 183% less than 100 cubic feet so your new metric meter will clock up units a lot faster.

As other posters have pointed out, your units converted to Kwh for chargeing and the calculation for this is shown on the bill, but, because you are charged for the Thermal value of the gas delivered on the bill, which can vary, the calculation is slightly different on each bill - But there is a way to do a quick check.

Divide the Kwh charged into the units used:
For your new metric meter the answer should be close to 11.2
For your Old Imperial meter the answer should be close to 31.5

eurmalian

shellsuit wrote: »

We don't pay by DD, we pay £50 a fortnight by card, hence the £100 a month.

Haven't changed what we did last year at all.

We moved into this house last March and have a back boiler which I know are expensive to run, but can't understand why the useage has more than tripled for the same period?

Have you checked the statements that will have been sent out? Were actual meter readings used or estimates? Did you have a balance building up at all?

It's far more likely that the ammount you were paying before didn't quite cover what you were using, so a debt has built up on the account. In that case the payments have to go up so that you cover your usage and then up further to start paying off the debt.

British_Gas

Hi terjac3

Are you able to send me your name and either address or account number, plus some more details of this to [EMAIL="PAYGE_MSE_contact@britishgas.co.uk"]PAYGE_MSE_contact@britishgas.co.uk[/EMAIL]? As macman says, it sounds like our agent has got things very wrong if they've said this is due to changing from an imperial to a meteric meter.

Thanks

shellsuit

eurmalian wrote: »

Have you checked the statements that will have been sent out? Were actual meter readings used or estimates? Did you have a balance building up at all?

It's far more likely that the ammount you were paying before didn't quite cover what you were using, so a debt has built up on the account. In that case the payments have to go up so that you cover your usage and then up further to start paying off the debt.

I don't get a paper statement, but checked the account online.

Back in January it was an estimate, but April-July was an actual reading.

Maybe it could have been building up from January when it was estimated, but it still doesn't explain how we have used 3 times more gas in April-July than we did last year, unless that is why also ~ does the useage get rolled over?

macman

Post your actual kWh usage figures with dates, for the 2 periods you are talking about.