£16,000 British Gas bill for 5 years undercharge

dorothee

We have a limited company and 6 months ago tried to switch supplier for our electricity to obtain a better rate.

We have been with British Gas for 3 years and prior to that we were in Bizz Energy (who got bought out by BG when they went bust).

For the last five years we have paid roughly £300/month for our electricity but British Gas have now told us that for this full five year period they had been (under)estimating our consumption and that our account is £10,000 in arrears.

We don't have £10,000 and will not make £10,000 profit this year. Our best option is that they will let us pay it over 10 years - allowing us to pay the new increased current rates at the same time. They started by telling us we needed to settle this balance within 7 days then finally agreed to the possibility of negotiating a 12 month payment plan.

In fact the situation is even worse this. We decided to check our consumption by day part since we found it astounding that we could be using £700+ a month of electricity and found out that they have muddled their night and day meters and we have been paying the lower rate for our day time consumption and the higher rate for our night time consumption. If rectified this increases out debt to British Gas to £16,000.

Had we known how expensive it was five years ago we would have reviewed our operating practices, changed equipment to more efficient fuels etc..

Can anyone help me? Do we have any rights to protect us from this billing undercharge which we simply cannot afford to pay now.

jalexa

dorothee wrote: »

Do we have any rights to protect us from this billing undercharge

You are entitled to raise a complaint in accordance with the British Gas procedures for business customers. Then (as a "micro-business") you have access to the Energy Ombudsman.

Start with a complaint, make your case (though inability to pay is not a good argument). Consider the response. If you are not satisfied with the proposals contact the Energy Ombudsman.

spiro

You should start by sacking your book keeper/accountant, for 5 years they have allow you to base your accounts on estimated bills.

Did it never occur to ANYONE within your business to check trhe estimated bill against the meter? If so this would have been spotted years ago and you would not be in this position.

I know the above sounds harsh but its bad enough when domestic customers come on here complaining about a 'catch up' bill but for a business it is an order of magnitude more negligent not to manage thinks like this.

jalexa

spiro wrote: »

Did it never occur to ANYONE within your business to check trhe estimated bill against the meter? If so this would have been spotted years ago and you would not be in this position.

Though I agree that the "business case" is grossly wrong in its energy assumptions, your "spotted" remark is absurd.

*If* this was a domestic supply (which it isn't) the issue would be "easy", the Billing Code provisions on "back-billing) might apply. This is because the error (as described) is not an "estimating" error (as you argue by "spotted"), but a day/night reversal issue. That it remained "unspotted" in 5 years, i.e. "unspotted" by industry meter readers, suggests it was not reasonable for a layperson to spot the issue through the process of taking a reading (or checking an estimated reading).

There is no cost to the business in taking the Energy Ombudsman route. I cannot predict the outcome but "unspotted" by industry meter readers should be at the centre of the consideration.

spiro

jalexa wrote: »

This is because the error (as described) is not an "estimating" error (as you argue by "spotted"), but a day/night reversal issue. That it remained "unspotted" in 5 years, i.e. "unspotted" by industry meter readers, suggests it was not reasonable for a layperson to spot the issue through the process of taking a reading (or checking an estimated reading).

Don't agree, £10,000 is due to estimating. Day/night reversal just increases it by £6,000. So checking bills would have eliminated the £10k debt and it would possibly identified reversal sooner as poster says that by checking consumption they noticed it.

jalexa

spiro wrote: »

£10,000 is due to estimating. Day/night reversal just increases it by £6,000.

OK, thank you for helping me see something I missed on first reading, however it doesn't really affect my underlying argument that industry meter reading measures have failed (apparently) to identify an accurate consumption profile for the premises.

The "estimates" should have been based on an "accurate" consumption profile for the premises (including historical consumption) and should have been influenced by 2 or more industry meter readings during the period of the "error".

Why that does not appear to be the case could be another consideration for the Energy Ombudsman.

AppleMonkey

You will probably find that the meter has been reading correctly by the 'Industry' Meter readers however due to it being transposed and not in line with previous 'Readings' (Although estimated) on the account they have been refused by British Gas.

I agree in principle with the previous poster that someone should have noticed the accounts were estimated for that length of time.

However your 'Best option' isn't going to be agreed by British Gas I would imagine at most you could get maybe five years which is the length of time your account has been estimated for - Most probable 3 years.

Again this is just another case of 'Blame the Supplier' There is a joint repsonsibility for making sure your account is correct - As an example If I said to you I 'Think' your shopping is £100 and you worked it out yourself and it was £20 you wouldn't hand me money over would you?

spiro

AppleMonkey wrote: »

Again this is just another case of 'Blame the Supplier' There is a joint repsonsibility for making sure your account is correct - As an example If I said to you I 'Think' your shopping is £100 and you worked it out yourself and it was £20 you wouldn't hand me money over would you?

I agree, the BG domestic T&Cs state that you must submit 2 meter readings per year. If everyone did this then half these posts would never appear.