Frightening DD price increase!!

paulrossi

On opening my bank statements to reconcile my accounts, I find my Gas and Electricity suppliers, British Gas, have raised my monthly direct debit from £74.00 to £202.00 a month, I calculate that at about 270% or an anual increase of £1524.00. They did advise, by my online account, nothing in writing or by email, which I unfortuately did not access during this month. Anyone else has this problem?

ihateyes

how often do you read your meter?
It seems clear you have ben underpaying, and are possibly owing money wehereas at this time of year you should be in credit in readiness for the higher usage in the winter.

dogshome

Hi paulrossi - It would appear that for quite some time BG have been issueing estimated bills, and now that they have taken meter readings they are billing for all the Power/Gas you used, that your D/D's were not high enough to pay for.

The £202 D/D demand is to pay off the debt, (usually over 1 year), and also pay for the Power/Gas BG reckon you are actually using - If you phone BG they will tell you how much of the £202 is going to each sector.

I'm afraid the days of just paying a Utility bill when it drops on the doormat are long gone - You must check these bills in detail and never, never accept an estimated bill - always check it's End Reading against your meter and phone in that reading to get an accurate bill

jalexa

paulrossi wrote: »

They did advise, by my online account, nothing in writing or by email, which I unfortuately did not access during this month...

I want to make sure I understand that. Are you saying that there was mention in your online account (which you did not access) but you would have seen any email sent, i.e. you allege no email was sent?

In that case, IMO, notice to vary the Direct Debit has not been served and you are entitled to "require" you bank to "immediately" return the debit under the Direct Debit Guarantee.

If British Gas are not sending you (written) or email notices you should raise a Complaint about that.

Of course being "refunded" does not solve any account balance issue which may be the cause of the "hike". Plenty of good advice on that in the other posts.

System

they do email -i got one saying they wanted to reduce my dd as i was over £200 in credit , i rang them and told them not to as i want to have a cushion for the winter period.

invalid_username_2

British gas increased my bills from 75 permonth to £160 one time. The result was i ended up deing £600 in credit!!! How stupid was that?? They didn't want to reimburse me though so reduced my bills to £10 for 6 months.

Ileft them soon after that

Dreamnine

dogshome wrote: »

Hi paulrossi - It would appear that for quite some time BG have been issueing estimated bills, and now that they have taken meter readings they are billing for all the Power/Gas you used, that your D/D's were not high enough to pay for.

The £202 D/D demand is to pay off the debt, (usually over 1 year), and also pay for the Power/Gas BG reckon you are actually using - If you phone BG they will tell you how much of the £202 is going to each sector.

I'm afraid the days of just paying a Utility bill when it drops on the doormat are long gone - You must check these bills in detail and never, never accept an estimated bill - always check it's End Reading against your meter and phone in that reading to get an accurate bill

I pay the bills when they drop on the doormat...

Of course, they're accurate because I submit online readings. I would never have any truck withh DD, and I use maybe a quarter of most people - elec and gas - so any savings via DD would be negligible.

daveyjp

Me too Dreamnine (2.5% discount for prompt payment offsets some of the DD discount anyway)- some of those on DD seem to think it's the only way and the energy company is always right so no need to check the readings.

If you aren't happy with DD, set up a savings account, pay into it every month and pay every quarter, or sign up to a tarriff where you send monthly readings and pay a variable DD amount based on actual use.