raising dd payments on Gas & Electricity

bessie122

bearing in mind we are pensioners British Gas/Electricity have just raised our dd payments monthly by £37 when our pension increase is only £26 and we have not had our council tax bill in yet, do we have any say in the amount and apart from changing supplier any ideas?

chugalug

Yes you do have a say! They can only increase the amount they take by DD with your agreement. I had the same problem with my mothers Gas account as they wanted to increase the payments by £25. Obviously she was in debit as had just had the winter quarter but I think it will all balance out over the year. I rang up and said she couldnt afford the increase and didnt authorise an increase in payments (I receive the bills for her as she's blind). They agreed to keep the payments the same at least until the end of the year when the situation will be reviewed. So, give them a ring and be firm. Good luck.

Paul_Varjak

bessie122 wrote:

bearing in mind we are pensioners British Gas/Electricity have just raised our dd payments monthly by £37 when our pension increase is only £26 and we have not had our council tax bill in yet, do we have any say in the amount and apart from changing supplier any ideas?

I guess you are on a 'budget' scheme and the rise in the monthly direct debits is because you have run into debt on your account. I have usually found that these companies are quite amenable to any request to lower the amount, providing there is still a reasonable chance that you will eventually lose the 'debit' balance.

There is a company called STAYWARM that offer unmetered gas/electric to pensioners. Instetad, they base their charge on how many people live in the property and how many bedrooms you have:

https://www.staywarm.co.uk

The only problem is, they are not as competitive as they once were.