Mum's gas bill has gone up £40 per month PLEASE help?

zuliano

Please can you help, the gas company my mum moved to after one of the representatives promised her that SOUTHERN ELECTRIC would give her a far better deal than the one she was with has just sent her a letter saying they are going to put the gas up £40 per month!!!

Let me copy the letter:

"A change to your monthly direct debit payments for gas

Once a year we check that your monthly payments will cover your ongoing gas charges. We've checked your account and found that your payments need to change.

From 15 April 2012 we recommend that your new monthly payment should be £109:00 currently it's £69:00.

Here's how we've worked out your new monthly payment.

Based on your meter reading history and our current prices we expect your annual energy cost to be £1096.30.

At the moment you have a debit of £217.15 on your account. So we expect the total cost for the year to be £1313.45, up to your next annual payment review. We'll be able to collect 11 payments, so we've divided the total cost by 11. This means your monthly payment needs to be £109.00, rounded up to the nearest pound.

We'll take care of everything for you, so you don't need to do anything. We'll start to collect the new amount from your bank account on, or shortly after 15 April 2012. But, if you'd like to talk to us about this change, please give us a call on 0845 072 4330,

Yours Sincerely [Customer Service for Southern Electric']

So there you are. What can my mum do. Please can you explain simply what you advise. Thankyou.

McKneff

zuliano wrote: »

Please can you help, the gas company my mum moved to after one of the representatives promised her that SOUTHERN ELECTRIC would give her a far better deal than the one she was with has just sent her a letter saying they are going to put the gas up £40 per month!!!

Let me copy the letter:



So there you are. What can my mum do. Please can you explain simply what you advise. Thankyou.

Based on what your mum has used over the last year, they work on that for the year to come and add the debt from the year before and divide by 12 and they come to the monthly figure.

(she has underpaid the year before by £217)

Antispam

She has been under paying for some time, whilst her usage isnt high she has been paying fair less than she should have done as and said she need to be paying what she is using now and some of it for her debt. Also has usage will now fall due to Spring she needs to have some credit for next winter.

HappyMJ

zuliano wrote: »

So there you are. What can my mum do. Please can you explain simply what you advise. Thankyou.

She could repay the outstanding £217.15 immediately to clear the balance to zero then negotiate the annual usage of £1096.30 to be paid over 12 months to make a monthly payment of £91 a month.

She should have been paying (£217.15/12 + £69) £87 a month over the last year so her real increase is only £4 a month more.

victor2

Unfortunately, that seems to be quite a common way for suppliers to win new customers. They underestimate the actual cost and say "we can save you £xx a month if you switch to us."
On top of that, you've got the price increases late last year to account for as well, unless she's on a fixed tariff.
The only way to avoid such nasty shocks is monitor your usage carefully and make sure you (or your Mum) are not getting into debt, other than the debt/credit caused by seasonal variances.

outtawork

I had the same problem with the water company paying by DD, they read the meter, added a standing charge & suddenly I am £24 in debit & they decided to almost double my DD from £6 month - £11. I wasn't happy, offered to pay the balance so I could start a zero balance, was told it would only go down to £9 per month.My bill for the year is £84 divide that by 12 is £7, where they got £9 from I don't know. .Also the waste water bill is usually double the first bill so I decided not to pay by DD as there is no incentive & I will only pay for what I use.

andy2004

southern electric put our bill up by £50 a month. I simply phoned them up, and asked why i didnt get a letter, as i didnt check my bills online, i'm paperless i still expected to be notified by post / paper if they wanted to change my direct debit.
Anyway, after speaking to them via the web, small note dont installed firefox 4 or above if you want to speak directly to them, wont work.
they said they also used the previous year, but they used the wrong year to work it out. As we owed over £200 which we have been bringing down over this paste year, due to switching the tariff we where on, finally down to £86 owed, and being told that GAS is coming down, they changed the amount from £84 a month for electric down to £40 which was originally £34, now before you say i'm getting confused about gas and electric, i'm not,

electric we've been paying £74 a month increased to £84 reduced back to £40 after my phone call.
gas was £30 a month increased to £71
a total of £104 which they raised to £155

Your monthly payments need to increase to £71 starting from 8 March 2012. gas
Your monthly payments need to increase to £84 starting from 8 March 2012. electric.
we also switched to the cheapest tariff back in feb due to the one we where on ending for us.
Fixed Discount January 2014 General Domestic <this one i was told by them is the cheapest.
small note, check your meter reading online their estimates are always way off. what they tell you you owe and what you actually owe are 2 different things, and they have also changed the billing from 3months to 6months, which is why i spoke to them about it in Jan to go back to 3months, but when they changed the tariff they also changed that. 1 word for that, DUMB. guess i'm going to have to get them to change it back to 3months again.
Next bill date is in August instead of May. and then they wonder why people get in debt.