colin

sido1

Help please,both my business accounts ,elc and gas have been rolled over,i swear i never had a letter telling my 2 year deal had come to an end,one was feb the other april,i only found out when i got a letter last week telling me i may be paying too much for my electric as the deal ended 4th april,when i rang british gas ,to enquire,the operator informed me my gas had expired in february,i done a silly thing i accepted his new offer ,it wasn't till i checked an old bill that i realised he had doubled my bill eg, old price for elec was 7,77,now its over 12, as my monthly bill is around £300 a month this is a massive rise,i admit i accepted ,but after a hour of trying to sort out my head was battered,this happened yesterday23rd april,thanks any advice how to proceed welcome, can i just add i had a stroke last year and am not as quick as i used to be,,

dogshome

Visit Ofgems website, they have an information page on Utility contracts for small businesses entitled 'microbusinesses'

It lays out the terms of contracts and renewals with the time scales that Suppliers must adhere to

sido1

thanks i will ,they told me today its binding and no get out,one thing operator did not do ,and that was to inform me of the consequences of going fixed tariff,in this case 3 years he only said it to protect your tariff,he did not mention i could be paying a premium for 3 years against 1-2 years,which might be the reson for the huge jump

Terrylw1

Sadly businesses are not covered withe same controls as residentials.

Once your contract expires, your supplier is fully entitled to charge you on Deemed contract terms which will be more expensive.

In terms of letters they should send to make you aware of pending Deemed contracts, it will be a matter of "we sent it" unless they can find evidence they didn't.

You can make a complaint about any missing comms and misselling issues about the agent to see if they will at least compromise in some way.

sido1

Thanks Terry i did ask him to get the letters up on his screen that they should have sent, but he couldn't,the letters should have had the new tariffs on,which would have been lower that prices he set, i realise its some of my fault i agreed in panic ,but your right we have no or little rights, how they get away with this beggars belief

Terrylw1

They used to get away with everything for residentials for years after deregulation until the complaints, customer bodies and the media forced ofgem to get involved in their own regulation.

Businesses haven't had as much in the media other than the Dermed contract rates trap. There is less sympathy for businesses on the basis of having solicitors, accountants, marketers, etc or the fact a proprieter would have more about them due to negotiating just to run them.

The only thing I can suggest is to negotiate to see what can be done. Check your old t&c's to see what they should have done and if they have failed, see if this fits to the general or business specific Standard Licence Conditions which you can find on ofgems site via Google searching.