British Gas have allowed me to get £400 in debt!

jimbregas

Back in September I changed from an electricity key meter to fixed direct debit payments, these were set at £2 a week which I immediately questioned and was told this would be adjusted soon.
Months later there has been no change and I am now over £400 in debt!
I've contacted BG after my last 2 bills and keep being told I will be contacted soon for any adjustment, my last bill just arrived and it states no adjustment at this time!
Aren't BG supposed to prevent this happening? I can't afford to pay it off as a lump sum and don't much fancy a big jump in DD payments either!
What can I do??

HappyMJ

jimbregas wrote: »

Back in September I changed from an electricity key meter to fixed direct debit payments, these were set at £2 a week which I immediately questioned and was told this would be adjusted soon.
Months later there has been no change and I am now over £400 in debt!
I've contacted BG after my last 2 bills and keep being told I will be contacted soon for any adjustment, my last bill just arrived and it states no adjustment at this time!
Aren't BG supposed to prevent this happening? I can't afford to pay it off as a lump sum and don't much fancy a big jump in DD payments either!
What can I do??

Ring them up and pay more before they impose a direct debit which is too high.

jalexa

jimbregas wrote: »

What can I do??

Phone them up. Give them one chance to agree payment terms. If you are not happy with the terms offered raise a formal complaint highlighting all the occasions that you expressed a concern.

You don't mention what DD "jump" you think is reasonable but you must expect to pay 1/12 of your annual consumption plus an agreed reasonable catch-up. You have after all benefitted by only paying £2/week since September. Something you recognised as probably not enough.

grahamc2003

jimbregas wrote: »

Back in September I changed from an electricity key meter to fixed direct debit payments, these were set at £2 a week which I immediately questioned and was told this would be adjusted soon.
Months later there has been no change and I am now over £400 in debt!
I've contacted BG after my last 2 bills and keep being told I will be contacted soon for any adjustment, my last bill just arrived and it states no adjustment at this time!
Aren't BG supposed to prevent this happening? I can't afford to pay it off as a lump sum and don't much fancy a big jump in DD payments either!
What can I do??

Surely there shouldn't be a problem here? If you thought £2w pw was too little, shouldn't you have just saved the extra you expected ready to pay the correct bill when it came? Being realistic about the bill, the only choice you have is to either pay off the bill in one hit, or pay it off via an increased direct debit.

I don't understand your latest bill if it says theres no adjustment necessary and they're not asking for full payment. If that is so, I'd just ring them and ask to pay £20/£30/£40 per month, or whatever you can afford, Remember the £400 is for the winter months - the summer months should be much less (assuming you have gas heating).

SwanJon

Agree with all the above £2/week sounds very low - I assume this is £8-£10/month rather than weekly?

If you are not happy speaking to someone you can write or email (details on their website).

The other thing you can do is register to use the website and put in regular readings. You can then control your DD without having to speak to anyone - and have a much better idea of what is being used.

spiro

Technically you are not £400 in debt you have a £400 debit balance.

Have you checked that both bills are based on Actual readings rather than estimates and that the meter serial number if that of your new credit meter?

undaunted

May be irritating given that you've set up a DDI but you could nevertheless either simply pay some more into the account manually if you are concerned about this or set aside the money you say you want to pay in order to pay it off later.

jimbregas

Obviously I was hoping someone would tell me that because it's BG's fault they may write off the debt! But as I suspected you can't beat the system! I'll just up my payments online and hope to clear the debt... sometime?!;)

Peter999_2

Sorry that it's come as a bit of a shock, like you say there is no way out of it.

Have you setup online access to BG?

When I was with them, you could put meter readings into the website and it would tell you how much Gas and Electric you had used since your last bill (including the cost as well as units used).

I used to check on the 1st of every month to see how much I'd spent in that month and made sure that the DD at least covered it and if not, made sure I kept enough money aside to pay it.

Pete

HappyMJ

jimbregas wrote: »

Obviously I was hoping someone would tell me that because it's BG's fault they may write off the debt! But as I suspected you can't beat the system! I'll just up my payments online and hope to clear the debt... sometime?!;)

If it was for charges more than 12 months ago and so far unbilled then yes you will only be charged for the last 12 months. As the bill is just for last winter then no you cannot get BG to write that bill off.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

jimbregas wrote: »

Back in September I changed from an electricity key meter to fixed direct debit payments, these were set at £2 a week which I immediately questioned and was told this would be adjusted soon.

how much per week were you using on key meter?

Even though your DD was set low, you should've been preparing for shortfall.

As already stated, make sure latest bill is not an estimate.