Refused Credit Card thanks to British Gas

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

IZTOOLS this is the reason I wholeheartedly disagree with MObile Phones and Utilities being "allowed" to use CRA's to report their customer accounts. Unlike a credit card, loan or mortgage where you are in a way "fixed" to a payment. For credit cards either the minimum up to total balance or loans where the value is fixed changing when notified of APR increased/decreases, bills from mobiles and utilities are more dynamic and therefore open to error or instruction by the company to "ignore" erroneous bills. Due to the fact a high dgree of misreporting can occur with these types of "credit" accounts they have no place on a credit file.

I know of a case where Virgin Media created two accounts for a customer and when the customer queried this Virgin said ignore bills from one account and pay the other. To the person's horror the "non paid" erroneous account was repored as a "default" and only came to light when the person applied for a mortgage. It was also inordinately difficult getting this incorrect data removed. Letters to Virgin ignored, Equifax disputes being returned as "correct data" and any attempt to speak to the department in Virgin that supplied the information to Equifax being returned with "they don't speak to the public".

silvershampoo

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

How do they report the bill if it says "The Occupier"?? Our water bills say that.

i work for UU - who im assuming is your water company as you live in cumbria - and if its addressed to the occupier it means we have the address as empty...

therefor it cant be reported for any particular person. but if they find its occupied by a property visit or checking electoral register / experian they will update your details...

pippitypop

I was with BG and was in similar position as you - I was in dispute with them over a bill! They removed all the late payment markers (over a years worth) off my credit report. I would go through their official complaints process, especially if you did not receive any communication at all from them about the outstanding amount.

moatmeister

I had a similar thing, late payment due to a misunderstanding resulting in a black mark. I queried it with them and their "advisor" told me they were legally obliged to report. I checked with ofgem and they said there was no legal obligation so as far as I am concerned, BG lied to me and I will be changing suppliers when I get round to doing it.

The misunderstanding was resolved, the account brought up to date. however they refused to remove the late payment mark. The banks could vaguely argue that they record and share this type of information to protect their colleagues. BG are just being vindictive, they have nothing to gain by this course of action, it just causes unnecessary trouble for people. All they have to do to non paying customers is to stop supplying gas.

opinions4u

If there is one company I will never do business with again it's British Gas.

I don't have any problem with them reporting to the CRAs. But they should ensure they bill fairly before doing so and then report accurately.

GooliesOfFire

I've got 2 British Gas accounts on my file - one for electricity and one for gas. I pay 4 times a year and they show balance other than zero every 3 months. No late payments but I'm not very happy to have it on my file.

bigadaj

I'm sure they are crying into their multi billion pound profits.

Ultimately any big utility is pretty useless which is why I switch every year or two, get the bonus for doing so and try and ensure I'm not too ripped off on price.

There is an argument that bg have less of an incentive to be any good because as a legacy supplier they have a huge customer base that they know won't move, but that's the way life is.