Am I in contract or not ?

whiteswan

Hi

Okay I am a British Gas BUSINESS Customer (for electric and gas - but its the electric account I am refering to here ) and have been since 2005 when I opened my business as I locked into a 3 year fixed rate and my bills were approx £350 every month.

Fast forward to 2010 and my bills have increased to £1000 a month (public house) - so I gave notice to British Gas that I wanted out of my contract - they said I am on rolling contract and would be tied in until May 2011 - so I said I thought this was unfair as I have been sent no notice of whether I wanted to renew or not.

Complaint logged with my account manager and notified him that I wanted to leave when my rolling contract next ended.

To cut a long story short - I am still with them - despite my requests to leave - they now are saying I only have a short time frame every year in which to leave them and that I have missed this window of opportunity - why don't they write to you and ask if you want to carry on with this contract - I have given them notice to leave 3 times now but all they say is it was sent at wrong time.

I telephoned them Wednesday - spoke to account manager again - who says I am now locked into a 2 year contract that expires 2013 - when I queried this he says I entered into contract over telephone Sept 2011 - I disputed this - this is when things took a rather interesting turn.

I asked for a copy of the telephone call where I had allegedly entered into a new contract (this never happened) - and he went onto explain the following..............

If there was no proof that I had entered into anew contract then I will be charged (and backdated) "out of contract" rates which would result in a huge debt to pay !!

If there was proof that I entered into a new contract then I would have to stay wit them until Sept 2013.

So either way they win ????

Surely if there is NO proof that I entered into a contract with them then they have "made" me stay with them under false pretences when in fact I was free to leave them at any time - yet they have mis-led me ??

Does anybody have any advice on how to proceed ?

Dave

jalexa

whiteswan wrote: »

Fast forward to 2010 and my bills have increased to £1000 a month (public house) - so I gave notice to British Gas that I wanted out of my contract - they said I am on rolling contract and would be tied in until May 2011 - so I said I thought this was unfair as I have been sent no notice of whether I wanted to renew or not.

For starters you need to go through your contract line by line paying particular attention to "renewal" and "cancellation notice".

In 2010 your British Gas costs were "£1000 a month". What would your costs have been with another supplier?

How do your current costs (to contract expiry in 2013) compare with what you might pay with another supplier?

Without these answers "conflict" is pointless conflict though I accept that you have probably learned enough from your account manager's demeanor that British Gas "values" are not your values.

macman

IIRC, auto-renewing contracts are no longer allowed on consumer contracts, but it may well apply to your business contract. As above, check your T&C's.

YoYoY

whiteswan wrote: »

Hi

Okay I am a British Gas BUSINESS Customer (for electric and gas - but its the electric account I am refering to here ) and have been since 2005 when I opened my business as I locked into a 3 year fixed rate and my bills were approx £350 every month.

Fast forward to 2010 and my bills have increased to £1000 a month (public house) - so I gave notice to British Gas that I wanted out of my contract - they said I am on rolling contract and would be tied in until May 2011 - so I said I thought this was unfair as I have been sent no notice of whether I wanted to renew or not.

Complaint logged with my account manager and notified him that I wanted to leave when my rolling contract next ended.

To cut a long story short - I am still with them - despite my requests to leave - they now are saying I only have a short time frame every year in which to leave them and that I have missed this window of opportunity - why don't they write to you and ask if you want to carry on with this contract - I have given them notice to leave 3 times now but all they say is it was sent at wrong time.

I telephoned them Wednesday - spoke to account manager again - who says I am now locked into a 2 year contract that expires 2013 - when I queried this he says I entered into contract over telephone Sept 2011 - I disputed this - this is when things took a rather interesting turn.

I asked for a copy of the telephone call where I had allegedly entered into a new contract (this never happened) - and he went onto explain the following..............

If there was no proof that I had entered into anew contract then I will be charged (and backdated) "out of contract" rates which would result in a huge debt to pay !!

If there was proof that I entered into a new contract then I would have to stay wit them until Sept 2013.

So either way they win ????

Surely if there is NO proof that I entered into a contract with them then they have "made" me stay with them under false pretences when in fact I was free to leave them at any time - yet they have mis-led me ??

Does anybody have any advice on how to proceed ?

Dave

If you claim not to have entered a contract with the supplier, they will be entitled to charge you at either the deemed rate or their out of contract rate, both of which are "necessarily more expensive than [their] most competitive offer", so be careful what you wish for

http://www.britishgas.co.uk/business/products-and-services/deemed-rates.html

I too suggest referring to that contract you originally agreed to ... :cool:

dogshome

Ofgem did a clean-up on the way Business Supply contacts are handled for small businesses in early 2009, but left piles of dirty practices in dark corners.

Apart from the ' You agreed a contract on the phone' scam whereby requests for a recording of the call are never satified, suppliers rely on a piece of Ancient Law that says if a letter is posted it is deemed to have been recieved - It's amazing how many hard copies of Bus. Supply contracts and required written notices, get 'Lost' in the post

The rules are that the supplier should write to the contractee 60 days before the contract expires, at that point the customer has 30 days to advise he's leaving, haveing negotiated a supply from someone else for when his contract ends, or agree a new contract with the old supplier - If the customer does nothing the supplier has the right to roll the contract forward on new terms, but he is supposed to furnish the customer with a hard copy of the new contract.

Your only defence form the current position is to repeatedly hammer BG for a copy of the current contract - Do this in writing by Recorded Delivery- If you do not get a satisfactory response after 3 such requests over a 6 week period, send copies of your history and the letters to Ofgem
I suspect that once BG have gone thro' this saga, you required 60 day notice letter from BG, won't get lost in the post.

Taiko

BG Business seems to be in a terrible way right now. Can only suggest exhausting the complaints procedure and potentially take it to the Ombudsman.

I've just moved several accounts away from BG, as I look after multiple sites. We're also a bit tired as they've lost about £100,000 of our money by not reading remittance documents.