HELP! BG want to disconnect me!!

Debz1966

Hello

Firstly my apologies this will be long winded.

I'm at the end of my tether with BG. I was on a pay as you go meter for 6 years and finally got them to put a normal meter back on of January last year due to me being disabled now and not being able to get down the side of the house to put the gas card in etc.

Anyway after the first month I arranged a DD of £33 per month for my gas. When they changed my Electric meter over I asked about a DD and was told I was ok as I was for now as they had no readings and it was in credit by £128 part of which i think was the gov help scheme.I watched the bills coming in and thought they were a bit high but left it and carried on paying my DD. At Christmas the DD failed and I rang to pay it and get it back on track and was told I had to pay £80 per month just for gas as my bill was £1400 approx. I was horrified and asked them to re read the meter and come back to me, well they read the meter in january and said it was correct and that I couldnt pay by DD now as it wanted £327 per month!!!!! I'm on ESA and DLA and cannot afford that , the lady said she would come back to me with help. Next I had a BG knocking on my door saying they are going to disconnect me , this was February. He read my meter and said I had used £400 in a month!!!!!!!!!!! I live in a 3 bedroom bungalow, which is privately rented and even when I was using the pay as you go system the most I put in in 1 month was £200. They wanted to take the money out of my benefit at £36 per week for gas and then £10 for the debt. I refused because there is no way that my bills should be that high. I asked if it was possible for someone to come and check out the gas supply for me and was told if they did they would charge over £100 if there was nothing wrong. I was advised to talk to Energy Trust and at the moment I have filled some of it out online and I'm waiting for documents to send them with proof of income etc. I rang BG again to tell them what I was doing and that until its resolved I would pay £80 per month into my account. I feel that for a 3 bedroom house( with the heating on 18 and half the rads on nighttime) I shouldnt be paying more than that. The heating system I have in was all replaced 4 years ago.

Anyway I tried to explain to the women on the phone that there should be no way I used £400 of gas in one month making my bill over £1800 for the quarter ( Which I think is excessive ). I also said that in the summer when I had no heating on at all I was billed £230 for the month just for hot water ( not sure if that is right) she then put me through to the billing department , I told my story again and they passed me to EleDebt ( think thats what she said) I had to then tell my story once again, I suffer from depression and anxiety and by this time I was raging at no one listening to me. The man on the other end of the line couldnt understand me and I couldnt understand him either [text removed by MSE Forum Team]. I ended up putting the phone down and not getting anywhere. Told them I write to them. But thought I would come on here before I do as......

Today I got a disconnection notice. What do I do???? Please , any advice would help, I have an illness where being cold is not good and right now I'm freezing and in alot of pain because I'm scared to turn my heat up.

Through all this though every time I ask about my electric and the fact they havent billed me EVER for usage on that account , has been ignored at it still stands in £128 credit wth.

TIA

Debz

Pitsypoolisa

Hi there. I don't have any advice for you but I didn't want to read and run. I'm going through similar with Npower and my electricuty meter reading being unreasonably high. Could you possibly have a small gas leak somewhere? Hope you get it sorted soon

rogerblack

Debz1966 wrote: »

Anyway I tried to explain to the women on the phone that there should be no way I used £400 of gas in one month

It depends.
£400 is (about) 12000kWh.
This is a constant 16kW - which seems high, but not impossible for a large house.
the fact you never put in more than £200 before means it's clearly questionable though - have you however assumed that a credit meter will be cheaper, so turned the heating up a little, or had it on in more rooms?
Or similarly with the new boiler?


The first step is to read the meter, then tomorrow at the same time read it again.
A meter fault is not impossible.

C_Mababejive

Gas leaks have no bearing on gas bills. If they did,your house wouldnt be standing any more. Bottom line, if anyone finds themselves at home all day/most of the time and they have the heating on,they will get big bills.

Nada666

Have you checked whether they are correctly charging you for an imperial or metric meter?

Debz1966

Roger - I've never had my heating on over 20 on the dial. Over the last 5 years I have had the heating on constant due to my illness so expected it to be a little higher but not that much.

C-Macabejive - I'm home all day yes, but if anything I have now put rads in bedrooms on nighttime useage all day or off and I have 3 rads totally off.

I've just been on BG account and looked at their compare your usage application, I put everything in and I'm amazed!!!

For my property in my area for this time of year average usage should be around 6331 kwh = £271.. Mine is 20440kwh = £807!!!

So I have used over 3 times the amount of gas than anyone else???

Nada666

As I said, check your meter - does it read m3 or ft3? What does your bill say when it converts meter units to kWhs? When you divide kWhs by meter units do you get about 11 or about 33?

(Allthough, unfortunately, 20,000kWh if home all day for the whole of winter is not terribly high. But for one month or quarter it is.) The main alarm bell is you used to pay £200 but now pay three times that - that screams metric/imperial meter mix up.

Cardew

As said in post #5, is there a chance you are being charged for an Imperial gas meter - your new meter will be metric.

Post on here(from your bill) how many gas units and how many kWh

e.g Meter reading at start, say 12345 and meter reading at end 12645 units used = 300 and kWh = ????

Debz1966

not sure how this will post but its from my online billing

Meter reads 09 Oct 2012 - estimated 2199 Estimated 15 Nov 2012 - estimated 2746 Estimated Units converted = 547 metric units over 38 days (estimated) = 6106.6 kWh used over 38 daysGas ChargeFirst 279.00 kWh x 8.262p £23.05 Next 5827.60 kWh x 3.767p £219.53 Charge this period £242.58
How we work out your gas usage
Meter reads 16 Nov 2012 - estimated 2746 Estimated at price change 27 Dec 2012 - estimated 3611 Estimated Units converted = 865 metric units over 42 days (estimated) = 9656.71 kWh used over 42 daysGas ChargeFirst 308.00 kWh x 7.606p £23.43 Next 9348.71 kWh x 4.234p £395.82 Charge this period £419.25 Meter reads 28 Dec 2012 - estimated 3611 Estimated when your tariff changed 02 Jan 2013 - actual 3722 We read your meter Units converted = 111 metric units over 6 days (actual) = 1239.18 kWh used over 6 daysGas ChargeFirst 44.00 kWh x 7.606p £3.35 Next 1195.18 kWh x 4.234p £50.60 Charge this period £53.95

Here are the meter readings12 Feb 2013 04551 Meter Reader 9278.00
02 Jan 2013 03722 Meter Reader 17046.00
08 Oct 2012 02199 Estimated 6080.00
20 Jun 2012 01653 Meter Reader 2568.00
16 May 2012 01423 Customer read 6975.00
20 Mar 2012 00795 Meter Reader 8296.00
14 Mar 2012 00050 Customer read 22.00
13 Mar 2012 00048 Estimated .00

chanz4

Looking at the reads seems very high, one common thing is when people do switch from pre-pay to credit they dont monitor their usage as much

ess0two

Your well in arrears,needs paying up regardless.