British Gas problem

twiztedthug

Hi there,

I wanted to just broach this subject amongst you if i may. Back in June last year we were in Credit for both the Electricity and Gas and never had any problems with British Gas. We had noticed a loud buzzing noise in our house and becuase we have a fish tank that buzzes it took us months to realise that the noise was coming from our electricity meter. We rang British Gas and they gave us a date 3 weeks later to replace the meter if it was faulty...which they did. From then, we received no quarterly bills or any corresponsdance.

We have since found out that in June we were about £250 in credit for electric and British Gas have dropped our direct debit payment amount to £3.50 a month and this is all that has been being paid up until the present. If I am honest I am not as good at keeping an eye on my banking as I should be and only notice this change in March.

Me and my wife have since split up and I have agreed to pay the final bill and she can start a fresh. I received my Final Bill in April and the amount is £1169.81! I rang British Gas and asked why it was so high and they explained the usual that it was estimated and now I have provided the correct readings this is the amount. I asked them why the direct debit payments had been lowered to £3.50 and they explained we were in credit and they lowered it to clear the credit. I explained the faulty meter etc and all of this got me nowhere.

I am annoyed that they have placed me in debt by lowering my payments without my permission as they say they only have to give us 10 days notice that they are changing it and I told them I have received no letters since June, even though they say they have. Do I have any grounds to complain?

Wywth

twiztedthug wrote: »

Hi there,

I wanted to just broach this subject amongst you if i may. Back in June last year we were in Credit for both the Electricity and Gas and never had any problems with British Gas. We had noticed a loud buzzing noise in our house and becuase we have a fish tank that buzzes it took us months to realise that the noise was coming from our electricity meter. We rang British Gas and they gave us a date 3 weeks later to replace the meter if it was faulty...which they did. From then, we received no quarterly bills or any corresponsdance.

We have since found out that in June we were about £250 in credit for electric and British Gas have dropped our direct debit payment amount to £3.50 a month and this is all that has been being paid up until the present. If I am honest I am not as good at keeping an eye on my banking as I should be and only notice this change in March.

Me and my wife have since split up and I have agreed to pay the final bill and she can start a fresh. I received my Final Bill in April and the amount is £1169.81! I rang British Gas and asked why it was so high and they explained the usual that it was estimated and now I have provided the correct readings this is the amount. I asked them why the direct debit payments had been lowered to £3.50 and they explained we were in credit and they lowered it to clear the credit. I explained the faulty meter etc and all of this got me nowhere.

I am annoyed that they have placed me in debt by lowering my payments without my permission as they say they only have to give us 10 days notice that they are changing it and I told them I have received no letters since June, even though they say they have. Do I have any grounds to complain?

No, you have no grounds for complaint.

You have to pay for the amount of energy you consumed as recorded by your meter at the agreed tariff rate
(unless you can prove the meter to be faulty)

twiztedthug

I have no problem paying the bill itself and Im fotunate that I have the money to pay it as I have the disposable money at present.

My issue is of the lowering of the payments without permission. It seems that this is a very sneaky way of placing people into debt without them realising. Had I received a letter from them saying you are in Credit I would have had requested a cheque and kept the payments as they were.

Why is this type of the thing being done by paper and no phone call when we cant always rely on Royal Mail to deliver mail on time if at all.

dogshome

The true value of the £250 credit in June '12 depends on other factors:
Had a bill just been issued and if so was it Estimated ?
Were you due a bill in couple of weeks time ?, because if so it would use up a lot of the credit

Work out if your original D/D value had been left in place, would the total have covered this £1169 bill?
If not, in June your account was most probably in credit to some sort of value, so we are looking at a £1,169 bill, (Appx 9,500 Kwh), being run up from June '12 till today, which is a huge amount of power considering you have gas which presumably provides the heating. (If your heating is Electric via an Eco7 meter the bill is likely to be correct)

If you have a Standard meter, the readings and bills around the time the meter was changed need close examination - The change crew should have left a card showing the old meters reading as it was removed, and that reading should be shown on the bill the covered the change. The new meter may not have been reading zero at installation, as meters are re-conditioned and then installed still showing their old reading