Britsh Gas new ploy?

veritas

I noticed today that my DD for my Click Online Electricity Bill with British Gas had almost doubled without any prior warning. I checked my account and found I was in credit before the latest DD payment. Their customer services tried to fob me off initially and could not really explain why the sudden jump had occurred and agreed it did not make sense. However, worse was to come when I was told that there was no way for them to reduce the DD. I suggested that it was as easy for them to reduce the payment as it was to increase it. Finally, the response was that they would cancle my DD and if I called next week a new on reflecting my usage (old payment!) would be set up. I do not have the evidence, but my cynical side suggests the service staff are under orders not to reduce payments no matter what. There is no way they cannot reduce the size of the DD. Anyone else sufferred the same?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

How did you 'notice' your DD had increased - from your bank statement?

It is part of the DD guarantee that you must be informed of any increase in advance.

I have had several changes to my DD and it is not easy to spot on the bill - just small print in amongst a load of small print.

tripled

veritas wrote: »

the service staff are under orders not to reduce payments no matter what. There is no way they cannot reduce the size of the DD. Anyone else sufferred the same?

Staff are not allowed to reduce the dd by more than 10% as the computer system is supposedly infallible.

Garnet_Gem

Call them back and threaten to leave and go to another company. If they don't co-operate, do that.

trish06

this is why i will not pay my gas/elec through DD

wills34

provide meter reads, check tariff has not changed and it is still the best for you. If the system still wont reduce ask for account credit to be transferred back to you. Funnily enough if you left and went back you would find that they would probably set up a better dd (well for 6 months anyway)

chocomonsta

I use British Gas for my electric.

I was paying 32.50 per month then with no warning my DD went up to £53 :eek:

I phoned them up to challenge it and asked them to put it back to what it was. They eventually reduced it to £38 a month. But said they would be reviewing it.
I asked them to explain how it could go up so much when they are supposed to be reducing the prices. I only use the electric for lighting, tv etc. No cooking or heating.

The gas price has gone down slightly though!

I'll_Be_Frank

tripled wrote: »

Staff are not allowed to reduce the dd by more than 10% as the computer system is supposedly infallible.

Hi Tripled,

At the end of last year BG put my electricity DD up by almost 40%. I wrote to them on their Website's customer e-mail system asking them how they justified this massive hike and asked if they could send me a copy of the formula they used to calculate it.

Ten days days later they wrote a reply in which they apologised for making an error in their calculation and, that my new DD would rise by only 7%. They did not send me a copy of the formula they use, though.

So Veritas, be persistent. You never know.

Frank.

animal-lover_2

BG didn't send me any bills for 9 months and when I realised and contacted them, they asked for over £300 and said it was my fault - hadn't I noticed I hadn't had a bill? No I hadn't! I asked for a reduction as they couldn't expect the money at once, but all I got was rudeness on the phone. I switched to Swalec who maybe aren't the cheapest, but have great customer service. No problems so far