Paying someone elses gas bill!

Steven_Gregory

Hi everyone this is my first visit to the forum here a friend recommended I share my story here perhaps in the hopes of getting some advice. My gas and electricity supply has always been with British Gas. 12 months ago a Rep from scottish power came to my home and said I can save around £5 a month with them after the comparison was done. An extra £60 a month is always welcome so I of course agreed. I payed them £33 a month in gas untill now and a few weeks ago I recieved a bill for over £500. Naturally I was confused so I called. After some investigation It turns out I have been paying for another person on this streets gas for over a year. The last payment they took from my account was £110 meaning I've payed them a staggering £506 to someone elses account ... People are saying not only should I get that money back but I should push them to be compensated for this. (After speaking with british gas who are still my supplier they advised me I've used £161 in gas this year ...)

macman

You will be rebilled based on the correct consumption minus whatever you have already paid. So a credit should result.
It hasn't been 'paid to someone else's account', it's simply been billed on your account but with someone else's readings.
Do you not submit and check your own readings?
You may get a small sum for the minor inconvenience, but you won't get 'compensation' as you will have suffered no loss once your billing is corrected.

Steven_Gregory

I do submit my own readings online, the issue was they had a different meter serial number. I live at number 34 and they had my account being billed from number 4. Even though I called them more than once and said 34 on the phone.

Scottish_Power

Steven_Gregory wrote: »

Hi everyone this is my first visit to the forum here a friend recommended I share my story here perhaps in the hopes of getting some advice. My gas and electricity supply has always been with British Gas. 12 months ago a Rep from scottish power came to my home and said I can save around £5 a month with them after the comparison was done.

Hi Steven, I would need to look into this a bit further to understand what is going on, but it sounds like we have taken an incorrect gas supply in error when trying to request yours. Normally in these situations we send the supply back to the original supplier and refund the customer's payments. The cut off for this is within 12 months, so I would need to check yours to know if we can still do it. As it is a complaint I would be inclined to try this in the first instance.

You should not be paying two companies for gas. If British Gas has your correct supply, and has done all along, we should definitely not be charging you.

If you e-mail us at the address in our profile, I'll get this looked into for you.

Hope this helps

David

Pineapple88

Steven_Gregory wrote: »

I do submit my own readings online, the issue was they had a different meter serial number. I live at number 34 and they had my account being billed from number 4. Even though I called them more than once and said 34 on the phone.

Your account with them will have been listed on their system as number 34. It is the MPR (meter point reference number) that is incorrect. It is not unheard of for the incorrect meter to be taken over accidentally, particularly if you have the same postcode as your neighbour.

It is unusual for it to go unnoticed for this long though as usually your meter readings would not follow on from the meter readings for the incorrect account and os SP would ask you to confirm the meter serial number, or your neighbour will have contacted their supplier once they received the 'sorry you are leaving letter'. Your neighbour's supplier would have then applied to have the supply come back to them as an erroneous transfer.

Your account will be rebilled with SP and BG and you will be sent a refund for anything you have overpaid both companies. Your neighbour will be sent their bill for the last year's gas usage.

dogshome

Over this year of mix-up, did you not have any bills from Brit. Gas ?