Britsh gas

rose74

I am currently with bristish gas, for both electric and gas. I pay by DD they sent me two bills end of march £734 gas and £251 electric. apparently i was not paying enough direct debit payment for the useage we were using over the year? I only moved into my new property in May 2012. they were billling me by email not post like I asked. however I have tried since march to set up my bills by dd for £60 each, to come out of the 15th of the month,starting in march, they called on the 10th of march my bank refused, so I have arrears still and bank charges. I contacted them in april to set it up again, and was told the letter would stop and it would come out on the 15th of April. 15th April came and no payments taken except the electricty bill was paid. So I phoned them again and spoke with their manager, who assured me all the nasty non payments letters and we have cancelled your direct debit letters would stop and my bill would be paid, however the letters generated was bacause the direct debit wasn't enough for the gas, as i owed so much they want £105 a month. i said I couldn't afford that and £60 for eclectricty, but I did then agree to pay £60 for electric and £90 for gas, for the 15th May. The electric got paid fine, no gas payment taken. So i called again and was told that they had no bank details for gas!!!! and know my direct debit payment had to be £125 beacuse of my arrears, which was not my fault!!. so I agreed as stupid as I am to pay on the 15th July!!!, I hear you say its not the 15th July yet!!!! your right but yesterday i received two letters saying i owed know 781.22 for gas, and the bill will not go away! and the other teling me they have cancelled my direct debit again!!! what do i have to do to pay my bill!!! is anyone having this same problem or are they only picking on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:

Nada666

You are one thousand pounds in debt in little more than a year but only want to pay one hundred and twenty pounds per month to cover your ongoing usage and repay your debt. That does not add up.

You have to decide what you want to do - pay off the debt in a lump sum, pay it off along with ongoing usage over six months (perhaps twelve months) - very large monthly direct debit, or you can pay it off at less than £4 per week if you switch to a prepayment meter.

rose74

Thank you I will look into the prepayment meter, just feal gutted as this was not my doing, bristish gas are awful, I have been advised to make a complaint, there workers are so useless.

Nada666

You should, of course, also request/demand any charges be repaid by the bank under the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme.

If you do continue to pay things by direct debit then you really ought to keep a bit more aside to cover them - you should not be banking on banking deposits the day before or morning of. Of course you can still complain when dates are wrong - but as a matter of course you should really have a bit more in the balance to avoid such micromanaging.

matelodave

It would also be a good ide to read the meter yourself on a regular basis so you know how much gas and electricity you are using, you would then know if the estimates are correct and if not you can inform BG to put it right.

Doing the sums would help you understand your use and you could then budget for it rather than getting a big surprise at the end of the year

You can't totally blame BG if you haven't kept an eye on it yourself

Wywth

rose74 wrote: »

I am currently with bristish gas, for both electric and gas. I pay by DD they sent me two bills end of march £734 gas and £251 electric. apparently i was not paying enough direct debit payment for the useage we were using over the year? I only moved into my new property in May 2012. they were billling me by email not post like I asked. however I have tried since march to set up my bills by dd for £60 each, to come out of the 15th of the month,starting in march, they called on the 10th of march my bank refused, so I have arrears still and bank charges. I contacted them in april to set it up again, and was told the letter would stop and it would come out on the 15th of April. 15th April came and no payments taken except the electricty bill was paid. So I phoned them again and spoke with their manager, who assured me all the nasty non payments letters and we have cancelled your direct debit letters would stop and my bill would be paid, however the letters generated was bacause the direct debit wasn't enough for the gas, as i owed so much they want £105 a month. i said I couldn't afford that and £60 for eclectricty, but I did then agree to pay £60 for electric and £90 for gas, for the 15th May. The electric got paid fine, no gas payment taken. So i called again and was told that they had no bank details for gas!!!! and know my direct debit payment had to be £125 beacuse of my arrears, which was not my fault!!. so I agreed as stupid as I am to pay on the 15th July!!!, I hear you say its not the 15th July yet!!!! your right but yesterday i received two letters saying i owed know 781.22 for gas, and the bill will not go away! and the other teling me they have cancelled my direct debit again!!! what do i have to do to pay my bill!!! is anyone having this same problem or are they only picking on me!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:

rose74 wrote: »

Thank you I will look into the prepayment meter, just feal gutted as this was not my doing, bristish gas are awful, I have been advised to make a complaint, there workers are so useless.

How's doing is it?

How long has the total of almost £1k debt accumulated over?

Were these bills based on actual readings?

When was the last/previous actual reading obtained (ignoring the readings on these latest bills)?

If you've acumulated almost £1k of debt in just over a year, then paying £60 a month will not even cover your ongoing usage, let alone repay what you owe.

If you really can't afford to pay your debts, I suggest you pop yourself over to the debt free wannabe board, post your SoA on there (details in one of the sticky thread there of how to do this) and I'm sure someone will soone be able to help you get back into the black

If you have the money, you can always pay anytime over the phone e.g. by using a debit card.