Britsh Gas wont pay us overpayment back despite sending letters saying they owe us :|

Kayalana99

Short version we brought a home and moved straight from BG to utiltity warehouse but they have a 6 week moving over period so we were with BG for a short while.

Its only £40 but they keep sending us 'final bills' saying we are in credit £40 after they had our final meter readings.

We have rang them 3 times over past 2 months and they keep saying they will send us a cheque....

Guess what ? No cheque...

Not sure what to do as we keep wasting money calling them up all time thinking of threating small claims ? Not sure if you can take a company like that even to small claims lol but they admit owing us the money just wont pay it back...

macman

You can take a civil action against any company or individual you wish. A letter before action might goad them into action.
Stop ringing, put it in writing headed 'Complaint', and send it by RD. The ball is then in their court.

notbritishgas

OP
How much had you paid BG in those 6 weeks to build up a £40 credit?

Kayalana99

We had an estimated bill of £150 for 4 weeks or so, so we basicly were abit gobsmacked and turned off our heaters which we had been using daily...so we only used it for cooking.

They sent us another bill for about £44 and we paid that, then updated our final meter readings for the switch over in which they sent us a final bill saying were in credit £40.

It all adds up right on the bill and thiers no dispute over the fact they owe it us.

Kayalana99

Hiya again,

Has anyone got a default letter to send them before we go to small claims? I decided to send them one more email and no reply.

Does anyone know if we should ask for more money for the inconvience? I.e £2-3 or so to send a recorded letter, £5 or so for the phone call + £40 for the actal amount owed.

Tar.

insanegloss

Hello Kaylana99, I think you're going about this slightly the wrong way trying to involve the small claims court. That's a much longer and stressful process to reclaim this amount of money.

Anyway, I digress. The fault is not intent to keep your money, it's either a staff issue or much more likely a technical issue. Raise a complaint following the complaints procedure on the bottom of the back page of the bill. They'll open a case to get this resolved. I'd also potentially look at changing the method of the refund to DD, just ask to set up a variable DD and initiate the refund 2 working days later. In my experience that works more often than not and is also a darn sight faster than cheques.

Kayalana99

We have been through the complaints thing twice, first time they told us to open an account online which it wont let us because the accounts closed - second time we just got ignored.

Joyful

Does your bill have the word Final on it or has it just been billed to your reads?

If not Final it may be waiting on the reads from the other supplier. If it is final and it is 8 weeks since you first raised a complaint you can go to the Ombudsman. If under 8 weeks call and make sure there is an open complaint. If there is not get them to raise one and link it to the first one.