Constant Issues with British Gas!

natm

Can anyone help any advice greatly appreciated.

To cut a long story short (ish)- im on economy 7 and only have electric, when i first moved into my house (smallish 2 bed) i was paying £140 a quarter - which was fine.

I then got a bill about a year later for £4k for a QUARTER - clearly this wasnt right so i rang them to be told it was and i needed to pay - since then iv had nothing but bother with them.

I put in a huge complaint with them (as no way did i owe this)which has gone on for almost a year, they kept investigating, changed my meter, had my meter readings mixed up bla bla and they wrote to me to say the outcome was, they had compensated me 1700 and had 2700 left to pay- while the complaint was on going they told me under no circumstances to pay anything - i tried to pay online but they deleted all my online account - when the account came back on they changed the readings from when i was paying 140 a quarter to over 500 a quarter and changed all prices for kwh etc - but id already printed this off previously so have proof of this.

They then sent me a bill for 500 which i was happy to pay as it worked out around what i used to pay- i couldnt make immediate payment and explained this but got countless letters from debt collectors saying they were going to disconnect me - i constantly phoned them to try sort it - they then put my bill back up to 2700 and said thats what i owed - nut this time no compensation i just over 2700

I was then getting letters threatening to force entry into my house unless i paid - which i clearly couldnt afford to pay that in one go and they were not offering an affordable payment plan (they wanted over £300 plus my usage a month) so my only choice was to go on a prepayment meter- and agreed to pay £10 a week off the debt until i knew how much i was using and now my electric is costing me £10 a day!!! - i have no heating on as i cant afford it (i have 2 young children)- its costing me roughly 280 a month! my house isnt occupied most days untill after 4pm but im still told this is right.

It costs me 18.75p kwh during the day then 7.69p on a night and im told then theres a standing charge etc - we dont use electric stupid, washer and dryer on a few times a week, tv on for a couple of hours during evening - nothing to cost so much.

Iv tried the ombudsman but as its over 9 month since the complaint they cant do anything, so im stuck on what to do - i cant not pay cos i have no choice to now but i also cant afford it - iv looked for cheaper companies (which i have found some alot cheaper) but cant move cos of such a high 'debt'.

id happily let them take me to court as with all the different bills they have sent and coversations etc i dont think theyd have a leg to stand on. Could i take them to court to fight to cancel the debt and leave there company?

I spend most my evenings on the phone to them to try sort it but get no where, or get a different answer, promised phonecalls which i dont get and im fed up now.

sorry if this doesnt make sense just on a nightshift and been browsing this site and thought i might get some advice! lol

thanks in advance

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

natm wrote: »

Can anyone help any advice greatly appreciated.

To cut a long story short (ish)- im on economy 7 and only have electric, when i first moved into my house (smallish 2 bed) i was paying £140 a quarter - which was fine.

I then got a bill about a year later for £4k for a QUARTER - clearly this wasnt right so i rang them to be told it was and i needed to pay - since then iv had nothing but bother with them.

I put in a huge complaint with them (as no way did i owe this)which has gone on for almost a year, they kept investigating, changed my meter, had my meter readings mixed up bla bla and they wrote to me to say the outcome was, they had compensated me 1700 and had 2700 left to pay- while the complaint was on going they told me under no circumstances to pay anything - i tried to pay online but they deleted all my online account - when the account came back on they changed the readings from when i was paying 140 a quarter to over 500 a quarter and changed all prices for kwh etc - but id already printed this off previously so have proof of this.

They then sent me a bill for 500 which i was happy to pay as it worked out around what i used to pay- i couldnt make immediate payment and explained this but got countless letters from debt collectors saying they were going to disconnect me - i constantly phoned them to try sort it - they then put my bill back up to 2700 and said thats what i owed - nut this time no compensation i just over 2700

I was then getting letters threatening to force entry into my house unless i paid - which i clearly couldnt afford to pay that in one go and they were not offering an affordable payment plan (they wanted over £300 plus my usage a month) so my only choice was to go on a prepayment meter- and agreed to pay £10 a week off the debt until i knew how much i was using and now my electric is costing me £10 a day!!! - i have no heating on as i cant afford it (i have 2 young children)- its costing me roughly 280 a month! my house isnt occupied most days untill after 4pm but im still told this is right.

It costs me 18.75p kwh during the day then 7.69p on a night and im told then theres a standing charge etc - we dont use electric stupid, washer and dryer on a few times a week, tv on for a couple of hours during evening - nothing to cost so much.

Iv tried the ombudsman but as its over 9 month since the complaint they cant do anything, so im stuck on what to do - i cant not pay cos i have no choice to now but i also cant afford it - iv looked for cheaper companies (which i have found some alot cheaper) but cant move cos of such a high 'debt'.

id happily let them take me to court as with all the different bills they have sent and coversations etc i dont think theyd have a leg to stand on. Could i take them to court to fight to cancel the debt and leave there company?

I spend most my evenings on the phone to them to try sort it but get no where, or get a different answer, promised phonecalls which i dont get and im fed up now.

sorry if this doesnt make sense just on a nightshift and been browsing this site and thought i might get some advice! lol

thanks in advance

£140 a quarter is never going to cover a 2 bed. It should be more like £140 a month.

It sounds like you were underpaying by a huge amount, and now you have to catch up. BG's complaints department is normally quite good (since the fine they had for poor complaint handling!). If they've let you off with £1700 but still want £2700 they must believe they have a strong case to ask for that amount.

You can negotiate to get the debt taken off at a lower amount - I believe the minimum is £3.60 a week - although someone may well be along shortly to correct me on that.

It's hard to say a lot without seeing your consumption figures in terms of KWh, although suffice to say if you're spending this amount, consumption is high. The debt is coming off at £10 a week, but you're still spending £280 a month, that means your consumption alone is about £235 a month. That's huge. You need to see what is using so much, and try and either reduce it, or use it at night time.

I've just plugged some figures into a price comparison site, and whilst there are cheaper deals, we're talking a magnitude of £50 a year. There is a saving there, and it's always good to save money, you need to focus on this debt before thinking about switching.

In terms of court action, it's hard to say from here whether you have a case or not. It would be a big struggle, and you would need to provide cold hard evidence that BG have overcharged you in some way. I hope for your family's sake you can, but I fear the chances are slim.

SwanJon

You need to understand what the meter is doing.
the screen will change each time you press the blue button, and have a letter on the left.
If you put all the details up here we can decode them for you, but the most important ones are:
F - Weekly Charge (=Standing Charge + Bill payment)
H - Daytime reading
I - Day p/kWh
J - Nighttime reading
K - Night p/kWh
(Need to put key in for these)
S - Remaining bill on meter
T - Bill payment per week (included in F above)

As Bluebird says, getting to grips with your consumption will make a bigger difference than changing tariff, or clearing the debt.
Do you have/can you borrow an electricity monitor?
I'd recommend a usage diary (maybe after Christmas!).
Each day (around the same time) make a note of the readings and your credit. Note how much you top up, and an idea of what you've used (e.g. tumble drier, heaters (storage and instant)).
After a week or so you may be able to spot what is acuasing the problems.
Again, feel free to put the info up here and we'll see what we can do.

Have you heard of the British Gas Energy Trust? They may be able to help you clear the debt, but remember that this is only £40 out of £280 a month
http://www.charisgrants.com/forms/

sniggings

Forget about taking them to court etc, you need to understand what you owe and how you are going to pay it, don't leave it to them, forget about all the past mistakes as that just gets in the way, so...

First you need to understand IF you owe the money they say...this is very easy to do if you know what the meter read the day you moved in (if it's a rental the landlord will have the figure most likely) then just take that figure away from what the meter is reading now, which will give you the amount of electic you have used, then add up all your payments you have made to BG, take this away from what they are asking will give you what you owe.

If it's correct, then you need to sort out a plan to pay it, if on benefits you can pay your electric direct from them, they can only take £3.60 a week for the debt you owe and they will work out what you use a week and take that, if the total amount is more than 25% of your benefit then they have to ask you to agree, if it's less they will go ahead and start deducting the money and sending it to BG.

You could also ask BG to reduce the amount they take off your meter, tell them directpay will only take £3.60 so can they set your meter to that to save you going through directpay.

You then need to start taking daily meter readings, every 24 hours take a reading and see how many units you have used, you will start to see where you are using a lot, and cut back if possible.

By the sounds of it, you were underpaying for ages so you now think your usage is high when it probably isn't.

Are you making good use of your economy 7? if not no point having it, if you are not using your storage heaters corrctly and using electric during the day to top up heat, then you will be spending a lot more than you need to, I pay 13.9p for electric your day time rate is much higher, if you don't make as much use of your night time cheaper rate you might as well change to a standard tariff and come of economy 7, buy a timer and set your washing maching to come on at night, get to grips with what uses loads of electric, cooking uses loads, things you think are not expensive can be much worse than you think.

And as said above consider the British gas trust for a grant, they are not part of BG, i have just made a claim and was lucky and they cleared all my arrears, the process takes a good couple of months though, so try and get things sorted before, as they will want to see that if they clear your debts you will be able to keep up your payments in future.

SwanJon

Hadn't thought about shifting use to the cheaper rate, but the washing machine & tumble drier are probably the easiest to shift.

sniggings - good to hear that BGET were able to help. Promote it to a lot of people but never hear what happens next.
How straight forward was it?

sniggings

SwanJon wrote: »

Hadn't thought about shifting use to the cheaper rate, but the washing machine & tumble drier are probably the easiest to shift.

sniggings - good to hear that BGET were able to help. Promote it to a lot of people but never hear what happens next.
How straight forward was it?

very straight forward to be honest, you just need to make sure that you can provide any evidence for any claims you make, such as benefits, hospital, payments being made etc They want to know that their help will give you a knew start, rather then just clearing your debts to get in debt again. And that you couldn't clear the debts yourself and still feed and heat yourself.

I was so glad I was successful, really helped me out a lot.

natm

thank you for your replies.. im going to keep a diary and try see whats costing us so much..

i went away at the weekend, was out of the house from friday at 12 till sunday at 5 during this time only the fridge freezer and water heater were on - it only used £1.30 electric but i then had £8 charges - so im wondering if its actually the charges that are costing me a fortune?

I contacted BG i dont no how many times and they have told me on 3 occassions they will lower the £10 a week to the £3.60 but still waiting this was well before xmas!!

I dont mind paying £10 a week i have no issue with that its just the fact its so expensive.

I dont use the economy 7 very well either - i dont use my heaters cos they cost too much and i never use anything during the night (landing light for kids) and the boiler heats up but thats all thats getting used so think i would benefit from just a normal meter.

Guna look into all options i have also contacted BGTF so hopefully they might help - im on a prepayment meter now so if i dont pay then ill have no electric so at least they know i cant get intodebt from this.

thanks for you help

sniggings

how do you top up?

if it's with a card from a paypoint, then they send out a message to the machine, when you topup the machine puts the message on the card, when you load the card in the meter, the message gets delivered to your meter, briisish gas say it can take 3 topups before the message gets pickup, so load the min on the card, say a £1 , try over 3 days, if it's still not been changed then chances are they have not sent the message. so get on the phone again.

If you have a home top up reader, then you click on the "receive messages" tab.

SwanJon

Keep the diary, including the readings.
It might be that E7 isn't the best option for you so comparing how much you use day vs night would help work this out.

What heating do you use if you don't use the storage heaters? Using electric heating during the day can be very expensive.

Good luck with the BGET.

[Deleted User]

Possibly you got a huge catch up bill because they had transposed day and night readings for years. Our meter readers at G4S have never received any proper training on how to recognise various electric eco 7 digital meters . Its a very common mess up with us all. I have known this happen where a huge catch up bill caused by incompetance results in a forced prepay. If your big bill was caused by this they should have scrubbed it as its their fault and back billing cant occur