british gas-baliff letter/£50 comp

tali

british gas sent me their final bills ,due to some problems i forgot to pay they sent me 3 standard reminders and then all of a sudden i got a baliffs letter, surely i should have recieved a warning letter from BG that a baliffs would be contacted?-they did this twice with both gas and elec- have BG FOLLOWED CORRECT PROCEDURE?
Also, seperate bill issue, as they gave an incorrect bill they gave me £50 compensation but on later reminder bills the £50 is not there and the full amount is applied.I quired this and they asked if had been sent a cheque for the amount -which i hadn't.I was then told that since the £50 comp was adressed to "The occupier" (as i had recently moved in) only later bills in my name (without the £50compo) applied -even though the billing dates are the same -so why cant "the occupier" bills apply?
thanks

anniecave

if you don't pay after at least 2 reminders then I would guess they would threaten you with either bailiffs or disconnection depending the circumstances. As you've moved it would be bailiffs. What more do you expect? If you'd paid on the original bill then you wouldn't hear anything further.
I would advise paying your bills on time in future....

If you move into a property and you don't contact the relevant organisations to tell them you have moved in, then as they don't have the ability to mind-read, the electricity and gas and water and council tax companies all set up an account and send out bills addressed to "the occupier" until you do contact them.

Then when you do tell them the correct details, if the occupier account is set up with the correct start date, they tend to just change the name and it becomes your account and you pay. If the date is not correct, then they often have to set up a new account with your name and you would pay this new account.

So if you have contacted them and told them the correct details when you moved in and they have still sent you wrongly addressed bills, and they have offered you compensation, then they should either subtract this off your bill (on your new account which IS in your name) or more likely they should send you out a cheque (addressed to you).

So ask which route they would take (crediting the account or sending out a cheque)? and follow up with this. Possibly a cheque has got lost in the post and you should ask for it to be re-issued to you?

Hope that makes sense.

anniecave

PS I agree with your top savings tips...

I'd add on the subject of utilities to pay elec and gas bills by direct debit where possible, you can get discounts off the best tariffs by doing this

tripled

BG will invariably set up a new account, it is rare they change the name on an existing account.

Official company policy is to always set the account up from the date you moved in, however if you mention you have paid bills they will usually open it from the last one that was paid.

However they can't estimate the reading for an amount of money such as £50 of gas, so even if you had mentioned there was a credit on the account they couldn't have done anything, you would need to write in with proof you were entitled to it to claim it back.

I'm surprised you got 'three standard reminders' - they usually get progressivly more threatening.

tali

well thats it , i was expecting progressively threatinig letters -biut no

tali

update - sent letter to BG and have refunded me £43.75- but cant figure out their explainatiion of calculations