British gas overcharging

xnatillyx

My first thread but i have to rage.

We are with British gas on both gas and electricity. We set our tariff online - how much they can take out each month.
We set it this month at £75 combined and had budgeted for this. However today they have taken out £94.
This was without notice , we now can't pay the rent and our sky bill goes out next week.

We will of course complain on Monday because this is disgusting we scrape by as it is , we actually choose to pay our bills to all these multimillion pound companies and they do something like this. It is also summer and we barely use our gas , there predicted amount as also shot up which is unfathomable.

Has anything like this happened to anyone else? , This kind of thing makes us want to cancel our direct debit , we can't afford for this to happen again and tell them to stick it.
But no we are responsible people who pay our bills.
These big companies make me sick :mad:

Yeah it is only £20 but we really do scrape by and that £20 actually covers one of our bills.

antrobus

xnatillyx wrote: »

....

We are with British gas on both gas and electricity. We set our tariff online - how much they can take out each month.
We set it this month at £75 combined and had budgeted for this. However today they have taken out £94.
This was without notice , we now can't pay the rent and our sky bill goes out next week....

Direct Debit Guarantee
http://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/Pages/DirectDebitGuarantee.aspx

Speak to your bank

spiro

As you appear to manage your account online have you checked that you have not received an email or bill that advises the increase in DD? It is rare that they would increase it without advising the customer.

Nada666

Do not forget that if your figures are wrong and theirs are correct and you claim back this month's payment and manage to get to only pay £75 next month then chances are in three months your monthly payment will go up again to more than £100.

If you want to pay monthly for only what you have used you will have to stop paying by direct debit. Or you can pay quarterly. Or you can switch to a different company and tariff - but this will restrict the range of tariffs on offer and you will not get the cheapest price.

Plus, of course, if you can't find an extra £20 this month I am not sure how you would be planning to find an extra £100 or £150 or more when the heating is on.

Cardew

For all BG's faults, I would wager you have been informed of the increase in DD. Have you contacted BG and asked them about the notification?

The notification is usually at the bottom of the bill 'buried' in the small print.

The reason most of us chose to pay by DD is we get a discount for paying by that method and it is more convenient.

penrhyn

There are tools on your online account for you to adjust your direct debit yourself to ensure you are on track.
I'd recommend taking meter readings and go to the manage your direct debit page.

xnatillyx

penrhyn wrote: »

There are tools on your online account for you to adjust your direct debit yourself to ensure you are on track.
I'd recommend taking meter readings and go to the manage your direct debit page.

We do meter readings , once we have contacted British gas on Monday i will get some up to date meter readings. On our last one turns out we were slightly under there estimations so we are struggling to see why it would go up this time. We have been paying around there previous estimations.

Also it is the summer now so any gas usage should now even out from the winter and we are in a small flat so we didn't even use it that much anyway last winter.
Yep we do check there estimation checker , it has shot up despite it being summer and we are on track with the usage & estimations.

This increase in general is very out of the blue. Hopefully just an error.
We can't afford this to happen any other months , my fiance is a very strict budgeter checking our finances a few times a week. We do know how to pay our bills. Not rocket science and we do know how to read emails.

xnatillyx

Nada666 wrote: »

Do not forget that if your figures are wrong and theirs are correct and you claim back this month's payment and manage to get to only pay £75 next month then chances are in three months your monthly payment will go up again to more than £100.

If you want to pay monthly for only what you have used you will have to stop paying by direct debit. Or you can pay quarterly. Or you can switch to a different company and tariff - but this will restrict the range of tariffs on offer and you will not get the cheapest price.

Plus, of course, if you can't find an extra £20 this month I am not sure how you would be planning to find an extra £100 or £150 or more when the heating is on.

We are due to get better financially soon , it is just a tough month.
We are both about to start apprenticeships and overall will have a couple of hundred pound more than what we are getting now plus we are stuck in the house at the moment and we will soon be out the house 37 hours a week before travel time.
This will save us lots on gas/electricity usage ironically because right now the pc , laptop and tv are on all day.
So with less usage later in the year we should be ok to finding a bit more money.

Right now this has just come at a bad time. We can live with the £20 just about thanks to my survey addiction it is just making sure it doesn't take out more every month.

penrhyn

xnatillyx wrote: »

We do meter readings , once we have contacted British gas on Monday i will get some up to date meter readings. On our last one turns out we were slightly under there estimations so we are struggling to see why it would go up this time. We have been paying around there previous estimations.

Also it is the summer now so any gas usage should now even out from the winter and we are in a small flat so we didn't even use it that much anyway last winter.
Yep we do check there estimation checker , it has shot up despite it being summer and we are on track with the usage & estimations.

This increase in general is very out of the blue. Hopefully just an error.
We can't afford this to happen any other months , my fiance is a very strict budgeter checking our finances a few times a week. We do know how to pay our bills. Not rocket science and we do know how to read emails.

Whats stopping you reading your meters and feeding the information into your account now?

victor2

xnatillyx wrote: »

We do meter readings , once we have contacted British gas on Monday i will get some up to date meter readings. On our last one turns out we were slightly under there estimations so we are struggling to see why it would go up this time. We have been paying around there previous estimations.

Also it is the summer now so any gas usage should now even out from the winter and we are in a small flat so we didn't even use it that much anyway last winter.
Yep we do check there estimation checker , it has shot up despite it being summer and we are on track with the usage & estimations.

This increase in general is very out of the blue. Hopefully just an error.
We can't afford this to happen any other months , my fiance is a very strict budgeter checking our finances a few times a week. We do know how to pay our bills. Not rocket science and we do know how to read emails.

Don't understand why BG are using estimated readings if you "do" meter readings. Don't you provide them to BG by phone or online? In which case they should use "customer" readings rather than estimates, unless you mean their estimates for future usage...

Usually the DD amount is based on your annual usage spread evenly over the year, plus covering any significant debit balance you may have ended up with. So you'll pay for more than you use in the summer, but won't get hit with massive increases in the winter when your heating is on.

As others have said, BG will almost certainly have given you advance notice of a change in the DD amount. Examine your bills closely and check your spam box.