Faulty gas meter - £25,219 gas bill

NoMoreFossils

Been with British Gas since November 2008.
Never thought we were getting a bargain but paid by DD and accepted it.
April this year we get a bill saying we are £25,219 in debit. The bill show meter readings and estimates going back to January 2012. Phoned them up and they say to read the meter as their figure is estimated. Using our reading the bill goes to over £28,000!
Finally get them to test the meter - it clocks up gas use even when the supply to the house is closed. So they replace the meter.
We want BG to send us the meter readings since 2008 so we can see when the fault started.
They say they can't as they have been estimating our energy use as the readings were 'implausible'. This has been going on for a long time (since at least January 2012 as the figures are on the bill we got) perhaps since 2008 but BG says the original readings 'have been replaced by their estimates'.
So they have been making up our gas use for years but never came out to test the meter!
We've been offered £537.26 in credit but they are still taking £92 per month. Looking back at our DDs we've paid over £5,700 since 2008 and our consumption is pretty modest (just 2 of us and we burn wood for our main heat).
We have been talking to BG since April but getting nowhere - have now approached the energy ombudsman service.
I bet we are not the only people whose bills are being made up.

Game_Over

NoMoreFossils wrote: »

Been with British Gas since November 2008.
Never thought we were getting a bargain but paid by DD and accepted it.
April this year we get a bill saying we are £25,219 in debit. The bill show meter readings and estimates going back to January 2012. Phoned them up and they say to read the meter as their figure is estimated. Using our reading the bill goes to over £28,000!
Finally get them to test the meter - it clocks up gas use even when the supply to the house is closed. So they replace the meter.
We want BG to send us the meter readings since 2008 so we can see when the fault started.
They say they can't as they have been estimating our energy use as the readings were 'implausible'. This has been going on for a long time (since at least January 2012 as the figures are on the bill we got) perhaps since 2008 but BG says the original readings 'have been replaced by their estimates'.
So they have been making up our gas use for years but never came out to test the meter!
We've been offered £537.26 in credit but they are still taking £92 per month. Looking back at our DDs we've paid over £5,700 since 2008 and our consumption is pretty modest (just 2 of us and we burn wood for our main heat).
We have been talking to BG since April but getting nowhere - have now approached the energy ombudsman service.
I bet we are not the only people whose bills are being made up.

I'm sure there are quite a number of instances of people being affected by made up info

dogshome

In the circumstances of a failed meter and unreliable readings, the usual and fair procedure, is to monitor consumption after the new meter was fitted and re-bill previous bills based on that data.
BUT
Gas has a particular problem in that appx. 80% of a years use will be consumed in Winter, which means that a full year has to elapse before an accurate annual consumption can be established.

Yout total D/Debit payments over the 6 years run out to appx. £950 a year, which is not unreasonable for your household
Best bet is to WRITE to BG heading the letter Complaint regardingtheir unsubstantiated D/Debit demands, offering to keep your D/D payments at their current level and give them monthly Gas meter readings, then after a full year has elapsed since the new meter installation, that your entire account history is re-calculated on that years figures

NoMoreFossils

dogshome wrote: »

Gas has a particular problem in that appx. 80% of a years use will be consumed in Winter, which means that a full year has to elapse before an accurate annual consumption can be established.

As I've mentioned we get a big proportion of our heating from burning wood - mostly through the winter of course

dogshome wrote: »

Yout total D/Debit payments over the 6 years run out to appx. £950 a year, which is not unreasonable for your household

The two of us really do live in a well-insulated small house - £80 per month is more gas than we normally use.

There is the historic price issue too - it would be good to know what price gas has been over the 6 years.

[Deleted User]

£950 is a ridiculous sum if you're not heating by gas. Re-calculating past bills on the basis of your future consumption seems the sensible way to me.

It sounds like BG haven't got the sense they were born with if they regard nonsense meter readings as grounds for estimating bills indefinitely rather than checking the meter.

Wolf3

Don't faulty gas meters get tested (an OFMAT???) so they know how fast or slow it has been clocking up the kWh??

NoMoreFossils

Wolf3 wrote: »

Don't faulty gas meters get tested (an OFMAT???) so they know how fast or slow it has been clocking up the kWh??

As far as I could tell the man just removed it without testing it for accuracy.

Robwiz

We had a similar situation with our water bill after Thames Water installed our meter in the supply pipe that didn't go to our house. We discovered it when a plumber closed the valve at the meter and our water still ran.

The solution was for the utility to monitor our actual usage and then refund us the difference between what we paid for and our true usage. I would expect British Gas to recognise they were at fault and to do the right thing.

Another example that proves the value of reading your own meter at least once per week and sense-checking whether the consumption with what you know you have used.

chanz4

NoMoreFossils wrote: »

As far as I could tell the man just removed it without testing it for accuracy.

they have to be sent off to a test center

PasturesNew

I had a meter fitted in May 2013, I've just taken a reading (as it started at 000000 when installed) and it says I've used 130 units in a year. I've just got gas heating and hot water (but not shower).

NoMoreFossils

PasturesNew wrote: »

I had a meter fitted in May 2013, I've just taken a reading (as it started at 000000 when installed) and it says I've used 130 units in a year. I've just got gas heating and hot water (but not shower).

That sounds frugal - our new meter is showing about 2 units per day, 42 since May 22nd this year.