Help with British Gas

GJNA

Apologies for the length of this but wanted to give all the details! To give you some background, I live in a property which has been up for sale for over 3 years. Friends of the family were trying to sell the property which had been empty since an elderly relative went in to care. The estate agency pictures on the website show the property as empty and in need of some tlc. I needed to move closer to family and they offered to rent the house to me but it is still up for sale. I've been here for over 2 years now.




British gas supply both my gas and electricity. I had a direct debit set up but every so often they took a larger payment amount without notifying me and when I checked online they had increased my payment without ever discussing with me. I’m on a DMP so this left me in difficulties and after about the 4th time they did it I cancelled the direct debit. This was in Feb or Mar this year.




Since then I have made 2 individual payments each month to the gas and electricity accounts and during the really warm summer there I made a good dent in the Gas account but was paying about £10-15 less than the last direct debit amount they tried to collect. My electricity only costs me about £15 a month. I’ve never completely cleared this amount though as I have been paying about £12 a month to that one.




This month I noticed that the amount due on my gas had jumped up by over £50 after I had made a payment. I checked the bill which showed the correct balance from my previous bill, the new charges plus standing charge, deducted the payment that I made that month (total being what I thought I owed) but the amount due was over £50 different on the account summary page on the website. I couldn’t find anything to tell me what the difference was.




I emailed through the online system and someone who did not have English as a first language replied with a scripted answer. It said that they had sent me letters stating that I had an outstanding balance as I had not cleared the entire amount due and that a representative had also been out to visit me at my home and the 50 odd pound was for letters/the visit. No one has visited my home.




I responded stating this and again got a standard scripted response. I asked for someone from the UK to get in touch.




Tonight I have had emails going back and forward with the most infuriating glorified call centre agent. He has stated that someone visited my property and that the property was ‘vacant and boxed for sale’. I stated that the property was not vacant and why would I be using gas and electricity each month and providing readings if I wasn’t living in it. He responded by sending me the link to the property on an estate agents website and basically saying ‘ha see it is for sale’. I told him I hadn’t said the property wasn’t for sale, I had said the property wasn’t vacant and that no one had visited my home.




He said that the charges are for sending someone to my home and writing letters to me which I haven’t received. I explained that I cancelled my direct debit because they kept increasing them without my knowledge and that I have made a payment every month. He said that doesn’t matter, that he can see I’ve logged into my account each month and because of that I should have known that I had to pay the full whack or be charged. He also says this covers the fact I didn’t receive the letters as I should have been checking on here rather than just making the payments. He said that the charges applied are fair for the time spent on writing letters/a visit that I don’t even think took place (I think they have googled the property, seen the empty pictures on the estate agent website and noted that it was empty).




He has refused to accept that the property isn’t vacant, refused to acknowledge that the person may not have actually visited my property and also stated that he doesn’t care if they kept increasing the dd and I have subsequently made payments every month and he also states the charges are fair for them writing letters to me. I said I was going to contact Ofgem as I thought this was who regulated them. He has told me that it is someone else who regulates them and that I cannot get in touch with them unless they haven’t resolved my complaint. I told him that he hasn’t resolved it and that he has told me there is no way he is refunding the charges so therefore not resolved. He then told me I couldn’t contact them unless he agreed to send me some deadlock letter which he is telling me would take 2 weeks. I quote the last line of his last email ‘They are there to deal impartially with complaints about customers not being treated fairly, not to punish us for poor customer service. What exactly do you expect to achieve by contacting them?’. Firstly, I’m complaining about unfair charges not poor customer service and secondly, who are you to ask that question!!




Can anyone give me any advice on where I should go from here? Do I need to wait 8 weeks and also beg this guy for this deadlock letter before I can do anything with this? Is there any way I can prove that they haven’t been to my property and have assumed from google then applied the charges? I really can’t afford an extra £50 on top of what I am already due to them. Possibly worth also noting that the electricity account has never been cleared but no action like this has been taken on it.

SwanJon

It appears that there are a few issues here, but communication is the biggest one.
The 'someone else' is the Energy Ombudsman (http://www.ombudsman-services.org/energy.html). As you raised a complaint this should all have been made clear to you, and followed up with written communication, but...

It doesn't sound like you've established why you aren't getting any letters, bills or reminders.

• Have you signed up for email or online communication?
• If so, have you checked your junk mail?
• Did you ask how the address appears on their systems? Is it right?
• Often the change to a DD payment plan is included in the bill - did you check here to see if they did let you know?
• Besides cancelling the DD, did you contact them to discuss your options?

You left the payment plan in March and moved to in-full billing. This means that when each bill is produced (quarterly?) it is due for payment.
The first bill will have been produced when you left the payment plan and it sounds as if there was an outstanding balance on it. This will have been progressing down the debt follow up path ever since. This should include letters, phone calls and visits - and charges are applied for these.
As you have not cleared the balance (and for electricity it sounds like it has been getting bigger) they will continue down this path.

I can't comment about whether the visit took place, but if it didn't and they are charging you for it it would be fraud - I can't imagine that being an orchestrated ploy, but I can imaging someone coming up to a house that is for sale, having a quick look and mistakenly thnking it is vacant - no one on here can see your house to say how liekly that is.

At the end of this path are a warrant visit to change the meters to prepayment - each accompanied by a change in the hundreds of pounds. If this is going to be the end result you are better off taking control and asking for these meters now.
A prepayment meter costs no more than paying the bill in the way you are now - but DD is cheaper.

If you are going to challenge these charges you will need to back it up - how much is fair to charge in your eyes? How much should you pay and how much should other users pay for you?

The ombudsman will take you r complaint only after you have exhausted the supplier's complaints process - either 8 weeks after the initial complaint or by the supplier issueing a deadlock letter.
And you are entitled to complain about poor customer service.

If you are struggling to clear the debt (but OK with ongoing consumption) you can apply to the British Gas Energy Trust for help. https://bget.app.charisgrants.com/.

If you are struggling to pay for what you are using (ignoring the debt) then you need to look into energy efficiency measures to help reduce your bill.

Hope that helps.

JJ_Egan

Do you have meter readings to prove your consumption or are we taking estimated bills .