British gas pre-payment meter problem

kennyjosiah

my 19 year old daughter and her 2yr old daughter have now been WITHOUT GAS for getting on for three weeks, she put £5 credit on her prepayment card put it in her card meter and it wouldnt work went completely blank, rang them and granted they sent an engineer out the next day and replaced the meter as it was faulty, the engineer put £10 debt on it for her, but they NEVER replaced the original £5 credit she put onto the card that never worked on the original faulty meter, since that day to this everytime she puts any money onto the card and puts it into the card meter it takes all the money to pay off debt and leaves her with 40p gas ..OTHER THAN THE £10 (£5 in effect) THE ENGINEER PUT ONTO THE NEW METER SHE DOESNT OWE THEM ANYTHING !!!!!!!! She and her baby have not had a decent meal (she has had to come to ours for tea's - no jokes) or been able to heat her property for 3 weeks and IT IS COLD ! despite ringing their customer services on several occassions totally FRUITLESS ! THEY SHOULD BE TOTALLY AND UTTERLY ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES ! ................ UPDATE: British gas finally called her back this morning and have told her the debt they keep taking of the credit she is puttuing on is for SERVICE CHARGES !! how can they take money for a service they are NOT providing and leave her with 40p of gas each and everytime she puts money onto the card and can I stress she has always been on a pre-payment meter so she is not paying off any old debt ... how can they leave her with no gas for basic heat, cooking and hot water because they take their service charge first ..... We desperately need help as we are getting nowhere with british gas and I can see no end to this for her she has paid about £30 now and has not had any gas as it is all going on daily service charges does anybody now how we can make a complaint to help get this sorted so she can finally get gas ... never had any problem before the meter was changed ... sorry i think i have been rambling but I am so upset for her (mrskennyjosiah) ....

Nada666

What is the complaint? Why does she not want to pay a service charge?

As far as I know they can only take 70% off for these arrears - she should still receive £3 of gas for every tenner she puts on. To avoid this in future she should make sure she tops up the gas over summer. She should really do this in the first place to build up a buffer for winter in the first place (alternatively she puts the money aside in a bank - she should now withdraw that and top up until the standing charge (about £1.80 per week) is paid off.)

Nada666

Dig through the screens on the meter and see if the amounts make sense. If you think a wrong amount is being taken then question it.

00 Last card credit - This shows how much credit you put on your meter last time you topped up

01 Last debt repayment - If you owe us money this shows you how much of your last top up went towards the debt

02 Last emergency credit repayment - This shows you how much of your last top up went towards your emergency credit

03 Last gas payment - This tells you the amount you paid towards gas last time you topped up your meter

09 Tariff 4 - The price you're charged for the gas you use
10 Tariff 5 - The price you're charged for the gas you use

17 Standing charge - The price your standing charge is set at

23 Gas allocation rate - Could show 0 or 30, see the repayment page for more details

24 Gas debt repayment rate - This tells you the percentage of credit the meter will use to pay back money you owe

25 Gas debt - weekly minimum - This shows you the minimum amount you need to pay weekly

26 Gas debt - weekly maximum - This shows you the maximum amount the meter can take weekly

27 Gas debt - If you owe some money this will show you how much you have left to pay

Nada666

• 00 - Purchased credit on meter
• 01 - last amount of purchased credit that was taken for arrears
• 02 - Last amount of purchased credit that was taken to repay emergency credit
• 03 - Last amount purchased allocated for gas
• 17 - Daily Standing Charge
• 21 - Amount of credit that must be on the meter before emergency credit may be offered
• 22 - Amount of emergency credit that will be offered
• 26 - The maximum repayment that will be made in 1 week for debt. (Card must be inserted in meter)
• 27 - Current gas arrears. (Card must be inserted in meter)

MeterMan

Any gas recovery rate for most BG pp meters is set at 90%

After gathering the information requested by Nada666.

Obtain the info from the 'owed' screen. This screen is 2nd display after 'credit on meter' screen.

Basically, Info that Nada has requested would show money owed to British Gas, any figures shown on the 'owed' screen is money owed to the meter, such as emergency credit used and any standing charges.

Blackpool_Saver

take the stupid thing out and have proper bills

[Deleted User]

Are you sure the engineers ( thats a meter reader BTW ) did nt put a £10 credit on the meter ? Thats what we normally do. I ve never heard of us going out to prepays and putting a debt on meters, usually £4 or £10 credits are applied. your Daughter needs to realise that the meter will deduct the standing charges we all have to pay, usually around £1.40 a week for gas and £1.80 a week for electric prepays. In the Summer months there maybe a build up of standing charge debt due to non weekly crediting, so the meter will debit more than expected to catch up on money owed.

C_Mababejive

The £10 of which the OP speaks will have been a £10 emergency credit for a new prepayment meter startup . In effect, a £10 loan. If the person who attended to the meter was an engineer from an esp (Emergency service provider) then he* would not have any means to manipulate the account. His job would only be to make the meter work or exchange for new one as necessary.

*In this discourse the masculine shall also denote the feminine..