British Gas is this legal?

samara110949

Hi, i am a newbie & this is my 1st time, just hope i get it right. i am a 65 yr old disabled pensioner i recieve DLA & live on a weekly pension[credit] . BGas have charged me £1000 for having my gas capped in 2011 for 1 year, finding it too hard to keep warm as i have a prepayment meter and every time i put credit on my key half is taken for arrears.i live alone & get sso depressed latley. no family to help, is this £1000 charge legal please? thanks.

GrumpyPL

Yes it's legal as it would've been something that was in your energy agreement with them at the time. Rather than "legal", you might use the word "ethical". They're a company, so they're there to make money, but British Gas, from what I've heard, are quite flexible with regards to payment plans etc, maybe it's worth giving them a call and explaining your circumstances to see if they can offer some assistance or partial discount for you?

[Deleted User]

Can you check your prepay meter for the amount you are repaying and also the total amount. These 2 figures are on screens 26 and 27 on your meter. You have to press and hold the red button till it beeps then you can scroll thro the various screens. The card has to be inserted to see these debt screens. My next door neighbour was in the same position with a similar debt, £800, and the supplier, British Gas, had loaded the prepay electric meter with a weekly repayment of £16 ( the max allowed ). A phone call complaint got this reduced to a much more manageable £5 a week. The suppliers seem to be flexible on the exact amounts to be repaid weekly. Unless you can argue that this debt is nt justified , the best you can do is to spread the repayments out for longer. I have seen much larger debts on prepay meters than yours with only £4 a week loaded.
Of course you will also have the standing charge weekly coming off, approx £1.30-£1.80 a week. These are the fixed charges we all pay, Ebico excepted.
In the long term, once this debt is cleared, set your sights on swapping the prepays for credit meters where you can avail yourself of much cheaper one year fixes (direct debit only ) which can be as much as 30% less than the standard/variable tariff you are on