British Gas wrong meter 3000unit overpayment and no refund?!

creditpunch

Hi all

Can I get some advice? please bare with me as this is a long tale as we're going back over 7 years.

Since moving into my property in 2007 I have been paying my neighbour's gas bill as the gas meter serial numbers connected to each of our flats have been mixed up, (The property was a new build at the time). I informed British Gas (BG), who I hold my account with, as soon as I realised with little success as I was informed this is a TRANSCO issue and I had no idea how to engage with TRANSCO as they don't deal with domestic customers. In Jan 2015 I raised a new complaint. This mixup originated when the building contractors provided wrong meter serial numbers to the gas companies.

Bills I have been receiving are very large and even though I make efforts to reduce my usage (which is low anyway) is in vain as my neighbour is the only one benefiting. I am a single mother, live with my 9 year son and work full time so I am rarely in the flat, however there are at least 2 adults and 2 children in my neighbour's flat who are there a lot. this has led to me paying very high bills which have become unmanageable.

My neighbour's gas account is not with BG either so this has been difficult to resolve. At one point due to difficulties my neighbour faced paying her bill the company she uses put a meter on the meter supposedly connected to her flat which inevitably was my meter and therefore caused even more problems. She had the pay meter removed and put on her correct meter (i.e. the one I've been paying for since 2007). So her provider corrected the mixup and BG hadn't thus we have both been paying for the one meter.

On my current complaint the meter I have been paying has been based on estimated bills even though I have asked and begged for BG to come to the property to 'take a reading' (the meters are freely accessible outside the property) and hopefully that way they could see the mix up as I wasn't getting anywhere by just talking to them. the units they had been billing me until Jan 2015 was 10516. The correct meter reading, the one connected to my flat was 7106 as of 22/02/2015.

Following my current complaint and with the benefit of a smart phone camera I was able to send irrefutable proof of the mix up, BG has now allocated by gas account to the right meter. great.

My query lies with my over payments the meter reading on my correct meter is 7106units and the units I have been paying for is 10516. on my gas account BG has posted payment reversal of all gas payments back to August 2013 which was a total of circa £1100 they then applied two one off gas charges of circa £800, thus now putting my account in credit by just £300. I don't understand what these gas charges (the two one off payments) are for. My argument is that having paid over 3000 units of gas I am due a refund of circa £1000 or at least that £800 plus interest and probably compensation. BG is saying the complaint is resolved and that there is no overpayment, and I think they think I should be grateful that my gas account is in credit by £300.

Can anyone help shed some light on this and help me understand what it is BG have done and what I can do next?

I hope this all makes sense, Thank you in advance.

CP

creditpunch

Anyone? :-(

JJ_Egan

Post is far to hard to understand .
Suggest you take advice from CAB .

[Deleted User]

Was your neighbours meter a metric meter and yours an imperial meter. One has 8 numbers on it, metric ..the other has 5/6 numbers imperial.Imperial units are 2.8 times more expensive than metric.
Builders are always messing up meter serials..some johnny in a hard hat slaps in a load of numbers to the suppliers and then the fun begins. The neighbour receiving the dirt cheap bills probably realises something is wrong but of course wont do anything about it. The one getting billed too much usually does a usage check..very easy to do. Look at the meter when its not using anything, switch on a gas ring or boiler and observe the hundreths of a unit start to move, then you have the correct meter..Label it for any meter readers so they dont carry on messing it up.
The problem now is to convince your supplier..if you have an imperial meter you may owe them ! It will help your case if the suppliers own meter readers have also been guilty of reading the wrong meters. The main culprit tho is the sloppy builders who messed it all up to begin with

Cardew

sacsquacco wrote: »

Was your neighbours meter a metric meter and yours an imperial meter. !

Building was a new build in 2007 so will be a metric meter.


BG will argue with some justification that they are not at fault. The developer tells Transco who tells the supplier which meter belongs to each flat; and between them they got it wrong. However your chance of suing the developer is slim.


Also could the problems with your neighbours meter somehow be involved? It is strange that they complained of high consumption if they were only paying for your frugal consumption.


Assuming you have been with BG since 2007??? you have paid for approx. 38,000kWh too much gas in 8 years. With the different rates per kWh over the years, it would be difficult to accurately work out how much extra you have paid, but around £1,000 would be a reasonable estimate.


There could be several reasons why BG have only recalculated back to August 2013; e.g you started a new tariff then and they don't keep computer records when you change tariff. It is pertinent to point out the they have applied the usual method of re-calculating i.e. credit you with all payments made from August 2013 and then estimating charges using your latest meter reading.


It may well be that BG are denying any responsibility for the problem and the £300 is simply a goodwill payment.


You need to ascertain why BG seem to have only accepted responsibility for the last 18 months and not last 6 years(not to 2007). That is if they have accepted responsibility.


If BG won't 'play ball' you can take your complaint to the Ombudsman and get a ruling from them. - which is not binding on BG, or take them to the small claims court.

creditpunch

Thank you all, it seems I'm going to have a struggle with this.

I'm going to fight this with the ombudsman if I have to because I raised the issue seven years ago via a complaint and I had no help at all from BG so I left it. I can't imagine it's acceptable that bills can be estimated for so many years. Plus as a new build it took BG almost two years to get my property on their system as they claimed it wasn't yet registered with the land registry, but water and electricity had no such problems. I suspect they were just not bothered to resolve this.

Cardew wrote: »

Also could the problems with your neighbours meter somehow be involved? It is strange that they complained of high consumption if they were only paying for your frugal consumption .

You're right my neighbour did absolutely nothing and avoided my questions and prods for us to work together resolve this. It was only when she wasn't paying her bill (for my meter) and her company put a prepaid meter on my meter, followed by me kicking up an huge fuss with her to get it removed, so she had to advise her supplier of the mix up and they then removed the prepaid meter and replaced the old meter. Then they correctly put the prepaid meter on her correct meter (the one I've been paying for till last week).

I can't believe I have to somehow say goodbye to £1000 just because I wanted to dutifully pay my bills.

creditpunch

I'm still confused why if I've paid BG 10500units of gas and only used 7106units what justification would they have to not refund me, my overpayment?

My neighbours meter is not supplied by them so it should just be a transfer of the payments made to the wrong meter (that really shouldn't be on their system and therefore they haven't supplied gas to) to my account.

What is their justification to keep my overpayments?

Thanks

CP

Cardew

Sorry, I don't understand. What issue did you raise with BG 7 years ago? Have you been aware of this issue since then? In any case when a pre-pay meter was put on your supply(thinking it was your neighbours supply) it was obvious that you and neighbour had the wrong meters.


What is the issue about estimated bills. If a bill is estimated, you should read the meter and give them the correct reading. In any case gas meters should be inspected every 2 years.

runlululurun

Was your last bill estimated or from a meter reading? If it was from a meter reading, surely that should automatically credit your account? I would say if you aren't getting the answer you want from British Gas perhaps write to them tell that you don't find your offer satisfactory, tell them what you want and why and that otherwise you will refer to the ombudsman. Without knowing the basis for why they've offered you this amount, it sounds like you have a good case with the ombudsman. I say that entirely from a common sense perspective, not from any kind of specialised knowledge.

creditpunch

Sorry for the confusion.

Yes I knew about this almost straight away. In the beginning they said there was nothing they could do because my address wasn't confirmed from land registry so they had to leave the serial numbers as is until it was confirmed then they can investigate. This took about two years.

Then the kept telling me they would send someone to the property to investigate this never happened and I kept chasing them up via telephone to no avail.

Then about two years ago my neighbour had her prepaid meter installed on my meter and I complained to her (when I noticed my supply started cutting out!:mad:) and she had to get her gas company to take it off and put it on her rightful meter. Because this happened her gas supplier came to the property and could obviously see which meter was rightfully hers and mine (by way of the gas pipes that enter the building into each of our flats at different levels). Additionally! She still won't tell me who her supplier is but I'm sure it's not BG.

Then finally my latest complaint made in Jan 2015 which finally led to the correction. It was easier this time because of a clearer complaints process and the fact I could send evidence to confirm the mix up wether they came to confirm or not.

So I've been fighting this since 2007. At one point I gave up and just resolved to paying the bills because I wasn't getting anywhere until I recently started being charged as high as circa £120+ a month.

CP

creditpunch

runlululurun wrote: »

Was your last bill estimated or from a meter reading? If it was from a meter reading, surely that should automatically credit your account? I would say if you aren't getting the answer you want from British Gas perhaps write to them tell that you don't find your offer satisfactory, tell them what you want and why and that otherwise you will refer to the ombudsman. Without knowing the basis for why they've offered you this amount, it sounds like you have a good case with the ombudsman. I say that entirely from a common sense perspective, not from any kind of specialised knowledge.

My last reading was actual but only because I had started the complaint. In the past when ever I submitted an actual they would say it didn't match with their records (because the had me on my neighbours reading) and give me an estimate even though I would ask them to send someone to the flat to confirm.