British Gas awful company please help!!!!

Chocho3009

Hi

Ok I hope someone can help?????
I am with British Gas who recently got a warrant to install prepayment metres.
Let me start from the beginning.
We have always paid our energy bills but for whatever reason they didn't get paid for 3 months we realised and picked the payments back up again.
The next thing we had a letter for a warrant to fit prepayment metres. We called them several times to stop this but unless we paid £700 it was still going ahead. I clearly didn't have £700 but offered to do a payment plan. They said no. Even though we were still paying per month which I advise them only for them to say you didn't arrange that with us.
So they arrived fitted the metres and left us with very little on each metre they gave us our electric key thing but no our gas one they said that will come in the post. So 4 days later still no card our gas ran out I have 3 young cold children at this point I was angry. I called them they said they hadn't even sent one yet because of the change over but would do it that day. They sent out a g4s person to put £5 credit on until we got our card.
So we received the card.
Then today we have a bill of £2300 for our gas and electric I feel like crying they have charged us for fitting the metres a believe it's about £400 per metre. I am the only one working my wage can not cover the rent let alone the ridiculous bill. They don't want to help us at all I claim no benefits not even tax credits my husband has just lost his job we are down a hell of a lot of money. Please can somebody give me some advise I don't know what else to do.
Sorry for the long rant.

Thank you

SwanJon

I can't help with what has happened, but have a look at the British Gas Energy Trust. They can help clear bills in situations like this.
They are funded by donations from BG but are independent.
http://www.britishgasenergytrust.org.uk/

[Deleted User]

Sounds like that the £700 they wanted was only a down payment and that you had actually a debt of over £2k. That is the normal amount when any supplier will say enough is enough and get tough and fit prepayment meters.
You can see exactly what the debts are on each meter and also the weekly repayment amount. On the electric meter if you go to screens "S " and " T " ( key has to be inserted to see these screens ) you can see the hard facts.Gas its on screens 26 and 27, ( card has to be inserted ).
They will add extra amounts for the added costs they have incurred in the fitting of prepays.Court warrant and locksmiths or bypass damages on credit meter costs usually amount to over £150, its definitely not £400 per meter.
The weekly repayment amount is set between £3.50 and a max of £16.With say, £1100 per meter debt its going to be over £10 repayment per week but in the past I found there is a possibility of haggling it down if they have loaded the £16 maximum weekly repayment.
Your monthly repayments on your credit meters would have been set far too low for your actual usage.You don`t set the monthly payments of what you think is correct, I m afraid that that is the job of the meters. They will determine what you pay and clearly you `ve been taking no notice of them.

spiro

Another reason the bill could be so high is that previous bills have been based on estimated meter readings and when they changed the meters they will have obtained actual readings.
The debt recovery rate will be based on your ability to pay, this will obviously be on top of what you use. The one thing that is better now is that the ppm unit rates are about the same as the pay on bill rates which is a lot better than it used to be.