Can British Gas do this? Help please

Hirsty89

Any help much appreciated.
I am currently with British Gas on there smart meters for gas and electric.
I topped up both on the 24th of March through there website, received email saying payment had been received and amounts were credited to smart meters.
Fast forward 3 weeks and 1 day - check my bank account - to find I am now overdrawn as British Gas have only just decided to take the money from my account. Spoke to them and they should little interest.
Are they allowed to do this? After I received an email confirmation that payment had been taken the day I topped up? Please note the amount has only been taken once although it was three week + later

Torry_Quine

Yes of course they can. The problem is that you aren't keeping a check on your bank account and have then spent money which you didn't have to spend.

CashStrapped

A company should not arbitrarily take an unagreed amount via the Direct Debit system.

If you are paying by Direct Debit then any increase in the amount taken should be communicated to you via your on-line account or in writing.

Remember, you are covered by the Direct Debit guarantee. If a company takes an amount that has not been agreed you can request it back. This is done via your bank.

What is the status of your energy account, are you in debit?

matelodave

CashStrapped wrote: »

A company should not arbitrarily take an unagreed amount via the Direct Debit system.

If you are paying by Direct Debit then any increase in the amount taken should be communicated to you via your on-line account or in writing.

Remember, you are covered by the Direct Debit guarantee. If a company takes an amount that has not been agreed you can request it back. This is done via your bank.

What is the status of your energy account, are you in debit?

Didn't you actually read the OPs post. They haven't arbitrarily taken money, they just took what was agreed a couple of weeks later than expected. However, in the meantime, the OP had spent the money the was in the account.

Banging on about direct debit guarantee's isn't relevant. What is relevant is the fact that the OP didn't keep an eye on their bank account and therefore spent money that had already been spent, but not actually taken.

Hirsty89

Thank you all for replies.
So basically once I've authorised payment they can debit it from my account whenever they please?

CashStrapped

Indeed. Authorised payments (via debit card) can debit your account at any time. Normally they debit within a day or so but some can sit there for a few weeks.

To the other responders. You are correct, I misunderstood. The initial implication was that the OP had manually topped up and then British Gas had taken a similar amount by DD.

However the last sentence makes it clear this was not the case.

My fault. As per above, check your bank account more often!

spiro

I find when I use a debt card to pay for things it can take anything from a couple of hours up to nearly a week to show on my account. Some online accounts show two balances one of which includes pending transactions this is the one to use.

MeterMan

In my bank, if the reciepient hasn't taken the money straight away, my bank will earmark that transaction as pending. Thus stopping me from using that money for anything else.

There must be some legislation which prevent companies from taking too long to complete a transaction.

That being said, going overdrawn isn't your suppliers fault.

molerat

MeterMan wrote: »

In my bank, if the reciepient hasn't taken the money straight away, my bank will earmark that transaction as pending. Thus stopping me from using that money for anything else.But that hold only lasts for around 7 days.

There must be some legislation which prevent companies from taking too long to complete a transaction. There is, 6 years. There may be some Visa / Mastercard rules imposing limits on transactions of 3/6 months but not laws.

That being said, going overdrawn isn't your suppliers fault.

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cing0

It said on BGs website years ago when you change bank details for direct debit, it takes over 2 weeks to go though (or for the new details to be used for new bills). Even though the AUDDIS system has been available for quite some time which in practice means a new direct debit mandate appear on the bank account within a couple of days after setting it up.
If this DD has been setup for some time, I'd complain to BG that it should have gone straight away.