British Gas playing with my credit file

gringolian

Apologies for the lengthy story, I'll try to condense as much as possible, but any help here would be massively appreciated.
Back in Feb this year I left british gas and was given a final bill that I disputed. BG told me to check my meter reads with my other supplier and that my account would be on hold while it was looked into. While I was doing this I got a letter from a debt collection agency chasing the debt. I called BG and was told they couldn't look at the account as it was with Moorcroft, so I called Moorcroft and explained I was disputing the bill with BG. On April 23rd, I got a letter from Moorcroft telling me they would investigate with BG, and to be patient as this could take some time and to do nothing until they contacted me. I followed this instruction until on May 20th I got an email from Equifax telling me my credit file had changed. When I logged in I was faced with late payment notices from British Gas. I called and raised to the high level complaints team explaining that I had not paid as I was told to do nothing. their response to me was to ask when I go the letter telling me to do nothing, why I didn't call british gas?! I then escalated to the Energy Ombudsman and given that I had simply followed instructions that I was given I could see no other outcome other than the ombudsman telling BG to remove the late payment markers, however this week the Ombudsman have told me that since the letter telling me to do nothing came from Moorcroft, they could see that BG had done nothing wrong and couldn't tell them to remove the marker. When I argued that moorcroft were employed by BG and working on their behalf, they said there was still nothing they could do and that I should contact the financial ombudsman. I did this and they said what the energy ombudsman said was basically rubbish and it was their responsibility to resolve.
Anyway, I am now at a loss as to where to go with this. I have paid the debt in full as it was never about trying to not pay, what started as a simple query escalated into basically playing with my life as I have now had a mortgage declined and been told that to keep my house chain alive, the mortgage I would get accepted for will cost me £500 more per month.
As far as I'm concerned the important info here is that on April 23rd I was told to do nothing, which I did, and then on may 20th (with no further communication from BG or Moorcroft) I got the email from equifax with the late payment notifications.
BG's Twitter team have since regurgitated the same response of asking why I didnt call them when I was told explicitly to do nothing!
If anyone has any idea how I can take this forwards now, I'd be extremely grateful.

sivs

Hello, I have had a similar situation to yours a few years ago. When I realised I have got the late payment from BG, I raised a complaint with them and explained the reasons why I did not pay my final bill because it was based on an estimated reading.

They were very good, sent me a correct bill which I paid and removed the marker. sent my email to contact@britishgas.co.uk

Hope this helps