Watch out for British Gas

seatbeltnoob

people need to be more shrewd. too many naive people in the world.

sargeantsalt

The problem here is that British Gas domestic supply is not regulated under the consumer credit act and is not regulated by the FCA. It is a criminal offence to offer a loan without authorisation. I do not think it is appropriate for a gas supplier to have access to a persons credit file. Gas is not consumer credit as defined by the 1977 act. If the utilities wish to make use of CRAs, then by all means they should register with the FCA like a bank and offer CCA regulated loans to their customers to pay their gas bill with.

Simonmw_2

'Either you did not provide correct readings or you used a ton of electricity/gas in the last period.

If you had provided accurate readings all the way through, the debt would never have built up.'

Accurate readings every quarter when the bill came through. In November I sent two just to make sure I was as accurate as I could be for the switch over. Every other supplier has told me they think there will be an overshoot, if there is one, and changed the direct debits to bring it in line. I though that this is how BG deal with it...why should I have thought otherwise? Nobody said I was defaulting a payment, and I certainly didn't, so how should I know?

It didn't seem to be 'too good to be true'. I owed £500 and was paying it in a way they offered. I never said to them I can't pay it, or refused to pay it or anything similar. If they said I had to pay it then I would have.

Simonmw_2

'You didn't pay that last bill in full, instead you've asked for installments. And it says clear as a day "full and on time", not "or". And of course that the transfer went fine, why wouldn't it? You've set a plan to pay back the bill, are paying it, why would they make any troubles?'

I didn't ask for instalments. They said you owe £500. I said ouch that's a lot. They said they would sort out the repayments and I said thanks.

PixelPound

Big companies often ride rough shod over people, congrats on getting a decent resolution :beer:. Many people probably just don't make any complaint official or take it further after complaining initially. The flamers here probably spurned you on to taking it all the way just to prove the point :rotfl:

Ben8282

I don't think the energy supplier is at fault here.
You switched providers to a new supplier.
There was £500 outstanding on your last bill from the original supplier.
How that came about I don't know but it would appear that you had not been providing correct meter readings or this would not have happened.
£500 is a lot to be owing if you had been paying by direct debit for a year.
If you had continued with the same supplier, in all probability your direct debit would have been adjusted for the next year.
But you changed suppliers thereby closing your account with the original supplier.
Obviously, they cannot close the account with £500 owing ....
So at the same time as you took your business to the new supplier you told the original supplier that you are unable to pay.
They then very kindly allowed you to repay over time.
Personally, in there place I would have defaulted the account and let a DCA take care of the matter but they didn't do that did they? They gave you time to pay at 0% interest ....

GingerBob_3

But they didn't explain the consequences.

mrmagooooooo

For this once and probably one time only i am gonna have to agree with GingerBob here. ;-)

Granted under their terms and conditions they were possibly in their rights to have done what they have but either way they should have told the op exactly what this meant if not cleared in full whilst they were on the phone. At least then the op would have had all the information to make a decision.

What they have done here is not moral or ethical even if they can. For those on here saying you should read the terms and conditions.. maybe for some yes, I for instance read the terms and conditions of credit cards or bank loans but would i for electricity or gas? probably not.