Looking for some info

boycie_2

My wife and I have been having problems with British Gas for the last four years (sounds like we are not alone!!). Essentially, they have messed around with our bills, and the service we have had from them over that four years has, without exception, been appalling.

I have heard from at least three differnt sources now that there is legislation in place which basically states that a untility company cannot demand the payment of disputed bills past over a year old.

TBH, it sounds too good to be true, but I am trying to find out any information about it. I have searched the site and the internet, to no avail as yet.

Has anyone got any knowledge?

Cheers

Phil

anniecave

Nope. It's not legislation, it's an energywatch guideline which suppliers should follow. It's to do with not receiving a bill at all, not problems with disputed bills.

It's part of the "Better Billing" guidelines. The rule is that if that your supplier doesn't send you bills (for example you move into a property and tell them you're there, and they don't send you bills every 3 months like they they're supposed to), and it goes on for more than a year without you getting a bill, then they can't suddenly send you a back bill for 2 years of electricity for example. They can only set you up with a new account and bill you for electricity/gas ongoing.

It was because electricty and gas suppliers were not sending out bills, then suddenly giving customers a bill for a long period of time, then demanding immediate payment.

What are the specifics of your problems? Do you believe the bills you have received are incorrect? I presume you've tried writing in to complain to them if so? If you don't get a satisfactory response, the next step would be to complain to energywatch, and that should help you get things resolved.

Terrylw1

Hi,

It's in response to the Energywatch Supercomplaint a few years back however Ofgem already had a guideline stating 2 years, they just changed it to 1.

So, Suppliers cannot bill back further and be backed by Energywatch or Ofgem. If they try, just dangle Ofgem at them and watch them back down because in the case of it goes to Energywatch, thats what it will come out as in the end.

Note that if you have a problem where you have not been billed, there was a cutoff date for the change to 1 year so if you notified them before that, the 2 year rule applies.

This rule is somewhat misinterpreted. The reason I say that is I know of 1 large utility that announced internally that it should not try and amend bills over a year back either. So, whilst customers were not made aware, it's within the rights of the organisation to extend the Ofgem guideline further.

Add some details as Annie says as it could be something you need help with???

boycie_2

Thanks very much for the response. I will investigate further, but to add some detail as best I can. Its been a very long on-going saga, so I will try to be brief!!

We changed to British Gas in 2003. A new meter was installed for the electricity, which is where the problem lies. From then until the early part of this year, they completely screwed up the billing. They were under the impression that we had a meter which gave two readings, one for daytime and one for night time. This is not, and never has been the case. It simply gives one reading. We told them on many many occasions of this, but they still kept getting it wrong. Earlier this year, they finally accepted the case and demanded nearly £400 in addition to what we had been paying. The logic is that we have been underpaying for the duration if our account with them. Because of the errors, I had no confidence that they had got their sums right, and refused to pay. It has taken until now to get them to respond to letters of complaint. They have given an explanation, but I am still not convinced. Notably, it took them over three months to respond to the last letter I wrote to them. This is not acceptable.

However, my feeling is that they have been so dreadful in the handling of our account for so long, they can swivel!!:rolleyes: It may well be that we are forced to pay, but I am prepared to make them wait, as they have done for us. I need to consider the information I have obtained to see if it supports our case in any way. I hope this doesn't seem like I am trying to evade paying what I should, but believe me, the service we have received has been almost unbelievably bad. We have spent many hours on the phone trying to get summat sorted out, and each person we spoke to either put the wrong infomation into the computer, or failed to act at all!! I should think we have spoken with 30 or 40 different people over the years, and each one has cocked it up. BG have said that this is not typical of their service, (not that they could say any different), but my view is that it is fact that about 90% of our interactions with this complete shower of an organisation have been bad. That is not an exaggeration, either!! As far as I am concerned, this alone is justification enough to not pay a penny more!!

And..........breathe..........:D

Cheers

Phil

stimpo

boycie wrote: »

Earlier this year, they finally accepted the case and demanded nearly £400 in addition to what we had been paying. The logic is that we have been underpaying for the duration if our account with them. Because of the errors, I had no confidence that they had got their sums right, and refused to pay.

Reasonable enough. Just because your in dispute doesnt mean you dont pay, when the dispute is settled you still get a huge bill

boycie wrote: »

However, my feeling is that they have been so dreadful in the handling of our account for so long, they can swivel!!:rolleyes: It may well be that we are forced to pay, but I am prepared to make them wait, as they have done for us.

It doesnt work like that. If BG are happy with their figures then that is what you will pay. If you decline to pay on time they will pass the account to a collection agency and I beleieve BG are one of the worst when it comes to debt collection.

boycie wrote: »

As far as I am concerned, this alone is justification enough to not pay a penny more!!

Once the account has been passed to an agency they'll collect on it regardless fo how bad BG service may have been.

boycie_2

Stimpo, yer absolutely right in all that you say, of course. I accept that we will probably have to pay in the long run. However, that does not decrease the sense of absolute fury I have with this complete mess of an organisation. It is not an understatement to say that never in all my life have I dealt with such a badly organised and incompetent organisation. We are moving soon, and I will NEVER use this lot again. Trouble is, as far as I can see, the rest aint much better, either. We have problems with N Power and Powergen in the past as well. We changed to BG because we thought it could not get any worse. How wrong can one be?!

Cheers

Phil

Terrylw1

Yeah, sadly the same problems do occur time and time again.

Meter exchange problems and meter detail issues have been on Energywatches top 10 list of industry complaints for years regardless of Supplier. However, generally more customers, more complaints.

Ok, if you want to work out what you owe, you can do this without BGas's help.

a) Do you have the removed meters final readings?
b) Do you have the installed reading of your current meter?
c) Now, get a reading off your meter.

Then just work out the difference between a) and b) and then times it by your unit rate, add VAT etc and any standing charge. If your tariff rates haven't changed, thats all it takes to work out if £400 is accurate.

You then need to work out the closing bill on your final meter, so get the bill prior to the meter change that you paid and work out the difference between ther billed readings and the final meter readings. then times by the rates again, VAt etc.

You now have 2 bills that explain your usage just before the meter change and al the way up to now.

Then add up your payments over the time and deduct from the above overall bill.

Thats how much you owe thats left.

Thats really all your Supplier does via their system.

Now, you can easily press for compensation which is more likely if you take it to Energywatch.

If they want to write off debt over a year in your case, thats up to your Supplier. Even where there is no obligation, doesn't mean they don't do it. Like I said, I know 1 large utility that actively doesn't bill anything that would be on top of a customers bill over 12 months if it's their fault in not resolving a situation like yours. sadly, it's not BGas though...

Here's the MD's contact details as posted on another thread...

Phil Bentley
Managing Director
British Gas
Millstream
Maidenhead Road
Windsor
Berkshire SL4 5GD