British Gas

TrishT

Hi all
Im new to the forum
British Gas (BG) has just sent me a final bill for £1570!! I was with Sainsbury's energy (owned by BG). It was an unexpected shock. Their credit control (CC) dept stated that there were errors in their systems which is why they failed to debit my account in Dec, Jan, Feb. Anyway, I went through to their CC dept to set up a payment plan. They advised that as this was a payment plan, they have to, by law, inform the credit rating agency, Experian, and I might get a bad credit rating.
Is this correct and legal?
Many thanks

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Although BG are at fault for not collecting the Direct Debit Payments, it is still a valid debt. It is pertinent to state that you should have put aside the DD payments for those 3 months. However, to be £1570 in debt it seems there are other factors - unless your DD was £500 a month.

It is usually best to 'negotiate' a lower figure to settle a valid account straight away, even if it entails borrowing the funds.

That said you are in debt and a payment plan is a Debt Management Plan(DMP). I don't know if a DMP must be reported 'by law' to a credit agency; but it is certainly legal to do so and usually company policy: see

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/debt-solutions/debt-management-plans/debt-management-plans-explained/debt-management-plans-what-you-need-to-know/

Robin9

TrishT - in your discussions with BG have you had any reason to think that the bill was not correct ? Has there been any mention of the meter readings and the tariff you are on ?

When did you move in ? Was the supplier at that time BG or somebody else? Did you ring the supplier and give them readings ?

Have you swopped suppliers since you moved in?

When was the meter last read by BG (Indicated by a letter A after the reading) or have all your readings been Estimated (a letter E) or have you been reading the meter and giving them the readings (a letter C) ?

TrishT

Robin, Cardew,
Thanks a million for responding.
We've been in this property for 12 years. We've switched suppliers several times. I have just switched again to So Energy.
I have never incurred such a huge bill before. I was told, yesterday, that this was a particularly cold winter. Agreed. The DD's were messy from the start. One for Gas and another for electric totalling circa £160/m. So, this bill was a shock.
Yes, I have been supplying meter reads fairly regularly.
Yesterday, I discussed the poss that the meter was faulty and Sainsburys energy poo poo'd that immediately.

matelodave

Even though you say you send in meter readings fairly regularly, have you been checking the statements and bills to make sure that they are being used.

As Cardew suggests, you should have been putting aside the payments so you'd have at least that amount of money in the bank to help mitigate some of the arrears.

Monitoring your consumption and checking the bills would have highlighted an emerging problem which could have been sorted out before it got as large as it has. Likewise keeping your own records would also indicate whether there are any anomalies in consumption or bill readings.

It only takes 5 mins a month but can save hours or days of grief in the future