Need Help with a massive British Gas Error Please

wigwam12

HI
I manage the energy bills for my elderly parents with tariffs etc
I had a rude awakening recently with a massive hike in direct debit for gas from £47 to £234 in April.
I then looked at the usage history etc and there is a HUGE spike in July and then even bigger in September and October suggesting £1900 gas usage per month those 2 months.
This is for a 3 bed mid-terrace with 2 elderly people with no change in usage
I can't even get a quote based on the annual usage they are stating as the calculators say that amount to commerical usage.

You can see from the attached payment schedules they already reversed one incorrect usage level in September (I didn't spot this as payments did not change but there there is still this big additional alleged usage bill.
Their smart meters were updated in Nov and then in Dec when the first new one was faulty and the only reason I had kept them on BG was so that they did not have to pfaff around with sending readings

I have made a placeholder "you have made a mistake" but they have not bothered to respond yet 7 days later

Will need to escalate this quickly but advice on how to proceed appreciated
Below is the link to the screen shots of what I have said above

https://imgur.com/a/4cg3SQi

spiro

Ignore the pretty graphs, what are the various meter readings?

Does the meter and bill both say them meter is ft3 or M3?

PennineAcute

It seems that is issue started around the time they were swapping your meters over.

As the OP says, is your bill showing cubic feet or cubic meters?

D_M_E

Could be reading the meter as a cubic foot one when it should be cubic meters, which would make the bill about 2.8 times what it should be, or more likely given your figures they are taking the Kwh reading as the cubic meter reading which would make the bill about 11.2 times what it should be.

You need to raise a formal complaint with them about this.

Cardew

Surely a smart meter only measures in cubic metres!

wavelets

wigwam12 wrote: »

...

I have made a placeholder "you have made a mistake" but they have not bothered to respond yet 7 days later

Will need to escalate this quickly but advice on how to proceed appreciated
...

The supplier is allowed 8 weeks to investigate and resolve any complaint.

Give it another 7 weeks and come back then if still not resolved.

If you are concerned about the proposed increase in monthly payment, I'd suggest you give the supplier a call and explain your concern, and ask to stay any increase until such time as they resolve your current complaint.

D_M_E

As far as I know, smart meters measure in cubic meters but I think they also show readings in Kwh but I'm not sure about this.

If they do store Kwh readings then given the figures quoted by the OP this would suggest either a leak somewhere - there have been reports on the forum of incorrectly fitted meters which have been left with a gas leak being registered as consumption by the meter - or the Kwh reading being sent to the supplier in error.

That's if they do store the Kwh reading but as I said I'm not sure if they do, but it does seem to suggest this is what is happening from the OP's figures.

wavelets

OP - you refer to charges being reversed.
What's the story behind this?
I see they did indeed reverse about £2300 of charges ... but replaced them with over £1000 charges.

And even after the £2300 were reversed (and before the £1000+ replacement charges), the account was already owing £100, and that was inm September, at the end of the summer and going into the expensive winter period.

Bottom line ...£47 pm is obviously not covering the costs being incurred.

Time to start explaining to your parents how you have been "managing" their energy bills. :cool:

wigwam12

wavelets wrote: »

OP - you refer to charges being reversed.
What's the story behind this?
I see they did indeed reverse about £2300 of charges ... but replaced them with over £1000 charges.

And even after the £2300 were reversed (and before the £1000+ replacement charges), the account was already owing £100, and that was inm September, at the end of the summer and going into the expensive winter period.

Bottom line ...£47 pm is obviously not covering the costs being incurred.

Time to start explaining to your parents how you have been "managing" their energy bills. :cool:

Noted - with thanks. Ensuring they are kept on the best tariffs is probably more accurate rather than watching consumption etc.
I have no problem with their usage increasing as they have moved from the traditional timed heating to demand by thermostat and it’s needed some playing around.

Even so there is a world of difference I’d have thought between £100 owed over a quarter vs £1900 incurred in a month?

Appreciate all the input so far - I’ll go check the meter units and see what that shows as a starting point

wigwam12

wavelets wrote: »

OP - you refer to charges being reversed.
What's the story behind this?
I see they did indeed reverse about £2300 of charges ... but replaced them with over £1000 charges.

And even after the £2300 were reversed (and before the £1000+ replacement charges), the account was already owing £100, and that was inm September, at the end of the summer and going into the expensive winter period.

Bottom line ...£47 pm is obviously not covering the costs being incurred.

Time to start explaining to your parents how you have been "managing" their energy bills. :cool:

Re charges being revered - I genuinely have no idea. Because there was no change in the monthly direct debits I was not even aware of this as I otherwise had no need to go in and look at the account. We had no correspondence about it and I only saw it when investigating the current 6-fold hike.

wigwam12

*reversed not revered!