Can British Gas Do this

mrs*mosschops

I logged into my bank this morning to find that for the last two months british gas have been taking £52 a month from me for my gas bills. This has gone up from £38. They never told me that they were doing this they just changed it. This has happened before but for some reason I thought nothing of it but do have an increase of nearly £15 with no warning has annoyed me.

I am in credit on my gas account of about £50 but they say they can not drop the payments as winter is coming up. I fail to see why that had to increase my direct debit to, as they say, cover my bill in two months.

I really wish I could swap but I can only see Npower being cheaper and I have heard nothing but bad repots about them.

Are companies allowed to increase direct debit amounts without informin you or not?

Thanks

mrs*mosschops

Yes and it says nothing. I shouldn't even be getting bills through the post as I am on paperless billing. Its says nothing on my account and I have not had an email telling me that it is going up.

Cardew

The notification of change of DD is in very small print on the bottom of the paperless bill - very easy to miss.

blue_monkey_2

Al_Mac wrote: »

Google the direct debit guarantee. Then maybe contact them. I remember the days when it was run a quarter in debit. Now always in credit and some people by hundreds!

it's funny, I have my bill beside me and just had to add to this. We are all electric and run about 8 of the Glen style oil filled rads as our electric (just changing these as well to timered electric heaters that will go on in the evening and mornings) and have 2 young children, one just started school and one in the school nusery. This time last year the electric heaters were on all day every day. This year I've have them on briefly - mainly for drying clothes for an hour or so and before the kids have a bath to warm the bathroom, my last bill at the end of September was over £280 in CREDIT. Despite this they have upped my DD Amount by another £14 a month and we now pay £146 a MONTH for our electricity, our bill for June through to end September was £165.00, so around £12 a week in the spring/summer. If this figure was about right for 26 weeks of the year, say End of March through to End of Sept, and the rest of the time we had our heating on (I also use the tumble drier, which I do all through the year if the weather is wet anyway) they are estimating our bill, each week, in those 6 months to be £66.00 a WEEK!! We pay it, they keep our money regardless of whether we have used the electricity or not, they certainly don;t call me and say 'Mrs Blue, you've paid to much money, I'll give that back to you'. I personally think it is criminal. They should make an adjustment quartly on each bill either upping it or paying back the money they have taken and we have not used electric for, not at the start of each year when your account is already £280 in credit. This means for each WEEK we are not using the heating or dryer (so far 5 weeks as I certainly do not think it is that cold at the moment) they are getting an extra £54 (plus bank earned interest!!) off us for doing diddly squat.

a&akay

It's very prominent at the top of 'view your bill' with an 'i' in a green circle. Mine says:

'We've reviewed your account to make sure your payments are right for the amount of gas you use. Based on your usage over the last year and any changes to the rate you pay, your revised monthly payment will be £139.00 from 28 Nov 2007. This includes VAT at 5%. We'll arrange this. You don't have to do a thing'.

I was aware I was underpaying per month and saved this £26/month in a high interest account ready to pay it off, prior to what I hoped was a yearly review. It was six monthly. I've transferred to another provider with a similar rate thus getting back the £200 the BG account is in credit plus the £200 I was saving. The new account is re-set to what I should have been paying per month but this time the new provider will carry the debit, not my credit, as we are approaching Winter.

mrs*mosschops

I have here in front of me my last so called paperless bill which happens to be printed on paper. It says nothing about upping my direct debit amount.

I also have a letter from them stating that they have my new bank details and they will be collecting the £39 for gas on the 19th Sep and £52 for elec on the 13th oct. This letter was date 13th September and I have had nothing since. They put the Electric up to £58 and gas to £52.

I have emailed them asking why they have done this without informing me. They state on the website that they will give you 14 days notice of any changes, they clearly didn't.

far

There's something very odd about British Gas direct debits at the moment. We use, based on bills from January 2004- December 2006, between 36,000 and 38,000KWh a year. This means our annual bill with British Gas is around £960 which should equate to 12 payments of £80 a month. We were paying £100 a month - our usage had not gone up - but in September we got a letter increasing our monthly payment from £100 to £198! We're still waiting to switch (British Gas have erroneously blocked it twice now) and although we'll end up paying slightly more for gas it will be worth it to get away from them. As a side effect, on a duel fuel tariff, we'll make a massive saving on our electricity which will more than offset the higher gas price.

loobylou2

I work for British Gas dealing with this kind of query all day every day and can only apologise to you if you weren"t advised that your direct debit was going to increase. We do try to give customers 14 days notice of any changes as part of the Direct Debit Guarantee and as other people have said when you have a reassessment it is supposed to show on your statement. The reassessments take place every 6 months by the way and the aim is to try and tailor the amount you pay every month to the amount of gas or electricity you are using so it evens out over a 12 month period, we realise though that there are times when accounts will be in credit but times when they will go into debit but the aim really is to have you paying an amount every month which will cover your usage. We don"t like seeing customers in debt but by the same token if you have a large credit on your account we will refund it to you at reassessment or before reassessment if you ask us to do so as, we don"t want to be sitting on peoples money either. If you are ever unhappy with your DD payts please contact us because Customer Service Agents like myself do have the authority to alter payments by 10% and we are always happy to try and reach a compromise with customers which means they are paying an amount they can afford whilst still being able to keep the heat on. We have had problems with our billing system but the business is taking steps to try and resolve these and to improve the standards of service our customers receive. Hope this helps and again I"m really sorry about the problems you"ve had.

Cardew

The situation is really quite simple.

The Direct Debit scheme is run by the Banks and not the Utility companies.

In compliance with the rules of that scheme,the Utility companies must notify you in advance of any change in your DD. NOTE; not seek your permission as some people think; although you obviously can cancel your DD.

If they haven't notified you, the Banks will refund the excess payment if you insist and take the matter up with the Utility company.

BG, as the post above states, have had their 'problems' with billing(which must be the understatement of the year - it has been a disaster for many people - me included)

The old computer system was poor and the migration to the new system has been the root cause of all the problems.

I suspect that somewhere in the BG system it 'believes' the notification of an increase was sent; but it obviously wasn't!

Terrylw1

As Cardew has stated, it's the DD guarantee. So, they have to inform you only, in some way whether letter, mail or a clear update in the case of the paperless.

If they haven't, yes you can dispute it if it doesn't show in the system. If you get your money back, you will then go back through the same process and end up with the same result.

Prior to paperless billing, Suppliers would write. The same "I haven't been notified" issue existed then but as long as the system had recorded it it's down to missing post with Royal Mail.

I've heard the same issue about putting your DD up from Npower as well (it's in another thread on here).

At the end of the day all they do is work out based on history what you are likely to use in the next 12 months (or 6 per wht Lou has said with BGas) then divide it by the payment months. Some Suppliers calculate to 10, some 12, in this case it wil possibly be 6 as they will recalc this after a further 6 months.

So, they also then have to deduct your credit from this and you end up with the DD that they have raised it to. It's very easy to work this out yourself if you know how they incorporate seasonal factors.

Firstly, have your bills been estimated? If so, get your bills to an accurate reading which you supply off your meter. If your meter readings each quarter are lower than the estimate - you have a smaller DD.

Suppliers base their DD's calc on what they hold, which is often poor due to estimates, redaings they don't use etc. So, get readings in to them and they will make your DD more accurate for you.

mrs*mosschops

Thanks for all the replies.

I know it will hae to stay at the amount it is now. I was just so annoyed with them for not telling me. It came at a really bad time too, it was an increase to our outgoings we could of done without.