British Gas Meter {Merged}

DLeeder

Since joining British Gas in early 2019 I have wanted to have a Smart Meter installed and British Gas had wanted to install one.  Eventually in June 2019 they came to install, only to go away saying we had the wrong meter/ software for both electricity and gas and could not install.  British Gas came again in October, this time fitting both new meters, but only the electricity software worked. A few weeks later British Gas came back to try and resolve the gas meter software issue, only to then be told after the engineer had left that the software issue cannot be resolved until late 2020/ early 2021.  At the time I was two months in credit and they wanted to increase my monthly direct debit by approx. 50%, saying their forward projections were saying I would use more electricity and gas as I had in the previous year, naturally I disagreed. At the end of the call the British Gas customer services lady said she was so upset with the amount of the same calls she was receiving that she would raise a complaint, British Gas then said they would do nothing about the complaint, but put my direct debit back to its original sum.
From then I have had to give monthly readings. In February I was told my account was on schedule to meet its monthly repayments. In April without warning British Gas took 125% more out of my account and on a monetary value I had supposedly used 13mths worth of fuel. A further complaint went in which they have failed to address and promptly closed the file.  I have tried to contact them by all forms to get them to reopen the file, but they will not take calls, acknowledge emails and when I have used their chat line been cut off. As an extra check I went to a competitor and gave my meter readings for the same period and was told on that usage my monthly payments would be approx. 20% less and not the 125% more British Gas wanted to apply
Sorry for the length of message, but I have read of Bulb having meter issues.  Is anybody experiencing my same issues with British Gas.  Would appreciate your help and comments.  In the meantime I have stopped my direct debit and cancelled my account until resolved.

JJ_Egan

DD cancelled may just end up with debt recovery and a trashed credit record.

FullForce

DLeeder said:

Since joining British Gas in early 2019 I have wanted to have a Smart Meter installed and British Gas had wanted to install one.  Eventually in June 2019 they came to install, only to go away saying we had the wrong meter/ software for both electricity and gas and could not install.  British Gas came again in October, this time fitting both new meters, but only the electricity software worked. A few weeks later British Gas came back to try and resolve the gas meter software issue, only to then be told after the engineer had left that the software issue cannot be resolved until late 2020/ early 2021.  At the time I was two months in credit and they wanted to increase my monthly direct debit by approx. 50%, saying their forward projections were saying I would use more electricity and gas as I had in the previous year, naturally I disagreed. At the end of the call the British Gas customer services lady said she was so upset with the amount of the same calls she was receiving that she would raise a complaint, British Gas then said they would do nothing about the complaint, but put my direct debit back to its original sum.
From then I have had to give monthly readings. In February I was told my account was on schedule to meet its monthly repayments. In April without warning British Gas took 125% more out of my account and on a monetary value I had supposedly used 13mths worth of fuel. A further complaint went in which they have failed to address and promptly closed the file.  I have tried to contact them by all forms to get them to reopen the file, but they will not take calls, acknowledge emails and when I have used their chat line been cut off. As an extra check I went to a competitor and gave my meter readings for the same period and was told on that usage my monthly payments would be approx. 20% less and not the 125% more British Gas wanted to apply
Sorry for the length of message, but I have read of Bulb having meter issues.  Is anybody experiencing my same issues with British Gas.  Would appreciate your help and comments.  In the meantime I have stopped my direct debit and cancelled my account until resolved.

If you have cause for complaint, I suggest you follow the supplier's complaint procedure.
It appears a complaint may have been raised, but can you prove it? If not, start again.

What do you mean by you have cancelled your account?
Cancelling your Direct Debit Instruction may put you in breach of the terms you agreed to abide by, which therefore may result in a penalty charge or charges and/or a change in your tariff.

Gerry1

DLeeder said:

In the meantime I have stopped my direct debit and cancelled my account until resolved.

Welcome to the forum.

That's the worst thing you could have done.  You'll be on some expensive standard tariff, and if you're in arrears you may end up with a prepayment meter, be remotely disconnected, or have debt collectors turning up. Presumably you are still using gas supplied by BG, so you can't close your account and hope they forget about it.

To work out where you stand, you need to subtract the opening meter readings from the current readings, calculate the cost of what you've used and compare it with the total of your direct debit payments.  (Use this site to convert the gas volume to kWh.)  If you haven't fully paid your way then obviously the DD will have to increase, once to reflect your increased usage, and then again to claw back the arrears.

Sounds like variable direct debit would suit you better.  It's offered by E.On, Shell Energy and probably some others.

Hasbeen

DLeeder said:

 In the meantime I have stopped my direct debit and cancelled my account until resolved.

Cancelling the direct debits is in my opinion rather silly. As from now you will be owing money and they will be unable to refund you any credit?

Do not believe you can just cancel your account with BG as they are still your supplier.

My advice is to now switch from BG to your so called cheaper supplier? As long as you pay any outstanding usage to BG?

Please do not switch by comparing what you spend in £s per month but in actual usage per year.  

MeterMan

Gerry1 said:

be remotely disconnected

THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN.
Not to mention impossible, if your gas meter isn't commissioned.
What could happen, is a revenue protection officer turns up at your house with a warrant to either switch your meter to PP mode, or fit a dumb PP meter, the latter is likely to be the case as the gas isn't commissioned. 

DLeeder

To answer your points.
1) Both complaints, I have complaint numbers. The first one they said they could not do anything until late 2020 / early 2021. So it was agreed that I would pay a certain amount per month until Sept 2020 and also I would each month give them meter reading. This I have adhered to without fail. In Feb when giving my readings they confirmed that we were on schedule to meet our monthly payments and should remain in credit. In April we noticed a very large amount of money had been taken out of my bank account.  On investigation we found British Gas had taken an unauthorised amount, equating to approx two and a half months worth of usage. I contacted British Gas to find out why they had taken this out of our account. The response was “it could not be explained” and when I asked for a credit be put into my bank account, British Gas refused. I reminded of the previous complaint, which they acknowledged and the agreement. At which point their customer services said they would raise a complaint. Within 24hrs of the complaint being raised I had a response that was cursory and they cannot do anything about it and they closed the complaint. I have send numerous emails, tried to speak to the person, used their web chat and nobody will help or respond.
2) Reference point 2 : it is British Gas in breach of contract, for failing to take the correct agreed direct debit out of account and over the period of the time this is the third occasion and by far the most serious monetary wise. There are other administrative issues as well, too long to go in here, but relates to the statements having amended and not adding up. Suffice to say this has been going on for over a year.
So on the advise of the customer services lady and to protect money I had in my bank account I stopped the direct debit and closed the account. Regards the charges they are a lot less than what was taken out of my account.

DLeeder

Thank you for all your comments.
To clarify, the initial complaint was raised by British Gas customer services. The lady I was dealing with said that my issue was a very common issue, taking unauthorised large sums of monies out of people’s bank accounts when accounts were in credit. The only way customer services could get anybody to do anything was to put the account on hold and cancel any direct debit mandates. I had no involvement in cancelling any direct debits.
As I write British Gas are  still not able to read both my meters without either me or one off their persons coming to the house to read the meter, saying the gas meter has software issues. They will not replace the meter and as previously said they have said any future software upgrade is not due until late 2020 / early 2021.
As of Feb my account remained in credit. In response to Gerry1, thank you for your response, your method of calculating was exactly what I used and it came back that I should be in credit, this was later confirmed by British Gas customer services in my initial call asking why all that money had been taken. She then suggested a second complaint be raised. Which the Complaints Dept closed within 24hrs and without discussion. As mentioned several attempts have been made to get this sorted, but they will not respond, even acknowledge any correspondence. As neither customer services nor the complaints department  could guarantee that they would not basically rifle my account again or give me credit on this occasion I would cancel my direct debit mandate and as has been suggested I have started the transfer to a new supplier and if necessary I will take this further. 
At present it will be me sending in the debt recovery firms to get my money back and not as suggested, me receiving a visit.
Hopefully this someways explains what has been over a year of struggle with this company
Thank you all for your comments they are much appreciated.

Gerry1

As you seem to be in deadlock, perhaps it's one for the Ombudsman.  However, will it be worth it?  It seems that it's a more a case of poor customer service (e.g. dumb meter and failing to notify of a change in DD amount) than any financial or consequential losses, and BG will say they're under enormous pressure because of coronavirus.  You may find that at best you get an apology and some nominal compensation around £25.

It may be better just to vote with your feet !

DLeeder

Gerry1
100% agree, at the moment there is several £100’s involved so I will have to continue. Amazingly I have just had somebody from British Gas contact to see if they can help.
Be interesting to see what his response will be.
Thanks for you constructive comments