British Gas - Help!

Aldous44

Hello, 
I’m hoping someone can help or advise me. I’ve been a loyal customer of British Gas for 17 yrs (fool!) and had my electricity meter read in March 2020 - I was £70 in credit. I had my meter read again in September 2020 and was sent a bill for a staggering £2,000!! 

I’ve contacted their hideous customer service and got nowhere. I am now dealing with the Complaints  dept who have looked at my usage in the past years and do actually agree this doesn’t look right. The bill says our usage is 4 times more in a 6mth period, than we usually use in a year. Average per year is between 3000 and 4000. For the period March to Sept 2020 they say it’s almost 12000!! 

My only feeling is that my meter is faulty. Not sure what else it could be?? British Gas have said this is v rare but will send an engineer at my cost (they will reimburse me if the meter is confirmed to be faulty) I refuse to pay. The engineer is not independent and I think they should be testing their equipment at no charge to me. 

They are refusing. 

What do I do? I’m at my wits end with them. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you so much 😊 

Robin9

Have you been reading your meter at least monthly ?

Can you post your March and September bills please - blank out the personal info .

Also post a photo of your meter.  - we had a case recently of a misread old dial meter which resulted in similar bills.

MWT

Aldous44 said:

My only feeling is that my meter is faulty. Not sure what else it could be?? British Gas have said this is v rare but will send an engineer at my cost (they will reimburse me if the meter is confirmed to be faulty) I refuse to pay. The engineer is not independent and I think they should be testing their equipment at no charge to me. 

They are refusing.

All energy suppliers have the same stance, and it is because the meters are so very rarely faulty, but customers frequently belief otherwise, but are wrong. So if you want to go down that route you will have to pay.

However, don't go there yet, it is usually possible to figure out if the meter is faulty or not just by looking in detail at your bills and meter readings, so start with the things Robin has asked for and we will go from there...

macman

My money is on a misread. Meter pic please, and the relevant opening and closing reads and dates.