Energy supplier DD

NeilGC69

Hi! This is my first post here so I will offer greetings and salutations later as this is a bit of an urgent matter. Long story short (ok, it may be a bit long winded but I'll endeavour to keep it as brief as possible whilst trying to give all the facts), after relenting to Martin Lewis' relentless insistence to 'compare & change your energy provider', I finally took the plunge on the home front and went with Yorkshire Power (I know, and this is on another thread on here). I was so impressed with their dedication to keen prices and good customer service that I decided to instruct them to do my office power (at a different address to home) as British Gas Business (electricity) had been shocking (no pun intended). Since you all know YP had regrettably gone belly up, I seem to be stuck back with BGB and found that last Thursday they had, in fact, helped themselves to over £10,500.00 from my business account! 

So now I'm spitting fire and got on the phone to the bank and gave them a right earful and asked why this kind of activity didn't flag any alarm with them. Their answer 'It's not our responsibility.' Hello!? Really? Managing my account activity is not your responsibility? I beg to differ! Anyway, official complaint logged with them and clawback instructed but they insist if BGB say it is owed then they will be taking it back out. I've told them that under no circumstances is it to leave me account, but I got the same feeling with them as I did when dealing with BGB customer services, as in they are just doing a job that gives them a pay check at the end of each month and by the time it becomes a problem again then hopefully some other faceless schmoe in the same business will deal with it, if only to pass it on to another colleague to handle. The young lady in the bank's complaints dept. insisted it was the DD mandate and that it was beyond their control but I beg to differ. 

So, questions! Can BGB legally do this, without having given any notice (email or post) of the amount they will be taking and when? I have a meeting with my office manager tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of this but she was in yesterday going through every bit of correspondence with BGB & YP with a current meter reading. My bills have never been over £100 a month and then with regular meter readings. Any advice would be gratefully received. 

Robin9

MSE is a domestic forum so any experience here is limited.  I mange a couple of buildings on commercial tariffs - unit rates can be comparable with domestic but standing charges can run into £'s a day.

My meter reading day is the last day of the month, I give them readings, get an emailed bill and payment by DD a few weeks later.

When you initially switched to YP did you formally (in writing) cancel your contract - had it still some months to run, switch on the day the contract expired, before or after.?

What did you sign with BGP ?  What sort of consumption are we talking about in "£" not kWh.  

MWT

Amounts of that size are usually associated with early contract termination when you have more modest consumption as you seem to suggest..

If you switched to YP in the middle of a multi-year BGP contract that it isn't hard to end up with a bill like that...

The legal basis for BGP taking the money would have been your contract with them, so I would start there and look specifically at the term of the contract and the early termination penalties.

Always remember that the majority of the protections that exist for consumers do not ally to businesses. As a business you are held to a higher standard of diligence and are presumed to understand the contracts you have signed and the implications of the decisions you make in relation to those contracts...

Neil_Jones

Anything to do with business (phone, energy, insurance, costs, nose scratching etc) affords none of the protections you get at home..  So you get no cooling off periods for a start, and the implication for energy is that if you are not in a contract with a provider it will cost a fortune just in standing charges.  A place i used to work if it dropped into out-of-contract territory on energy was something like £3 a day standing and 27p per kWh electricity day and something like 15p overnight (it was Eco7).  That was painfully higher than the deal they eventually had with a new provider (which was just before everything went skywards, so it ultimately ended up being dirt cheap!)

But yes, you need to go back to your terms and conditions.  As above, the implications for business anything is your responsibility because (I presume you have a Limited company?) you are acting on behalf of the business.  I presume its supposed to mean if you have the time, the knowledge, the experience and the will to run Dalek Ltd, then you have to bear the consequences of the secondary decisions like who you hire and fire.

MWT

There are some limited protections for microbusinesses though so worth checking if the business is small...

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/business-gas-and-electricity-guide/understand-energy-contracts-businesses

Robin9

@NeilGC69  Now you've had the chance to cool down and speak to your office manager can you give us some more details please. What does your BGP contract say, have you a copy of the invoice (with personal detail and account number blanked out)

£100 a  month for your office - is that correct?

Robin9

I don't think we are going hear any more of this one