Simplicity British Gas Evolve final bill very wrong

Gerry1

woeestme said:

I thought the word 'balance' meant an amount to pay?

Not necessarily.

The confusion arises because two slightly different systems are in use.

Goods and services on a statement from a grocer or a credit card company will usually be shown as positive items, with payments shown as negative amounts that reduce the balance.  The positive balance is what you owe to the supplier.

However, bank statements usually show credits as positive items and debit items as negative.  If you have a big bank balance you don't have to pay the bank, the bank effectively owes you the money.

It's much easier if an energy statement shows a balance as 'CR' or 'DR'.  If it says 'Balance £10.00CR' it's clear that you are in credit and don't have to pay them, whereas 'Balance -£10.00' is harder to interpret.

SuperExcelMan

So, my situation is a bit different from the rest.

Ex-Simplicity, BGE slightly cocked up my final bill when I moved to SSE (was only with BGE for about six weeks), but as difference was only a couple of £, paid it online.

A few days later, checked online, balance zero. All good. 

20th May, they took the full balance out my bank account AGAIN which was far in excess of the DD set up.

Live chat with BGE admitted it was an error, but would take several days to sort out.

Credit to the Direct Debit guarantee though, I got immediate refund with Santander who then deleted the DD with BGE.

Beware of this if you are in the same situation. 

woeestme

I received an email from BGE earlier in June confirming I was shortly due to receive a refund for the full amount I was informed about back in Feb.  I received a cheque today from Centrica for less than 20% of what I was told.  I'm aware there might be a balance for me to pay to BGE for the period I'd been moved from Simplicity to BGE but I was very quick to find a new provider as per the advice of BGE to not do it too quickly i.e. about 6 wks.  Anyway else experienced this 'error in payout'?

woeestme

UPDATE: I've tried to contest the settlement but both BGE and Simplicity Energy frpadvisory are both pointing the finger at each other when replying to me.  I've started a case with the ombudsman but their first statement was 'try to sort it out with the energy provider'.  Welcome to Corporate Britain!

woeestme

Centrica just sent me a cheque for 12p - haha, so funny!  They've probably seen this thread.  I've given up with this argument TBH.  The ombudsman are hopeless too as it's just another wild goose chase.  I'll see what I can do through my bank.