British Gas direct debits , increasing when in credit, decreasing when in debit.

martynh99

My wife and I have started helping out my father in law out with his finances following the death of my mother in law 6 months ago.
They had Gas & Electric from British Gas for the last few years. Looking at the bills which are 6 monthly generated, when their account was in credit, the direct debit was increased on electricity by almost 25% and when they were in increasing debit arrears the direct debit was reduced by 58%.
This has left my father in law in arrears of £690 on electricity and £171 on Gas in the last 6 months.
Has anybody else experienced anything like this ?

Robin9

This may be BG guessing consumption in the absence of meter readings. Could you post a copy bill please - blanking out personal and account info and read the meters ASAP . Does your FIL have an on line account. 

martynh99

Robin9 said:

This may be BG guessing consumption in the absence of meter readings. Could you post a copy bill please - blanking out personal and account info and read the meters ASAP . Does your FIL have an on line account. 

Yes we have access via online account. In each of the 6 month bills there is at least 1 actual reading.
I've (hopefully) attached an xls that contains the pertinent info from each of the last 4 bills
Edit: For some reason i can't seem to attach a file, each time i select or drag/drop it just doesn't appear

martynh99

Page 1 & 2 from previous 2 bills attached as jpg

martynh99

screenshot from spreadsheet

Neil_Jones

Yeah, the problem is simple:  All the meters readings bar one are estimated.  That meter hasn't been read since January 2020.  That account is not in credit, its actually in debit and has been for a while.  Credit is normally marked as a CR somewhere if I'm reading that correctly?

If you're able to get meter readings now and enter them in.  Do this regularly.

Also consider whether its worth switching, your FiL is paying a fortune.

martynh99

Neil_Jones said:

Yeah, the problem is simple:  All the meters readings bar one are estimated.  That meter hasn't been read since January 2020.  That account is not in credit, its actually in debit and has been for a while.  Credit is normally marked as a CR somewhere if I'm reading that correctly?

If you're able to get meter readings now and enter them in.  Do this regularly.

Also consider whether its worth switching, your FiL is paying a fortune.

There have been a lot of estimate readings there is no doubt, but every bill does have at least 1 actual reading. What I really don't understand is when the closing balance is more in debit than the opening balance, why did they reduce the DD from £152 to £65 - that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They did the same on the Gas. 
We will be switching him via MSE autoswitch and also trying to figure out what is consuming so much electricity as the consumption is ridiculously high. It's a 3 bed semi with 2 people living there.

Gas : 20070 
Elec : 31546

milgo

I would not recommend using ANY auto-switching service as the likely outcome if doing so will be that you will subconsciously tell yourself that everything is being looked after for me, so nothing for me to do apart from pay whatever DD is asked for.  The problem with this is that if/when a problem arises in the future regarding being in debt with an energy provider or having your DD put up much higher than you think that it should be then you will be pretty much exactly where you are right now.

Better to take care of the management of the energy account yourself as you will get a much better understanding of how it all works and will be able to keep on top of making sure that you are on the cheapest available tariff and that your payments (DD) are enough to cover the gas and electricity that you are using.

There are some very helpful individuals available on this forum who would be more than willing to assist you in getting up to speed on anything that you do not understand or are unsure about.

milgo

I have no idea why BG thought that the right thing to do was to reduce the DD.  You should ask them for an explanation.

£153.53 is what should have been paid monthly to cover the current level of usage on the tariff that he is on.

Your FIL annual electric consumption for the past 12 months is 10,555 kWh based on ACTUAL meter reads. sounds pretty high to me, at least compared to my annual consumption but then I have no idea of how or on what the electricity is being used.  Based on the current tariff that he is on that equates to the following

On 28/1/20 - 20413 ACTUAL read to 16/2/21 - 31546 ACTUAL read = 11,133 kWh over 385 days. Average the usage per day then x by 365

10,555 kWh last 365 days

£1,662 usage cost (10,555 x 15.747p)

£92.54 standing charge (365 x 25.353p)

£87.73 5% VAT (on the above 2 figures added together)

£1,842.37 TOTAL anual cost

£153.53 = Total anual cost / 12 months

He should be able to see a substantial saving on the above costs by switching to a more competitive provider tariff.

Use the 10,555 figures in a comparison website and see what figures you get.

Also, investigate why the electric use is as high as it is!

Then do the same with the gas 

Robin9

These tariffs which bill monthly, coupled with infrequent readings, do seem to cause some wild fluctuations in DD.
|When you swop find someone who bills monthly - perhaps Zog for gas.