British gas playing dirty tricks

twintiger

I am 71 years of age and live alone. I had just renewed my tariff with British gas at 4.1 unit price over the phone because the choice of tariff online had disappeared after a few days. I had also told them to raise my direct debit to £15 per month instead of *£10. (*another ruse)

So I had to phone them and asked for a fixed tariff. When I looked at the comfirmation they sent me. I noticed it said variable. So had to phone again to change it for fixed But he was being very stroppy  sending me on a wild goose chase. So I repeated. Just change it to a fixed and send me comfirmation. But it never came, except an email from them saying they will 

update my newly requested monthly debit (because my consumption is very low all the year round)  but still no comfirmation of a fixed tariff. And when I checked  after a few days, even the initial comfirmation saying variable, had disappeared. And the cooling off period will be gone by then. They have also said they are going to start sending my bill along with my plan review - so that's twice a year instead of every month. Another ruse! So I won't know if I am in debit or credit and endng up with them sending me a huge bill. Because I am always in credit and last year they refused to reimburse with the £40 credit at the end of my tariff, saying it was going on costs!  Please help. I am at my wits end worrying.

John Raggio

Neil_Jones

First of all direct debits (in the traditional sense of energy) are only a contribution into a kitty, so that £40 will probably be used in the upcoming winter.

Second of all what is your annual gas usage?  £10 a month is easily plausible in the summer but outside of that?  Seems far too low.

Robin9

@Twinger - some people do have very low consumptions and you may well be one of them particularly if you are only using gas for cooking..

£10 may have been OK for your last tariff when you probably paid well under 3p a kWh - you are now paying in excess of 4p and that means your DD must go up  

Keep your own records read your meter monthly and you can know how much you owe or not owe.

Gerry1

Welcome back to the forum.

Several things appear not to be optimum.

• You can always top up if you feel the DD will be insufficient, you don't have to wait for a huge bill.
  
• Raise a formal complaint if you have not been switched to the tariff that you wanted.  Best by snail mail, obtaining a free Certificate of Posting.  You can go to the ombudsman upon receipt of a deadlock letter, or after eight weeks if they don't send one.

However there are wider issues.

• What is your heating?  As you have gas, that's what you should be using for room heating and hot water, but that's obviously not the case if your gas bill is only £120 or £180 per year.  Anything else will be more expensive, especially electricity.  Nothing is more expensive than using daytime electricity for heating (panel or fan heaters, oil filled radiators, electric fires, convectors etc).  Even storage heaters will cost more than double.
  
• If you set up an online account you can check your status at any time.
  
• Why are you still with British Gas?  They're probably not the cheapest supplier, and if it's a source of worry, why stay with them?  Voting with your feet may be the best way to solve the problem.  Remember that separate suppliers are often cheaper than dual fuel.