Wits end with British Gas. Bill due tomorrow, trying to sort and worried about credit history

Malkytheheed

It's a total mess. I am basically being asked to pay twice. I've paid DD to "peoples energy" all the way up through Dec, but British gas want paid for that energy again from end October. I have emails saying "dont touch your direct debit, British gas will take it over and sort it out" So I didn't 

Robin9

Malkytheheed said:

Im trying to give them a new reading and they are saying my bill is coming up as £10,000+ (clearly wrong). They have a "start" meter reading from somewhere. But I never gave it to them, they have never been to the property to check the meter and it is clearly massively wrong. 

What is that start reading ?  and what is the new reading you are trying to give ?

wild666

Malkytheheed said:

So I was with peoples energy, they went bust, we got moved to British Gas, we were told to keep our monthly direct debit going which we did. So from August to December we kept paying £160 a month as before. We have now been billed £600 for energy by British Gas. Nowhere on my account can I see any of the previous payments we have been paying. I expected my bills to increase somewhat but £600 lump sum seems a bit much. The main problem is calling British gas. I'm on hold for an hour each time, and then I get through to someone who can hardly speak English, doesn't understand my issue, and then when they see it's not a simple thing, they just disconnect me so they don't have to deal with it. 

I notice British Gas shoe-horned themselves onto my credit report (without any say so or agreement from me what so ever). And if I don't pay by tomorrow, it's going to go down as a late payment. Urgh what a mess. 

Many people might be in a similar situation, you continued to pay PE when they went under so you're owed however much those DD payments come to minus any final bill amount, BG won't be quick to credit you with credit from a failed supplier. Your DD payment amount should be the same with BG and BG are the company who pays you the credit from the failed supplier, PE. 
What you should have done the day that BG took over the account is take a reading of your meters, either as close to midnight on the final day or fist thing when you got up, plus take a photo of the meters showing the readings.

IMHO, if BG  can send you a bill then they should have being a final bill from PE that was deducted from the credit in your PE account. With Avro, my failed supplier, I had the final bill and all the credit in my account within 9 weeks and an Octopus bill produced on the 29/11/21. BG should take account of what you're owed from PE and your DD credit from PE should be put against the £600 bill, and your monthly DD should be the same as your PE DD, BG should inform you if they are to increase the DD amount for any reason.