Energy bills go up TOMORROW - meter read TODAY!

Gemm83

So roughly with for both gas and electric looks like they've under charged by just over £40. 

Still for 3 months gas and electric over winter that's bloody good!! Will try calling again this afternoon.

Maybe my DD won't be double or more as of April then... October may be different though! 

moving_forward

Gas is a different calculation you have to convert the usage first to M3 as you have an imperial meter. 
So true read less their read equals units.
Units x 2.83 equals M3

M3 x 1.02264 times the calorific value (around 39.4 but check on bill) then dive by 3.6!
Now you have the kWh to multiply by unit rate then by 1.05 to add vat on!

moving_forward

Your bill will still double if your not on fixed rate as this bills using old rates. Hard to say what total annual usage will be as you not lived there a full year.

Gemm83

Even with the (rough) extra added on. That doubled and divided over the 3 months it's still only, an extra £50 (again roughly) a month than what I am paying out now.

Now, I say only. I don't mean that as a throw away comment. £50 is still a lot of money to me, but its significantly better than the nightmare I had going on in my head! 

Thank you for helping me to understand it a little better. Really appreciate it 😊

Gemm83

Apologies I missed the old rates bit...but even with the new...its still better than what I thought! 

moving_forward

Great glad you understood me and it's within budget.😁

Jude57

Having just received my bi-annual review of my direct debit from British Gas, I was surprised that, as they state I am using less gas than predicted (mild winter plus Housing Association have installed better insulation) and I'm signed up to a fix ending September 2022, they want to more than double my monthly payments. Their website says that DD gives you control and you can amend the amount you pay, but it won't let you amend it to below the amount they have set, so you can't pay what you know you will use. My electricity DD has gone up by an amount I consider reasonable so I had no issue with that. Oddly, my gas account has always been mildly problematic over the years, oddly timed bills, etc, but the electricity account has always been fine. In this case, their calculations didn't take account of the DD payments that crossed with their re-setting the monthly payments. If I pay what they are demanding, by the end of my 'plan' they'll owe me over £300 for gas alone. I should perhaps also say that I'm a vulnerable customer and qualify for the Warm Home Discount, which I haven't included in my projections.

I managed to get through very quickly on the phone but the customer service adviser was totally inflexible and didn't understand the calculations that had been used to set the new DD amounts. I tried several times to explain why their calculations are wrong, but to no avail, she wasn't budging. When I said I'd have to cancel my DD's she launched into how in that case I'd have to pay at the Post Office (???) so I gave up. After over 40 years as a DD customer, I'm going to be paying my bills online every month. Of course I've lost my dual fuel DD discount but they don't offer Standing Order as an option so I don't have that choice since paying what they want will leave me struggling to pay for food.

Interestingly, ten minutes after speaking to British Gas, I received a call from:

01183150367

which, apparently, is a number British Gas use to call customers. I have very strict blocks on unknown numbers on my landline phone and haven't had a call from an unknown number since I set it up over a year ago, certainly not from British Gas. Needless to say, I've blocked that number, too.

I'd always known that customer loyalty is meaningless to large organisations but I've never had a real problem with British Gas, so it was never an issue. When the smaller energy providers started folding I was glad I hadn't changed provider with the potential worry that would have brought. Now, however, as soon as (if ever) there is a possibility of moving supplier, I'll be changing. 

Cheery_Daff

Gosh, what a disappointing encounter with British Gas Jude. How awful that they are being so inflexible and that you've had to lose your DD discount. Do you have the energy to put in a complaint?

Our electricity projection suggests our price will go up around £30 a month from April, but oddly our supplier hasn't asked for an increased DD. We pay £72.11 electricity DD at the minute and are £70 in credit at the minute coming out of winter, so maybe they just think we'll build up enough of a surplus over the summer anyway? Although according to their projects, £72 a month DD will leave us roughly £255 short over the year. Who knows. I'm sure they'll get after us at some point, but I'm not volunteering to up the DD at this point.

I know it won't be relevant to most on here but just out of interest - we're not on mains gas, we have LPG, and things work slightly differently. We've been out of contract for a while, but the other day I was very surprised when I rang to enquire about fixing to be told I could have a 2 year fix! Normally it's a two year contract, but the first year is fixed price, second year variable. 

So I've fixed for 2 years, at what works out roughly £17 a month more than we've been paying for the last year or so. That seemed worth it for the certainty, and better than many with mains gas are getting (although I think LPG is generally more expensive to start with).

After the increases we'll be paying a rough total of £245 a month in total 😮 We'll definitely be doing what we can to reduce usage.

EssexHebridean

Jude does it not work better to change your payments to simply paying by DD but on a "variable" DD - so they just take the amount of each bill as it arrives? (I'm assuming BG offer this but most do). That way you keep the cheaper rates for paying by DD, and can just stash aside the "extra" money for each payment into savings during the lower-spend months ready for the winter? It does rather sound like your conversation with the inflexible advisor was flagged up and they subsequently tried to contact you though - it may have been a good idea to leave the number unblocked so that if they tried you again you could speak with them, but probably too late now. 

Jude57

EssexHebridean said:

Jude does it not work better to change your payments to simply paying by DD but on a "variable" DD - so they just take the amount of each bill as it arrives? (I'm assuming BG offer this but most do). That way you keep the cheaper rates for paying by DD, and can just stash aside the "extra" money for each payment into savings during the lower-spend months ready for the winter? It does rather sound like your conversation with the inflexible advisor was flagged up and they subsequently tried to contact you though - it may have been a good idea to leave the number unblocked so that if they tried you again you could speak with them, but probably too late now. 

Do you know, @EssexHebridean it never occurred to me that they might be calling me to try to resolve my issue! I didn't realise a variable DD was an option but it's something I'll definitely look into. I've always paid household bills by DD from a separate account that I pay the required amount into each month and it has generally been a painless way of ensuring priority bills are always covered so I was reluctant to cancel. I'd planned to do exactly as you suggest and to stash a bit away each month to cover next winter but the adviser wasn't having it.

I'll see how it goes over the next couple of months but if I can pay a variable DD, I'll probably set that up.

Thanks for that, @EssexHebridean it's much appreciated.