British Gas - Economy 7 scam warning

EssexHebridean

jrh22542254 said:

Verdigris said:

E7/10 will be phased out in a few years, when the teleswitch system is switched off. You'll need a smart meter to access TOU tariffs then.

Thanks. Didnt know this. I am still on an E7 teleswitch and continuing to refuse to go onto a smart meter. Will be interesting to see when what happens when they switch off the teleswitch system?

If you continue to refuse you will most likely be switched to a single rate tariff. 

A._Badger

ben_glastonbury said:

A_Badger, I also got transferred to BG from Neon Reef. The whole thing has been a nightmare with multiple cancelled bills, revised bills issued with different opening readings and incorrect estimated readings when I had supplied readings when tariffs had changed. 

I also had an email from British Gas

We made a mistake with your energy tariff We set you up on the wrong tariff rate

Hello Mr Ben 

We’re sorry, we made a mistake when you first joined us, and we didn’t set your account up correctly. Instead of setting your account up on Economy 7 rates with separate prices for your energy during the day and night, we used a single price.

What you need to do?

You don’t need to do anything. We’ll switch your account on to Economy 7 rates, as your energy will be cheaper this

way.

To make sure you haven’t lost out, we’ll go back and re-bill your account from when you first joined us, using Economy 7 rates instead of a single rate. You may notice a positive change to your account balance when this is done.

I have had no further information from them since the letter was sent. I am not 100% convinced I would be better off on Economy 7 so I have asked them to sort out all my other bill problems first, including a "dummy bill" for 2500 pounds which is "not available yet" before sending me details of what my bills would look like if I was on economy 7. 
They also seem to have messed up their billing operation completely as a result of their new billing system. They cannot access the old system so if there is a query on that system they have to go to their boss who gets onto a specialist who still has access to the old system, when they get those bills back they then need to send them to a different specialist department who try to understand the bills. 

What a mess!!!!

Honestly, I really think BG's billing department is beyond help. My bills are unintelligible (I've had similar recalculations to yours) and they still make no sense at all. Instead of fiddling around with ludicrous 'smart meters' it would be a better idea if the regulator regulated the suppliers' ability to generate accurate bills - something British Gas seems incapable of..

Scot_39

jrh22542254 said:

Verdigris said:

E7/10 will be phased out in a few years, when the teleswitch system is switched off. You'll need a smart meter to access TOU tariffs then.

Thanks. Didnt know this. I am still on an E7 teleswitch and continuing to refuse to go onto a smart meter. Will be interesting to see when what happens when they switch off the teleswitch system?

E7 rumoured and e10 demise has nothing to do per se with the radio teleswitch switch off.

But Ofgems denial that many - 100,000s if not millions of homes of the 4m on MR deals as of Sep21 report  -  still need it for e.g. NSH.

Radio switched meters are just replaced by fixed time meters, not using that signal.

And today thats often e7 in your case or e10 in mine configured smart meters.

I went radio telemetry emeb eon heatwise to e10 digital to e10 smart. The later c2 years ago.

The only problem with is e10 slots now fixed to gmt times  (cannot remember now, but assume radio switched did change, but then it only feb my heating and hot water - the e10 now feeds everything).

But as most use impacted is winter heating and I know about it only a minor irritation.

Scot_39

EssexHebridean said:

jrh22542254 said:

Verdigris said:

E7/10 will be phased out in a few years, when the teleswitch system is switched off. You'll need a smart meter to access TOU tariffs then.

Thanks. Didnt know this. I am still on an E7 teleswitch and continuing to refuse to go onto a smart meter. Will be interesting to see when what happens when they switch off the teleswitch system?

If you continue to refuse you will most likely be switched to a single rate tariff. 

There were only 2 tariff options EOn offered years ago to me and my neighbours.  Heatwise to e10 offering same 10 hrs but at different rates - or flat. Both at the time had digital meter options.

One neighbour left the decision too late - and hadn't accepted the e10 rates - flat was fitted.

Suspect both would now be smart.

But standard e7 billed telemetry to e7 smart is far more likely to be at least tariff neutral.

Heatwise to e10 saw our peak rates jump c30% if I remember - and that only softened a little by the fact the much higher off peak but cheaper than flat rate - then applied to the whole house - not just the heating circuits.  The old seperate heatwise radio switched meter and tariff only fed the hw and heating.  And the loss of the second mpan standing charge.

Some jumped to e7 on cheaper fixes, with other suppliers, but elderly couple next door found needed to upgrade old nsh.  As cold by evening so using peak rate plug ins.  Wiping out the supposed savings.

jimjames

Maybe it's the opposite of a scam and they're pre-empting customers trying to claim compensation for being on the wrong tariff. E7 might work for you without storage heaters but for most people I suspect they'll be paying more so BG probably want to avoid that potential "mis selling" issue.