British Gas Billing Issues Yet Again

greyteam1959

Is anybody else having serious issues with the British Gas and their billing ?
For nearly 2 years now I have put in my meter readings on the 1st of the month and had a bill generated in a couple of hours.
Since December 2022 my bills have not appeared despite putting in my meter readings.
British Gas chat is most unhelpful saying that I will have to wait at least 2 weeks before they can look at my query.
What on earth is going on with this company ??

MattMattMattUK

greyteam1959 said:

Is anybody else having serious issues with the British Gas and their billing ?
For nearly 2 years now I have put in my meter readings on the 1st of the month and had a bill generated in a couple of hours.
Since December 2022 my bills have not appeared despite putting in my meter readings.
British Gas chat is most unhelpful saying that I will have to wait at least 2 weeks before they can look at my query.
What on earth is going on with this company ??

They are currently transitioning to a new billing platform, that is currently causing delays. British Gas's normally billing cycle is three or six months so if you had a bill in November there is no issue and nothing to worry about. 

Mstty

Whilst British gas make this move of billing systems make sure you record your usage and take photos just incase.

Always good to have evidence.

ChubbyChappie

British Gas are a disgrace, and their ongoing billing platform migration is a disaster.
In October 22 I was substantially in credit, and my last reliable dual-fuel statement said my payments were “on track”, though for safety I increased my direct debit payment to £500 per month and that was taken in December.
This week I got a curt letter from BG; it said I owed over £600, that they intended charging me a work fee of £28, and that the matter would be referred to a debt agency! !!!!!!?!
I’ve spoken by phone and now sent several emails, but as BG themselves cannot access any of my ‘historic’ information (Oct 22 back) I still have no idea of the true state of the account balance! They are on a final warning to produce this for me by 2pm today.
Worse though, is that their attitude to this circumstance is one of ‘there, there, never mind’! I’m frankly outraged.
It is clear that their data migration has failed spectacularly.
The suggestion is that my credit balance was transferred as a debit balance (how many other accounts might this have affected I wonder?).
But fundamentally they have “lost access” to my original account.
They have lost my Direct Debit and so I have had to get that set back up.
They have lost access to my Smart Meter, so I have had to provide manual readings.
They have changed from issuing a ‘dual fuel’ statement to providing two, one each for gas and electric, but how is my single payment allocated against each? (they don’t know)
And they talk about their system change with nonchalance as though I knew something about it and was being unreasonable in expecting it to be a perfect transition?! What!!
I have made clear that they have narrowly avoided a very substantial claim from me had my details been passed to a third-party, but I strongly suspect that this is what is happening to other customers at the moment due to their negligence.
Its a very poor situation and one that BG is handling badly from my perspective.

St3phani3

Interested to find out if anyone has come to a resolution on this issue? We've recently moved out of a property supplied by British Gas for both gas and electricity. Two months before we moved out, we received a bill (actually 25 of them due to an admin posting error) for over £800. This was for a 2 month period. We're a young couple, and don't use that much gas. We were paying on direct debit a figure which British Gas initially suggested based on past usage. Multiple times we queried whether it was enough, and they told us it was. So obviously, we queried how a debt of this figure could rack up.

They then told us it was an error and we were actually £141 in credit. Fast forward to our moving-out day, and when we called British Gas to close the account, they told us we still owed them over £800. We're so confused and, to be honest, I can't really trust whether we do or don't owe them money. We've gone back and forth and questioned why we were refunded money and told it was an error, if it was actually true, but getting nowhere. Do we just pay up? Any advice gratefully received. We were providing meter readings but doesn't look like they logged any of them, and they've worked off estimates for everything, although to be honest, they're fairly accurate (one thing they can get right!) 

Our new property currently supplied by BG too and I can't WAIT to change it to another supplier. 

Gerry1

@St3phani3 Make sure you've registered with BG and given them the opening meter readings.

If you're renting it's not unknown for the landlord or letting agent not to take over the account when the last occupier moved out, so you could end up paying for some of their use or during any period when it was empty.

alicef

I couldn't bear BG billing anymore.  Given that I have had all the gov. EBSS and the one off payment for not being on mains gas, I jumped ship to Octopus.  I'm girding my loins to recheck, once more, my calcs of my BG billing, and then I'm passing it all over to the Ombudsman.