I'm not sure my final bill with British Gas is correct

RockandGrohl

I've uploaded the bill here, but here's how it happened from my recollection:

In January 2023 I was looking at my account and I remember seeing that we were in credit by some amount, perhaps £150 or so.

At the end of Jan 2023 I switched to Octopus and went straight downstairs to supply them with a meter reading for both elec & gas. 

Two days later I got charged the £196 monthly direct debit from British Gas for Energy. 

I supposed that this was just a late-landing payment that hadn't been caught by my changing accounts and therefore would be credited back along with the £150 of credit I already had. 

Instead, it looks like BG want me to pay them £280 at the end of Feb, even though I already paid for a full month of January's gas & electricity already. 

Octopus also want their direct debit in the end of Feb too. So I'm now paying BG £280 at the end of Feb, in addition to the £196 at the start of Feb, in addition to about £180 to Octopus at the end of Feb.

What the flip?! 

Can anyone break this down. I realise some of this bill must be paid in arrears, but I wasn't in Debit, and I don't understand why if I've been paying the full amount of British Gas every single month that I am being asked to pay in the start AND end of February, when I left at pretty much the end of Jan (30th) and already had Jan's payment taken on the 3rd Jan. 

But let's suppose the 3rd of Jan payment was to cover Dec 2022 usage, which it very well could be, then wouldn't the 2nd Feb payment cover Jan's usage, and if that's the case why do they want an additional £280 end of this month?

I'm confused - help please!

elsien

Can you download the last few bills and see what they are showing?
You really need to be going on the amount the amount that you’ve been using rather than what you’ve been charged.
Have British Gas given you your final bill and what is that showing? Do the meter readings tally with the ones that you gave them?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

elsien said:
Have British Gas given you your final bill and what is that showing? Do the meter readings tally with the ones that you gave them?

from link in OP,

[Deleted User]

Hi,

OP, are the final readings on bill the ones you supplied?

pochase

BG bills for most customers only every 6 months. The last bill from before the final one was on 22nd of November, and uou owed £251.66.

Up to the next bill your online account shows only your payment added, but not what you used.

So in the beginning of January you have paid DD of 362,30. The 251.66 was deducted so the credit would be £110.64, not £150.

A further £196.35 was added for February, so you had £306,99 credit before the final bill.

Electricty was £235.37 and gas £397.29 so a total bill of £632.66. So you owe £325.67.

They have not refunded you the £67 for February (only for December and January), so this needs to be  deducted and we get a new debt of £258.67, which also the final amount on the bill.

The bill is calculated 100% correct.

Only open question are the final reading correct. They need to match opening readings Octopus uses, there can be differences as long as opening and final readings are identical.

TheElectricCow

Looking at that bill, there's two important things to note. Firstly is that you're being billed quarterly, and second is that your balance from the previous bill on 22nd November appears to be a debt of £251.66.

So with £251.66 as our starting point, you then made the following payments each month:

• 02/12/22 £165.95 (£251.66 - £165.95 = £85.71 debt)
• 03/01/23 £196.35 (£85.71 - £196.35 = -£110.64 (or £110.64 credit)) When you looked at the account in January, this is likely the balance you would have seen
• 01/02/23 £196.35 (£110.64 - £196.35 = -306.99 (or £306.99 credit))

However, as you're on a quarterly billing cycle, this only includes the direct debits you've paid into the account as all the energy costs would be applied from the next bill, which essentially means the balance you saw on your account in January was just your November energy bill plus two monthly payments since then not an up to date figure. 

Switching supplier has triggered a new bill to be generated, so you've now been billed for all the energy you've used since November. According to the bill, this is a total of £565.66 so we now have to include this on to our calculation we got from your payments.

So starting with the £306.99 credit, the calculation would be -306.99 + 565.66 = £258.67 debt owed.

So while your direct debit payments were just about covering your actual usage, they weren't high enough to reduce the debt on the account from November before you switched which is around about the balance you still have left to pay.


Of course that's just a breakdown of how it's working on the billing side of things, and relies on the bill being accurate in the first place - for that you'd need to ensure they've used the correct meter readings for each given period, charged for the right dates, etc. and only you'll know if those match the information you've provided to BG. For example, you may need to check your November bill and any bills prior to that to be sure that the debt balance on that one was correct in the first place.

RockandGrohl

Thanks every, that’s explained it perfectly. I guess I logged in and saw the credit amount at precisely the wrong moment.