BG dd help please

paulhn757

Hello, looking for a bit of advice regarding an issue I'm having with BG and the payments they arw taking. Basically they are insisting I pay a huge amount more than I use to get the account in credit by the end of the plan. There is currently an balan e of around £1000 on the account (dual fuel). They are asking for over £400 per month when my usage is around just over half that. I'm quite happy to pay more than I use to bring down the balance but not what they're insisting on as its just unaffordable. My next move is to cancel the dd and pay manually each month for what I've used plus and extra £50 to bring down the existing balance. I've tried to get them to agree to this over the phone but all the robots reply is computer says no.

I remember reading somewhere that if you have an open complaint regarding account payments then they have to suspend any debt collection activity until the complaint is resolved. Is this true, as I'm quite happy to now go down this route and escalate to ofgem if needed.

Thanks for any advice

pochase

Welcome to the forum.

If you are currently £1000 in debt, they will want you to make up this debt within the next 6 months, which is at the same time the beginning of the winter season, where you will start using much more than the £200 again.

Cancelling your direct debit will result in 7 to 9% higher unit rates, so instead of £200 your cost will be £215 to £220. 

Paying off your debt with only £50 per month will mean that you start the winter season with a debt of £700 already, and thereafter start adding up. Not unsurprising that they will not agree to this.

Ofgem is not dealing with customers, you would need to compalint to the Ombudsman. What exactly do you want to complaint about? That you can't afford to pay of the debt is not really a valid complaint.

Otherwise are the bills and debt correct? Do you have smart meter or give regular meter readings and are the correct reading used in the bills? A £200 usage during summer is very high.

laidbackgjr

paulhn757 said:

 My next move is to cancel the dd and pay manually each month for what I've used plus and extra £50 to bring down the existing balance. I've tried to get them to agree to this over the phone but all the robots reply is computer says no.

If you do this the whole of the £1000 debt will be due on the next bill and if not paid you might end up getting extra charges for non-payment of the bill.