British Gas - new system

MatG1979

Hi, noobie here. Just wondering if anyone else, and how many others are out there, that have been screwed over by British Gas changing over to a new system? I'm a regular meter reading provider, always have been, to make sure i don't get caught out. I have got a smart meter however it doesnt work - i was even advised afterwards (by a different provider) i was given a gen1 meter that had known issues, but i was ticking the quota box. 
Anyway, i noticed in January i had more money than i realised which was great, especially after xmas. I then discovered something had got messed up with BG when they moved me onto a new system and hadn't taken my monthly DD payment (which is £300 pm btw). Comes to March and i got my quarterly bill and nice to see i was in credit and they tried to lower my payments. I didn't concede to this luckily. I've just had my June Bill and to my horror found i am £500 in debt to them! Obviously given the lack of heating etc i had assumed i would be seeing the opposite. On closer inspection it now looks like, for some reason, despite providing all my readings they decided not to charge me for any electric. It therefore came crashing into my June bill so i've been collared for 6 months+ worth. There is an argument that i still used the energy, but how are people supposed to manage their finances if these companies get to make these kind of mistakes with absolutely no come back! Rather than enjoying some leniency in my bills I'm back to scraping through again. My mortgage is due to rise £300 in November so i'm lucky in some ways this has hit now, but i could've been saving for that hit instead.

MatG1979

Just to add - i've logged a complaint. Because im on 'the new system' this was painful as well as i had to use different forms etc than simply clocking on the 'complaint' button on their site. I spent ages on chat with to agents, the first one of which deleted the bill which had the missing electric charge in March - luckily i had kept a copy.

barker77

I left BG because I couldn’t ever login to my account on the new system and it would chuck me back in circles to get access - same with trying to then raise tickets. Shocking company who I’ll never go with again because they are all about profits vs people and environment. 

MuckChucker

So much less info available in the new system that it verges on useless, which is considerably more annoying during an energy crisis when customers want to keep a closer eye on things. Between that and their insistence that they know my usage better than me and what my DD should be in spite of my exact calculations, I moved to Octopus a few weeks ago.

MatG1979

So just an update - my complaint has now been looked at multiple times. Each time with a 'sorry' then they simply regenerate my bill. I'm now £600 in debit as opposed to £500 so they've made the situation worse. The bill has differed on each occasion so there doesn't appear to be any logic in what they are doing. I've had to point out that the estimates being applied are different each time, and to make things more complicated obviously this considerably impacts the bill given the different pricing over the period between december22 and june23. The worst thing of all is they shouldn't need to use any estimates anyway, as i provided readings every month, sometimes more than once! Obviously as there's no accountability for these companies its hardly a massive surprise that they just fling this stuff over the fence. I've no offer of someone actually helping and properly looking into the siutation.

Annemos

I am starting to think that only a huge surge of Energy Ombudsman's complaints, would make any difference. 

MatG1979

I'm not far off the ombudsman route now. I'm still no further with this. I'm literally having to feed them the information and point out the estimates are wildly off (in their favour of course). The actual readings are even on previous bill statements so its hardly difficult.  i think that they have scrubbed off the bills and regenerated them so many times they have got themselves in a mess. Meanwhile i'm sat here with an unexpected and unnecessary debt on my hands, which i can do nothing about. I thought about changing supplier, but again i'm now trapped by the debt (as i would need to pay it off) and the other factor that they are all as bad as each other. Ive been stung so many times by them now, usually after switching, that i dont think it will help. The only company i switched to that was any good was Bulb and unfortunately they are no longer an option.

Annemos

I have a Complaint in since July 4th for someone. No reply at all received yet. It is on the old system. Part of it is that there was a big gas leak, but that has now stopped. So the Direct Debits going forward need to be recalculated. 

I searched through the MSE site which lead me to this..... I have it standing by in case I need to produce it. 

(If they try and say that this problem can only be corrected through their systems, after 9 months have elapsed!) 

This extract: 

27.13 Paragraphs 14, 15, and 16 apply where a Domestic Customer pays the Charges for the Supply of Gas which are payable under its Domestic Supply Contract by way of regular direct debit payments of a fixed amount (which amount may be varied from time to time in accordance with the relevant Domestic Supply Contract).

27.14 The licensee must provide to each such Domestic Customer an explanation in clear, plain and intelligible language of the basis which a fixed amount (and any variation of that fixed amount) has been determined.

27.15 Save where a clear and express Principal Term of the relevant Domestic Supply Contract provides otherwise, the licensee must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the fixed amount of the regular direct debit payment is based on the best and most current information available (or which reasonably ought to be available) to the licensee, including information as to the quantity of gas which the licensee reasonably estimates has been or will be supplied under the relevant Domestic Supply Contract.


https://epr.ofgem.gov.uk/Content/Documents/Gas%20supply%20standard%20licence%20conditions%20consolidated%20-%20Current%20Version.pdf


In your case:  

Possibly 21B part is relevant for you? Re provision of bills and meter readings? I always think it does help to have some rules to quote in a complaint situation. 

And I agree. I also feel that we cannot just change suppliers, when things like this remain outstanding. As one can imagine the mess just compounding even more. 

CSI_Yorkshire

Annemos said:

In your case:  

Possibly 21B part is relevant for you? Re provision of bills and meter readings? I always think it does help to have some rules to quote in a complaint situation. 

Yes - 21B1 and 21B2 are really useful conditions.

Roughly, they say that if a customer submits a meter reading then the supplier has to either use that reading on the next bill or if they think it is wrong, ask the customer for another one to use instead.

For you though, Annemos, there is the problem in 27.15 of "reasonably estimates will be supplied" which has previously been interpreted extremely widely in terms of what 'reasonable' can mean.

Annemos

Can they go back and look at what her usual usage was before the leak happened? Every year it was very similar. (Except for the leak period. It is very clear to see, as she has had a smart meter for a long time.)  

9 months of excess 80 kw gas per day. Consistent.  So just remove it from the estimate going forward??

Mobtr

MatG1979 said:

Hi, noobie here. Just wondering if anyone else, and how many others are out there, that have been screwed over by British Gas changing over to a new system? I'm a regular meter reading provider, always have been, to make sure i don't get caught out. I have got a smart meter however it doesnt work - i was even advised afterwards (by a different provider) i was given a gen1 meter that had known issues, but i was ticking the quota box. 
Anyway, i noticed in January i had more money than i realised which was great, especially after xmas. I then discovered something had got messed up with BG when they moved me onto a new system and hadn't taken my monthly DD payment (which is £300 pm btw). Comes to March and i got my quarterly bill and nice to see i was in credit and they tried to lower my payments. I didn't concede to this luckily. I've just had my June Bill and to my horror found i am £500 in debt to them! Obviously given the lack of heating etc i had assumed i would be seeing the opposite. On closer inspection it now looks like, for some reason, despite providing all my readings they decided not to charge me for any electric. It therefore came crashing into my June bill so i've been collared for 6 months+ worth. There is an argument that i still used the energy, but how are people supposed to manage their finances if these companies get to make these kind of mistakes with absolutely no come back! Rather than enjoying some leniency in my bills I'm back to scraping through again. My mortgage is due to rise £300 in November so i'm lucky in some ways this has hit now, but i could've been saving for that hit instead.

Don’t quite understand this. 

Are you saying your January payment of £300 wasn’t taken? Did you make the payment manually or was nothing paid in January at all and have all other payments been taken successfully since then? 

On the March bill was electricity showing as zero usage or not showing at all so you were only billed for gas?