Will back billing rules apply?

mac.d

Long story short, an elderly housebound couple have been getting estimated gas bills for years (due to an issue with access to their meter). Gas meter was changed 4 years ago, but the bills still have old meter details and ocassional meter readings provided to supplier have been ignored and all bills are estimated. If British Gas ever sort out the fact the meter was changed, am I right in thinking back billing rules apply?

Longer version. They pay their gas & electric weekly and I asked them in winter if they’d started paying more than their usual £10 because prices had risen considerably. They hadn’t so advised them to do so. Later I looked at their bills and they're well in credit on their electric, but in debt for their gas (separate suppliers). Some of their electric bills are estimated but some have actual readings (they do sometimes get their meter read), but all their gas bills are estimated.

They and the occasional meter readers have only submitted sporadic gas readings over the years due to problems with access because of a neighbour, but that has been partly resolved. So I took a reading for them in February and noticed their meter had been changed in 2019 (details of meter exchange are on the gas meter), but it was still the old meter that was on their bills. In addition, the old meter was a four-digit one, while the new gas meter is five.

I phoned British Gas for them (they are hard of hearing) and explained all of this and gave an up to date reading. Made sure they knew they were housebound and on the PSR. Was promised they’d look into it and sort it out. Fast forward 4 months when I checked their latest bill. Still exactly the same. So I phoned British Gas again, explained it all over again, was assured it would be dealt with despite being a complex issue, this time I raised a complaint about the non-action from last time.

Their gas bill shows them £500 in debt, I’ve assured them this is a fairly meaningless figure and that by the time it’s sorted out, they might end up not owing anything. It appears a bit of a mess, will back billing rules apply, what do you think?

MWT

Certainly sounds like the back-billing rules will apply, but only to the extent that the amount actually used exceeds the amounts they have paid, as there is considered to be no 'bill shock' in relation to money they have already paid to the supplier.

FreeBear

mac.d said: They and the occasional meter readers have only submitted sporadic gas readings over the years due to problems with access because of a neighbour, but that has been partly resolved. So I took a reading for them in February and noticed their meter had been changed in 2019 (details of meter exchange are on the gas meter), but it was still the old meter that was on their bills. In addition, the old meter was a four-digit one, while the new gas meter is five.

Another thing for you to check is the units that the meter records. The old one was probably reading (100s) cubic feet, and the new one, cubic metres. Assuming the old meter is imperial, where BG do the conversion to KWh on the bill, there will be a magic number of 2.83 in the calculation. If the new meter is metric, you don't want to be seeing the 2.83 multiplier when they finally get their act together and start billing properly.

mac.d

MWT said:

Certainly sounds like the back-billing rules will apply, but only to the extent that the amount actually used exceeds the amounts they have paid, as there is considered to be no 'bill shock' in relation to money they have already paid to the supplier.

What about the bill shock they currently have, I think I remember seeing a letter that said their weekly payment is being increased to £44 for gas. Presumably to cover the estimated debt? British Gas shouldn't be letting pensioners on pension credit build up £500 debt and certainly not on estimated bills. 

FreeBear said:

Another thing for you to check is the units that the meter records. The old one was probably reading (100s) cubic feet, and the new one, cubic metres. Assuming the old meter is imperial, where BG do the conversion to KWh on the bill, there will be a magic number of 2.83 in the calculation. If the new meter is metric, you don't want to be seeing the 2.83 multiplier when they finally get their act together and start billing properly.

I'll try to keep an eye out for this, I haven't noticed the British Gas bills containing that much information. They're a typical very elderly couple, in that the man deals with all the bills/finance and I think he's not totally comfortable with me looking too much at the bills, although he appreciates the help and is now a wee bit worried with the £44 per week cost. 

Robin9

@mac.d 

" British Gas shouldn't be letting pensioners on pension credit build up £500 debt and certainly not on estimated bills. "

I appreciate they are now on the PSR  but just how is BG supposed to know this?

Mobtr

Won’t know if billing code applies until a correct bill is produced. Once it’s been updated & the bill is correct, if in debt, should apply, if in credit, won’t apply. 

If their last meter was an imperial & they are still being billed that way, once the new meter is installed on the account they could very well be in credit 

MWT

mac.d said:

What about the bill shock they currently have, I think I remember seeing a letter that said their weekly payment is being increased to £44 for gas. Presumably to cover the estimated debt? British Gas shouldn't be letting pensioners on pension credit build up £500 debt and certainly not on estimated bills. 

That one sorts itself out, once you have the correct bill, if any of it has to be written off under the back-billing rules then it will obviously reduce the debt and reduce the DD payments if they included any element of debt recovery...

In all probability the correction from imperial to metric will take care of most of the debt if they have been using the wrong conversion factor on meter readings, but given it was a meter change there should have been a considerable difference in the readings so I'm not sure that is as likely as them just continuing to estimate use and ignore the meter readings....

mac.d

Robin9 said:

@mac.d 

" British Gas shouldn't be letting pensioners on pension credit build up £500 debt and certainly not on estimated bills. "

I appreciate they are now on the PSR  but just how is BG supposed to know this?

That's a fair point, so how about they shouldn't let pensioners build up £500 debt, especially based on estimated readings for over 4 years. And while ignoring readings that they do receive? Though I appreciate most of the debt has been accrued in the past year.

Scot_39

BG did this over 2-2.5  years to my mum years back.  Who was legally blind and on PSR - and they even failed to up meter reading rate as promised.

They were able to provide the dates and the readings from the 2 professional readings we didn't have - as part of the complaint.

Meter readings went on one part of record but not automatically on to billing - at least on old billing system.

mac.d

Update on the outcome of this. British Gas have now produced a bill for the past two years. They have just made up a figure for May 2021 "we fitted your new meter" despite the fact they fitted it in 2019, so it's all based on estimated readings up to them using the meter reading I sent them a photo of. 

However the couple are happy enough their bill now shows them to be in credit of £165. The bill does show they've been paying British Gas £20-40 a week since I first told them they'd need to pay more than £10 (it was actually £15 they'd been paying weekly) last year. This includes them paying £190 in the past month alone, but they will keep paying £40 a week for now despite me saying that was probably too much. 

Fair play to the guy in the Indian call centre, despite all his customer speak ("I am here to help but you have to open your heart and listen"  ) he has actually made a difference.