British Gas are doing my head in

Mickyblueeyes69

I was forcibly moved into British Gas when Neon Reef went into liquidation and i have been giving them a dual reading for economy 7 and Normal rate readings but they combined the two and charge me the fixed rate for both they even sent me a letter apologising for this error but they are still adding both readings together and charging me the full flat rate. Unfortunately i cant get any sense out of BG and i raised a complaint and had several time consuming talks on the phone but i was passed around the Indian call centre and then cut off this has happened on 3 occasions they then told me i should use on line chat so i did and the guy said "give me all the particulars" and then promptly said he would get back to me and closed the chat. This was 8 weeks ago. Now i have received a response to the complaint which took 4 weeks and their reply was nothing remotely to do with what i was complaining about i then replied with all the information again and all i get is a request to close the complaint and i keep saying no because you have not actually responded to my complaint and so it goes on i am now on my third "i do not want to close my complaint" response and i am just waiting for the next request to close my complaint. Is it so difficult to tell me what the Economy 7 rate is for all i know it might be the same as the standard rate but i cannot get any sense out of them and dont get me started on the monthly payment which i have tried to reduce without success i am now £900 in credit.if someone could tell me the Economy 7 rate i will know if i am wasting my time Sorry for the long email but British Gas are a nightmare. I have not switched yet as i fear i may lose what they may owe me.

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

As it's been eight weeks you can now go to the Energy Ombudsman.

You can find your E7 rates here.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/GetAQuote/tariff-information

Suggest you ditch and switch !

maisie_cat

Neon Reef didn't have an E7 tariff did they? we have two meters and had a single tariff with NR that then became another single tariff when we moved to BG. We received an email some time ago from BG about this approximately a year after the NR to BG transfer, here is the text:

We’re sorry, we made a mistake when you first joined us, and we didn’t set your account up correctly.

 

Instead of setting your account up on Economy 7 rates with separate prices for your energy during the day and night, we used a single price.

 

What you need to do?

Having your account set up in this way and not being on Economy 7 rates has saved you money since you joined us.

 

So if you’d like to keep the same set up and stay on a single rate for your energy, you don’t need to do anything else.

 

If you’d prefer to change to Economy 7 rates - for example, if you’ll be using storage heaters or a lot more hot water - then please get in touch.

Did you get this email?

Mickyblueeyes69

Hi

I am not sure about Neon Reef and E7 but are you saying British Gas charge more for E7 usage than the standard rate which seems odd as their tariff show E7 to be about 23p a unit cheaper on E7 if you look at the link on the previous reply. I did receive a letter and that is why i have been trying to get information from British Gas as to why not using E7 would be cheaper as that doesnt make any sense and it seemed like a fobbing off letter. But i said all i wanted was an answer as to what was the E7 rate of charges which they still have not given me.I requested to go on E7 charges as we do use a lot of night time electricity but they have yet to respond to this and as you say that letter was some time ago. 

QrizB

Mickyblueeyes69 said:

I am not sure about Neon Reef and E7 but are you saying British Gas charge more for E7 usage than the standard rate which seems odd as their tariff show E7 to be about 23p a unit cheaper on E7 if you look at the link on the previous reply.

Economy 7 has two different rates, a cheaper one that applies for seven hours a night (the seven in E7) and a higher one that applies for the other 17 hours of the day. Rates vary by region but Gerry1's link gives me this:

The current single rate is about 30p per kWh, so you can see they're offering a nighttime discount of about 14p per kWh but a daytime premium of about 8p per kWh.

Mickyblueeyes69 said:

I did receive a letter and that is why i have been trying to get information from British Gas as to why not using E7 would be cheaper as that doesnt make any sense. 

If you use a lot of daytime electricity, the extra cost in the day will wipe out your nighttime savings.

Over the past year, how much daytime electricity have you used and how much nighttime?

Mickyblueeyes69 said:

But i said all i wanted was an answer as to what was the E7 rate of charges which they still have not given me.I requested to go on E7 charges as we do use a lot of night time electricity but they have yet to respond to this and as you say that letter was some time ago.

BGs tariffs are available from Gerry1's link you don't need BG customer service to tell you. Just enter your postcode and a couple more details then choose "standard variable" from the long list of tariffs.

CSI_Yorkshire

E7 should be more expensive than standard  in the day and cheaper than standard in the 7 off-peak hours overnight.

So it all depends how much you actually use in those 7 hours.  You say "a lot" but if it's less than 40% you might be better on single rate.

Gerry1

With E7 the day rate is invariably higher than the single rate.  Unlike the SVT which varies little between suppliers, the spread between day and night E7 rates varies considerably between suppliers and between regions.

If you have storage and immersion heaters then E7 is likely to suit you, if not then single rate will probably be cheaper.

You have to establish your annual day/night kWh usage from actual (or smart) meter readings 12 months apart and do the sums.  Never use estimated figures, they could be way out.

Before the crisis the break-even figure could be as low as 15-20% night use but now it's probably higher.

Did you find out your prices from the link I provided earlier?

ben_glastonbury

As well as "adjusting my opening reading" which has now been corrected, as BG could not explan why they had done this to the ombudsman they have now committed to credit my account for around £400 overall for the economy 7. 
I am still waiting for the credts and the ombudsman is chasing them for it, but hoping it will all go through backdated to when the account was opened. 
Unusually although I requested an updated bill reflecting the changes the ombudsman was reluctant to ask BG to provide this, even though it is a contracuall requirement and part of their lcense requirements to provide an updated bill.

Do go though the ombudsman and get the bill backdated but do not expect to see any credit for at least 6 months, thats how long the process has taken so far and still waiting!