British gas. Seems to be issue with gas meter readings. In a panic.

Ddrago

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some advice, I've just been in with a BG chat (can't speak to a person and in a panic) and there's issues with my gas readings.

Basically I was checking my account and I have no energy usage readings for gas at all. I've recently moved to their new system, not sure if that's played a part. I checked the online meter readings and it says last meter reading was early September (when moved to new system, doesn't say where reading was from in terms of estate or smart meter)

My current gas reading on the smart meter is 06321. When I spoke to the chat theybtold me they had found my smart meter reading and had updated it to 05300 (over 1000 less than my meter reading). I obviously panicked and highlighted this, they said it seems to be a difference in what they see at their end and what I see at mine. He said he would update to correct value and that "bill would be high" note that his electric meter reading did match my smart meter.

Where I'm dubious though is my last reading before this was from my October bil used seemingly the correct value at the time 06153 titled as "last read on old system" sonit doesn't make any sense to me that he has a much lower value and I'm going to get hit with a massive bill. Also my match bill used a value of around 6000 for gas so again I can't understand the difference. Where I'm really concerned though is when I try to manually put in my meter read it says it "too high a value ' and I need to do a paper form.this might be because the chat advisor had already input the much lower value, I'm not sure but concerned 

So my questions I'm really hoping someone can answer are:

Has anyone else had anything similar?

Any idea how to work out what the cost of over 1000 gas units would be? As I believe it's not standard kWh calc

Is it possible the "new system" uses a different numbering format so there's a conversion that should be going on?

Anybody got a number to speak to a human on this?

Thanks all, genuinely panicked here

ArbitraryRandom

If you have just changed your account to the new system then it can take a few weeks for all of your date to transfer - and there can be mistakes because some date is migrated manually. And I think that's what's happened here (someone just hit 5 rather than 6)

If you have your old octopus bill then don't panic - you can't be made to pay for the same gas twice - worst case BG don't notice the mistake and issue you a bill, then contact them and show them the one from Octopus and say you think it's a data entry error. 

MikeJXE

Ddrago said:

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some advice, I've just been in with a BG chat (can't speak to a person and in a panic) and there's issues with my gas readings.

Basically I was checking my account and I have no energy usage readings for gas at all. I've recently moved to their new system, not sure if that's played a part. I checked the online meter readings and it says last meter reading was early September (when moved to new system, doesn't say where reading was from in terms of estate or smart meter)

My current gas reading on the smart meter is 06321. When I spoke to the chat theybtold me they had found my smart meter reading and had updated it to 05300 (over 1000 less than my meter reading). I obviously panicked and highlighted this, they said it seems to be a difference in what they see at their end and what I see at mine. He said he would update to correct value and that "bill would be high" note that his electric meter reading did match my smart meter.

Where I'm dubious though is my last reading before this was from my October bil used seemingly the correct value at the time 06153 titled as "last read on old system" sonit doesn't make any sense to me that he has a much lower value and I'm going to get hit with a massive bill. Also my match bill used a value of around 6000 for gas so again I can't understand the difference. Where I'm really concerned though is when I try to manually put in my meter read it says it "too high a value ' and I need to do a paper form.this might be because the chat advisor had already input the much lower value, I'm not sure but concerned 

So my questions I'm really hoping someone can answer are:

Has anyone else had anything similar?

Any idea how to work out what the cost of over 1000 gas units would be? As I believe it's not standard kWh calc

Is it possible the "new system" uses a different numbering format so there's a conversion that should be going on?

Anybody got a number to speak to a human on this?

Thanks all, genuinely panicked here

It seems to me speaking to anyone regarding energy is a waste of time 

The secret is take your own readings from the meter at least once a month (the meter not the IHD) then you don't need to panic 

I believe the rough estimate for gas m3 is 11.2 kWh so 1000 = 1200 kWh 

The actual conversion varies to what part of the country you live (x calorific value)

Ddrago

ArbitraryRandom said:

If you have just changed your account to the new system then it can take a few weeks for all of your date to transfer - and there can be mistakes because some date is migrated manually. And I think that's what's happened here (someone just hit 5 rather than 6)

If you have your old octopus bill then don't panic - you can't be made to pay for the same gas twice - worst case BG don't notice the mistake and issue you a bill, then contact them and show them the one from Octopus and say you think it's a data entry error. 

Hi, thanks for this. Just in case I said something in my original post that was misleading, I didn't come from octopus, I was an internal transfer fro British gas old system. Hopefully you're right, I did go through the meter reading section of the app and it's weird, in that it says:
5th September 6181 "migration" which looks fine. But then
1 October 50088 "we estimate" which is wild

Then tonight's 5360 from the chat advisor.

I'm a bit concerned that I've never really been able to view gas energy usage online by the looks of it so concerned that I've been underpaying for a long time however the 6+ values are on my bills so I suppose logic says it's just a mistake in system transfer 

ArbitraryRandom

Ddrago said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

If you have just changed your account to the new system then it can take a few weeks for all of your date to transfer - and there can be mistakes because some date is migrated manually. And I think that's what's happened here (someone just hit 5 rather than 6)

If you have your old octopus bill then don't panic - you can't be made to pay for the same gas twice - worst case BG don't notice the mistake and issue you a bill, then contact them and show them the one from Octopus and say you think it's a data entry error. 

Hi, thanks for this. Just in case I said something in my original post that was misleading, I didn't come from octopus, I was an internal transfer fro British gas old system. 

It's late - I read 'last reading from my Octopus Bill'!

But you should still be fine. I recall there's been a few people with similar odd readings on the new system, and it really does seem that they have to manually enter a transfer value and someone in the department has fat fingers. 

Re seeing your smart meter data - if you still have your in home display, you can use the code on the back of it to register for the bright or loop apps. They both allow you to see the data from your smart meter on your smart phone and they go back 13 months (I believe) - worst case you should be able to take a screen shot and sent it to BG. 

Ddrago

MikeJXE said:

Ddrago said:

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some advice, I've just been in with a BG chat (can't speak to a person and in a panic) and there's issues with my gas readings.

Basically I was checking my account and I have no energy usage readings for gas at all. I've recently moved to their new system, not sure if that's played a part. I checked the online meter readings and it says last meter reading was early September (when moved to new system, doesn't say where reading was from in terms of estate or smart meter)

My current gas reading on the smart meter is 06321. When I spoke to the chat theybtold me they had found my smart meter reading and had updated it to 05300 (over 1000 less than my meter reading). I obviously panicked and highlighted this, they said it seems to be a difference in what they see at their end and what I see at mine. He said he would update to correct value and that "bill would be high" note that his electric meter reading did match my smart meter.

Where I'm dubious though is my last reading before this was from my October bil used seemingly the correct value at the time 06153 titled as "last read on old system" sonit doesn't make any sense to me that he has a much lower value and I'm going to get hit with a massive bill. Also my match bill used a value of around 6000 for gas so again I can't understand the difference. Where I'm really concerned though is when I try to manually put in my meter read it says it "too high a value ' and I need to do a paper form.this might be because the chat advisor had already input the much lower value, I'm not sure but concerned 

So my questions I'm really hoping someone can answer are:

Has anyone else had anything similar?

Any idea how to work out what the cost of over 1000 gas units would be? As I believe it's not standard kWh calc

Is it possible the "new system" uses a different numbering format so there's a conversion that should be going on?

Anybody got a number to speak to a human on this?

Thanks all, genuinely panicked here

It seems to me speaking to anyone regarding energy is a waste of time 

The secret is take your own readings from the meter at least once a month (the meter not the IHD) then you don't need to panic 

I believe the rough estimate for gas m3 is 11.2 kWh so 1000 = 1200 kWh 

The actual conversion varies to what part of the country you live (x calorific value)

Hi 1 quick question please on your point about reading at the meter.
The chat advisor tonight asked me to take the meter reading directly to see if it matched the smart IHD he told me to do this by going to the meter and pressing A. I did this and all matched up.

However looking at the meter it says "press A until meter index is visible and then press B to update index".

What does this mean in practice, do you need to press B to get an accurate reading? Does pressing A only give you the value at last update?

MikeJXE

Ddrago said:

MikeJXE said:

Ddrago said:

Hi all, I'm hoping to get some advice, I've just been in with a BG chat (can't speak to a person and in a panic) and there's issues with my gas readings.

Basically I was checking my account and I have no energy usage readings for gas at all. I've recently moved to their new system, not sure if that's played a part. I checked the online meter readings and it says last meter reading was early September (when moved to new system, doesn't say where reading was from in terms of estate or smart meter)

My current gas reading on the smart meter is 06321. When I spoke to the chat theybtold me they had found my smart meter reading and had updated it to 05300 (over 1000 less than my meter reading). I obviously panicked and highlighted this, they said it seems to be a difference in what they see at their end and what I see at mine. He said he would update to correct value and that "bill would be high" note that his electric meter reading did match my smart meter.

Where I'm dubious though is my last reading before this was from my October bil used seemingly the correct value at the time 06153 titled as "last read on old system" sonit doesn't make any sense to me that he has a much lower value and I'm going to get hit with a massive bill. Also my match bill used a value of around 6000 for gas so again I can't understand the difference. Where I'm really concerned though is when I try to manually put in my meter read it says it "too high a value ' and I need to do a paper form.this might be because the chat advisor had already input the much lower value, I'm not sure but concerned 

So my questions I'm really hoping someone can answer are:

Has anyone else had anything similar?

Any idea how to work out what the cost of over 1000 gas units would be? As I believe it's not standard kWh calc

Is it possible the "new system" uses a different numbering format so there's a conversion that should be going on?

Anybody got a number to speak to a human on this?

Thanks all, genuinely panicked here

It seems to me speaking to anyone regarding energy is a waste of time 

The secret is take your own readings from the meter at least once a month (the meter not the IHD) then you don't need to panic 

I believe the rough estimate for gas m3 is 11.2 kWh so 1000 = 1200 kWh 

The actual conversion varies to what part of the country you live (x calorific value)

Hi 1 quick question please on your point about reading at the meter.
The chat advisor tonight asked me to take the meter reading directly to see if it matched the smart IHD he told me to do this by going to the meter and pressing A. I did this and all matched up.

However looking at the meter it says "press A until meter index is visible and then press B to update index".

What does this mean in practice, do you need to press B to get an accurate reading? Does pressing A only give you the value at last update?

No idea what it means I don't have a smart meter 

What I mean by taking your own readings is you cant trust any meter

If you take your own reading you might set a pattern of what you use and when

If something goes wrong like it does you have proof of your normal usage and might spot a problem sooner rather than later 

[Deleted User]

Hi,

same with me since move to new system, no gas smart readings being received, I keep my own wee spreadsheet and send BG readings on 1st of month.

Where did BG get the Oct 06153 reading from, or was it an estimate?

You only need to press button  A for a read, if you check daily you will see it advance.

Reed_Richards

The most important thing to do if you are being undercharged is to put some money aside to pay the catch-up bill when it eventually comes through with the correct reading.

brook_heather

MikeJXE said:

I believe the rough estimate for gas m3 is 11.2 kWh so 1000 = 1200 kWh

No 1000m3 would be approx. 11,200 kWh not 1200 kWh.

EssexHebridean

Reed_Richards said:

The most important thing to do if you are being undercharged is to put some money aside to pay the catch-up bill when it eventually comes through with the correct reading.

Agreed, although it doesn't sound as though the OP IS being undercharged - I suspect this is very much a case as suggested above of a manual-input error, and it will "all come out in the wash" as it were.