British Gas credit use (cost + debt), had enough for 4 years so considering court action.

tifo

Qyburn said:

tifo said:

This means from the current smart PAYG meter they can't tell me how much it uses for gas and how much to debt. 

Can you read the meter yourself to see how much gas is being used in cu.m or kWh?

Yes, now i can (I posted a picture in an earlier post), but i'm asking for the breakdown for last 4 years since prepayment meter was fitted, esp from smart meter, which is not so smart according to BG. In the last 2 years i've used a lot of credit and don't know where it went.

tifo

some progress  .....

BG have agreed to change the meter back to a credit meter without a credit check and say it's because of the medical issues I have (last year in May the same team totally refused to do anything until debt is repaid and i've had worse issues when they fitted the meter in Jan 2020), and I would need to make a payment arrangement for the debt, however the problem I have is that the debt amount is disputed by me and they can't send me a breakdown of how the credit has been used to debt and gas. I'd like the debt to be the correct amount before I make any arrangement including to see if they've charged any more than the £150 they do for a warrant/fitting.

Someone from the executive team finally replied but this was only because a manager in the privacy team took over my GDPR enquiry when i was querying why some data is not present and he said he'd pass my case for review. So he's helped me.

In mid Feb they said a credit of £162 will be applied to the debt because they used to take too much in the early days but this has not yet been applied to so the debt amount i'm given is already more than it should be.

tifo

Hi, I haven't had the meter changed yet as am discussing the remaining debt amount and possible compensation (been offered the same £50 I was in 2020 for 4 months of bad customer service but it's now been over 4 years with much more bad service).

BG insist the debt figure is correct but to me does not come to what it should be. They only mention the debt from March 2021 from the smart meter and nothing for the dumb meter before it from Jan 2020. They say "due to time" can't get the information but it's only 4 years and in my GDPR I received data going back to 2006. They don't mention the breakdown I keep asking for. They should know how much i've topped up since Jan 2020 as they seem to know how much the debt has been reduced by so it should not be hard for them to minus one from the other in a breakdown? I can do it but then my top ups come to a lot and they'll say it's down to usage but at the moment they've got my usage at under £500 a year from April and under £600 a year now. That's their estimate but doesn't tally with my credit use after debt deduction (£3.75 a week) is taken off.

Any advice?

Qyburn

Going back in time what is the earliest point at which your records and BG's billing agree on meter readings?

tifo

Qyburn said:

Going back in time what is the earliest point at which your records and BG's billing agree on meter readings?

I'd say when i was on a credit meter, since the prepayment meter was fitted i've never figured out how much of the credit is going to gas and how much to debt.

BG still can't send me a breakdown, having been promised several times. I'm surprised that they can't even from the smart meter, all they can seem to extract is the current debt figure. But my point has always been that I top up a lot for the apparent gas i use (from their yearly summaries) and the debt figure should be lower from the money they say they've taken.

tifo

Can someone work out how much gas has been used? From 2585.587 to 2599.311 for 3 days? Online calculators say approx 156 kWh and £12.47 at 6.880 per kWh and 38.490 per day but my actual charges are 5.705p per kWh and 31.615 per day. My meter has taken approx £6 credit inc debt and I calculate £9.84 for 156 kWh no debt.

NorfolkCanary

Assuming m3 meter, then it's approx. 152kWh (+/- a little for calorific values).

Using £0.05705 per kWh unit = £8.67.
Sub-total £8.67 + VAT (5%)
Total £9.11
Adding £0.31615/day standing charge is (£0.95).
Total £10.06

Jyana

tifo said:

Can someone work out how much gas has been used? From 2585.587 to 2599.311 for 3 days? Online calculators say approx 156 kWh and £12.47 at 6.880 per kWh and 38.490 per day but my actual charges are 5.705p per kWh and 31.615 per day. My meter has taken approx £6 credit inc debt and I calculate £9.84 for 156 kWh no debt.

Are you saying that you have kept the heating more or less off since the beginning of January, but have just plurged over 150kwh of gas in 3 days now the weather has turned. Has it been an experiment in seeing how the debt gets taken off the credit you had on it at that point?

I make it that your debt repayment would be roughly £33.75 since then (if they are still taking £3.75/week) and then another £19.92ish for the SC, which makes it a total of nearly £54 in charges since then before allowing for any gas usage itself. How is that adding up with what the meter is saying?

tifo

Jyana said:

tifo said:

Can someone work out how much gas has been used? From 2585.587 to 2599.311 for 3 days? Online calculators say approx 156 kWh and £12.47 at 6.880 per kWh and 38.490 per day but my actual charges are 5.705p per kWh and 31.615 per day. My meter has taken approx £6 credit inc debt and I calculate £9.84 for 156 kWh no debt.

Are you saying that you have kept the heating more or less off since the beginning of January, but have just plurged over 150kwh of gas in 3 days now the weather has turned. Has it been an experiment in seeing how the debt gets taken off the credit you had on it at that point?

I make it that your debt repayment would be roughly £33.75 since then (if they are still taking £3.75/week) and then another £19.92ish for the SC, which makes it a total of nearly £54 in charges since then before allowing for any gas usage itself. How is that adding up with what the meter is saying?

I asked about gas usage and charge for the 3 days from 2585.587 to 2599.311.

tifo

I don't know how to check the debt figure on the meter, the instructions here were for a 'key' or 'card' meter. Mine is a smart meter with just 2 buttons (red and black). BG can read the debt figure because they've sent it to me in recent correspondence.

They insist that the debt figure is correct but i've found evidence that it increased from 2020 to 2021 despite my paying it off weekly, in which case it should have gone down. They've told me about warrant charges which were applied but the increase is after these yet they say no further charges were applied.

I need to make sure the debt figure is correct before I make a payment arrangement with them.