Unexpected Enormous Electricity Bill - British Gas

BikingBud

BellaBlondykeTheThird said:

Sadly this could end up being another "lessons" learnt type post and a warning for others.

Hopefully the estimates are wildly out in the OP's favour when they get home and have a chance to read their meter and the estimated given.

I do wish they would teach some basic household management at school.

Absolutely.

Alongside money management especially tax/NI/pensions/credit/debt/mortgages/savings

BikingBud

Robin9 said:

@AmyK  I do have the habit of reading my meters - even with practise I get the readings wrong -  I read the same meter wrong twice. And as QrizB has kindly quoted me "never pay on a estimated bill".  That involves some effort in responding to emails and looking at the suppliers online bills.

Once the present problem has been resolved do get into the habit of reading the meters every month - watch out for any decimal point -  keep your own records, use a spreadsheet and do rough sums - read and understand those bills. Be very wary if you are apparently in credit - some suppliers show as a credit the balance from the last bill plus the DD's but does not include the cost of energy until a new bill is produced !

Keep you own records always but especially if not on Smart, photo the meters and submit manually.

RelievedSheff

AmyK said:

Why would we have had any cause to doubt the estimates? BG told us from the start that we did not need to take further meter readings, that our smart meter was reading correctly and that it was safe to take our direct debit down, the bills matched our previous residence in terms of energy usage costs (which considering we have no new equipment makes sense), and we did the responsible thing of building up as much credit as we could. It would be one thing if it were a couple of hundred quid - we could chalk that up to experience, but £2000 is a heavy punishment for something we had no reason to be hyper-vigilant about.
We are not energy-greedy, we take a lot of care with the output that we require for our jobs and home lives, and had we been made aware of this as a situation, we would have made further sacrifices - we believed our usage to be within our budget. Again - what would possibly have given us cause prior to this  to treat this with the caution being suggested here? The most that can be suggested is that we shouldn't have done as we were told.
Even the customer service representative on the phone described it as 'appalling' and has lodged a complaint on our behalf.
In terms of the 'estimate' on our bill, we were told when we checked at the start that this meant that the company was estimating what the bill would be for that period, but that the payment we would be charged soon after would be reflective of the true amount. 
If we should have been taking meter readings monthly and comparing them - it's clear that we haven't been party to that knowledge. This wasn't made clear to us, by the energy company or otherwise. It's not like we would have just ignored that kind of information - we didn't want this. I would much rather have known, and sacrificed more of our usage to avoid it happening. 
I appreciate everyone who has responded with kindness and helpful information - it's very kind of you to give up your time. We are currently away from the house but we will be checking all meter readings that we can once we're back and will let you know how it turns out. 

The £2000 bill isn't a punishment. You have used that energy, now you need to pay for it.

badmemory

Just check that the new bill has the new meter no on it & they haven't decided that your old meter has rolled over.  It has happened before.

AmyK

RelievedSheff said:

The £2000 bill isn't a punishment. You have used that energy, now you need to pay for it.

Paying for energy isn't the punishment, the lack of clarity and misinformation leading to an unexpected and crippling bill is. As I've said before - had we known that we were using outside of our budget, we would have had the opportunity to make the sacrifices we needed to and lower our bills.
Nobody is suggesting that we are entitled to free energy, but we are entitled to transparency and functioning hardware from the company who provides our services in order for us to be able to operate with control - if it's naive to trust that company, then yes, I think that is a heavy punishment, and absolves the company of their responsibilities far too readily.  

AmyK

Robin9 said:

@AmyK  I do have the habit of reading my meters - even with practise I get the readings wrong -  I read the same meter wrong twice. And as QrizB has kindly quoted me "never pay on a estimated bill".  That involves some effort in responding to emails and looking at the suppliers online bills.

Once the present problem has been resolved do get into the habit of reading the meters every month - watch out for any decimal point -  keep your own records, use a spreadsheet and do rough sums - read and understand those bills. Be very wary if you are apparently in credit - some suppliers show as a credit the balance from the last bill plus the DD's but does not include the cost of energy until a new bill is produced !

Thankyou. that's good to know. 

AmyK

MWT said:

markin said:

Ofgem have also told them all not to hold large customer credits anymore, So most companies have taken that too far, giving big refunds or lowering DD's extremely low, leaving some customers confused and then in debt

... and always remember that even if they do give a 'big refund', they are entitled to reclaim it later and use it to cover actual use if it is later found that the estimated bills were too low...

Thankyou, we will bear that in mind if any discount is allocated. 

AmyK

MultiFuelBurner said:

QrizB said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Most if not all leave a sticker with the old meter reading on it.
Perhaps the OP can confirm?

We did point them in that direction back on page 1. If they can share their -in-day readings and those from the sticker, we might be able to help them double-check their bill.

Yeah but that involves some two way interaction and a bit of nudging 😂

While I appreciate all of your efforts and comments, I did respond and mention previously that we are currently away from the residence for work, so cannot answer specific questions about checking numbers until we return. We have spoken to BG and raised it as an issue, so we will need to wait until we can gather the information. Im not in the habit of leaving anybody hanging, but I'm also working long days and my priority is currently on keeping things together offline before I return to this online thread to catch up. 

AmyK

twopenny said:

Apart from reading the meter, check your direct debits going out to the company.
And get all the information down on paper (or document)
Dates, when you moved in, when amounts paid and amount. 
Also mark which were estimates.
Reading on the meter now.

It's a grim job but doable in one go. 

I've had two run ins with BG who insisted I hadn't paid. Once was their fault and one the banks but it was an unpleasant fight each time as it came down to me to prove it. They wouldn't listen to me or speak to the bank.
Just had a run in with broadband that sent a letter last year saying 'no need to contact them, my contract would continue at the same price.' - it didn't and I didn't check. 


As someone said, trust no one. 

And there's always an estimate that's lower than usage before a price rise. It's been the same for decades. I look out for it now.

I'm sorry you had these run-ins, it's gutting, especially when you may not be well-off enough to cover it. I hope you're doing ok now. Thanks for your comments. 

AmyK

I understand why everyone is saying 'Trust no-one', and I appreciate that it comes from a good place.
My problem with it is that when the information given by BG has been unreliable, to the benefit of that company, and where there are SO many instances of hardware and smart meters not working that it's seemingly become common wisdom - to put the onus on the customer for lacking scepticism feels really backwards. 

As customers we are not entitled to a free ride, but we should absolutely be entitled to: hardware that functions and delivers clear alerts if function is lacking; clear and upfront expectations regarding who is responsible for transferring information and at what point; and responsible counsel over options and decisions regarding payment and tariffs.

I'm aware that these companies are huge and not changing any time soon, so there is a certain amount of acceptance of the system involved, and of course there is merit in being hyper-vigilant, but it shouldn't be the status quo, we should be afforded the respect of a functioning and transparent service, and our flaws in comparison are wildly less insidious. To suggest that a lack of education is the problem over the providing of an unethical level of malinformation and deficient hardware going undetected feels wrong. 

I hope we do manage to find a resolution and repair things with BG, we'll of course be monitoring the numbers closely going forward with the knowledge we now have - and thanks to everyone for their time and info.