British Gas Billing

KingsArms

I've been trying to sort out my late mother's estate and my dealings with British Gas have been shocking. It's a catalogue of issues but one is the energy support rebate given in 2023. After asking to see the bills to justify the charge the first bill I've looked at has my mum's DD payments and 2 amounts for what I assume is energy support and annotated "Refund" but they are debits and therefore charges not credits. I've got the same on other bills. Trying to get a simple explanation seems beyond BG and I've now found out the complaint I raised was closed by them the same day without responding. Another issue is that they have added £ 128 charge as a "billing adjustment" which they say is a carryover from the old billing system. I've tried everything to get them to respond including writing to their CEO who did not acknowledge the email. Anyone else had similar issues? 

MWT

KingsArms said:

After asking to see the bills to justify the charge the first bill I've looked at has my mum's DD payments and 2 amounts for what I assume is energy support and annotated "Refund" but they are debits and therefore charges not credits.

Take a look at her bank account statements for the same period and you should see those amounts being refunded to her.

On the BG account they appear as a charge as they are reducing her balance on the BG account and increasing the balance on her bank account...

You should also see the same amount being used to reduce her energy cost on a separate page.

MultiFuelBurner

I believe BG are going through a change from the old to the new billing system.

This has caused many issues for people that don't know their actual readings from estimates and have an idea about kWh and usage etc etc.

The perfect storm and all this on top of your sad news.

Open up a complaint and see the complaints process through. It's the only way.

Gerry1

BG billing is iffy at the best of times, and the amateurish migration to the new system has thrown up a lot of wobblies.  They switched customers to the new account before populating it with all the details, so it takes a few weeks to settle down.

Ditto, the billing date each month is likely to be different so this has led to duplicate requests for meter readings and strange extra debits and refunds for odd amounts.

Needless to say, nothing is ever explained.

Make sure that you keep electronic and/or paper copies of all bills because BG has an infuriating habit of cancelling and replacing bills which can make investigation almost impossible after the event.

Make a Subject Access Request if necessary.

Submit a formal written complaint and go to the ombudsman if no joy.

KingsArms

Thanks for everyone's comments. So I think I follow BG's illogical approach which is to cancel out the energy support with a debit posting as there are two credits and two debits (therefore net zero impact) on the basis the money was paid into the account. This just leaves the billing adjustment of £ 128 which is the transfer from the legacy billing system but they've closed access to the system so I can't validate. Then 6 months later they post another legacy adjustment for a much smaller amount. Even so, without any explanation to just stick it on the bill is mind boggling. I also just found out the complaint I raised back in Oct 23 was closed by them the same day. No wonder I've not had a response !