British Gas billing is an absolute mess?

triade

Hi,

I've stuck with British Gas for quite a long time because I value stability. I tried other companies in the past and regretted it when I couldn't get reliable support at times of need. I need security for my energy and I can't be messing about as I have ADHD and get stressed out by things. I'm willing to pay a little more just to be sure my energy will be on and I can get through to someone easily if I need help.

Recently, they have been messing with their systems and honestly my billing seems to be a mess of confusion. Looking at my actual energy costs, it says £60 this month, £70 last month, and that fits my projections. I got a letter from them today though saying their estimates for my usage are so high, they are more than doubling my regular payments. according to their projection, when I talked to them just now, they think I am using over £200 a month of electricity. I know that's not right so I looked at my statements, the PDF's on the site. Honestly it's a mess of contradictions. it is showing the same months with different charges and showing massive debt which just is not showing in my actual account balance. I just feel like I could do with something that's a bit more sensible and consistent. Is there another company that offers the same sense of safety and no-nonsense, but without the billing confusion?  Or should I just be patient and pay for what I've been using and trust that it'll level out?

wrf12345

Two different things here. One, their system generates increases in direct debit payments that are based on double to triple the usage and can be "cancelled" by being firm with the customer agent during online chat. Two, they have a new accounting system that sometimes causes chaos when long standing customers, like yourself, are moved on to it - often it does eventually sort itself out but you need to keep a record of monthly readings and past statements to have something to fall back upon. When you say actual energy costs, male sure these are based on meter readings rather than estimates or you might have a nasty shock.

triade

wrf12345 said:

Two different things here. One, their system generates increases in direct debit payments that are based on double to triple the usage and can be "cancelled" by being firm with the customer agent during online chat. Two, they have a new accounting system that sometimes causes chaos when long standing customers, like yourself, are moved on to it - often it does eventually sort itself out but you need to keep a record of monthly readings and past statements to have something to fall back upon. When you say actual energy costs, male sure these are based on meter readings rather than estimates or you might have a nasty shock.

Yeah I was prepay for a very long time, I changed it to billed in December to spread the costs. The tariff was decreased earlier this year, and my habits haven't changed and my smart meter graphs seem to reflect that.

I could try to make a habit of noting down what the meter says, but to be honest, it's rather confusing. The 'week' graph shows 8 days and I'm not sure if the number represents the actual week, 8 days, or each individual day.

The graphs in my account look fairly accurate though. They match my original projection and what I used to put in prepay.

Thanks ^^

Yorkie006

@triade
Ignore the graphs, look at the reading on the actual meter. That will show you real usage. Make a habit of taking reading at regular times (ie 1st of the month, every Monday etc - whatever works for you).

ka7e

Perhaps BG may be trying to get you to build up a credit balance to cover higher winter costs? If they have migrated you to their new computer system since December, double check everything! Meter numbers, account number etc. They allocated me someone else's electricity meter readings for 8 months and it was very stressful to sort out. I eventually switched to Octopus and their calls are answered in the UK, not by an Indian call centre with the operator unable to answer queries that aren't on their script.

triade

okay I had some time to think about this and go through my statements properly.

The stated meter readings were as follows

• 09 jan 14062
• 31 mar 14742
• 15 apr 14872
• 23 apr 14954
• 04 jun 15305
• 05 jun 14963
• 04 jul 15548
• 05 aug 15736

as you can see, 05 jun was incorrect, so in that statement, they effectively charged me for 2 months rather than 1.

That led to there being a large-ish debt on my account and that prompted them to increase my payments considerably.

I've talked to them in chat and asked them to correct the reading and it had removed the excess debt from my account and all is good. he also offered to attach a complain to this, so I said ok.

thanks for your support everyone.