British Gas Consumer Rights - Is this worth a claim?!

square_eyes

Hey all, wondering if anyone can give me a little advice - I have absolutely no legal experience, but am considering making a claim against British Gas due to my experiences with them ove the last 9 months. I'll try to explain my situation simply and chronologically;

In Jan of this year, I contacted BG to ask for a refund of the credit they were holding on our account. There was over £2,000 in credit sitting there, and our (domestic energy, gas and elec) bills were very consistent. I just wanted to the money in our accounts where we could be using it.

What followed this was 5 months of calls and chats to BG where I was completely led around the houses, promised a refund by a certain date, which came and went, and upon my next contact I was informed that they would need to generate a new bill, a new date for refund was given, which was missed...costing me hours and hours of time spent on the phone and on webchats, being told the same thing - a seemingly impossible-to-break loop of communications resulting in nothing. For context, I have also been out of work since March, and under financial stress. The £2,000 would make a significant difference to me, and the amount of hours spent chasing BG has taken time away from me finding new employment.

On 23rd May, I contacted the Energy Ombudsman who informed me that I had grounds for a case. I submitted everything they needed and they begun an investigation.

During this time BG decided for some reason that, before a refund was issued, they needed to assess all of my bills since 2023, and credited my account with over £10,000 of refunded bills while they 'calculated a new bill', despite us being on a smart meter. I found this pretty distressing - with energy prices fluctuating wildly, I had zero confidence that in fact they would need discover they had somehow UNDER-charged me...did I have a massive bill incoming?? This resulted in more hours spent on the phone and on webchats.

To add evidence to the case with the Ombudsman, on 28th May I sent an SAR to BG/Centrica (their customer services 3rd party) requesting all records of chats and calls, to prove just how many promises and deadlines they had failed to deliver on, and my time spent chasing. They had 30 days to respond by law, which they failed to meet, and have still failed to provide this evidence.

Today, I received a call from the Ombudsman - their investigation is complete, and not only do they agree that BG has failed to deliver on any kind of customer service, they also found that in fact, BG have billed us incorrectly to the tune of 21,000kw, and overcharged us by around £5,000. This is due to them resetting our smart meter to zero at some point and basically double billing us. This was NOT discovered by BG, and only came to light due to the Ombudsman investigation. Without work by me, and on my behalf I would never have discoved this. 

I've accepted the Ombudman's findings, and they have asked BG to rectify all billing immediately and pay a goodwill gesture of £200.

When I began the case with the Ombudsman, I was expecting something like £200 as a gesture just for the awful customer service, time and stress caused by this issue. But now that I know I have been massively overcharged, seemingly without any knowledge from BG, I feel like I might be entitled to more compensation - £5,000 seems a pretty shocking amount, especially at a time of financial uncertainty, and increasing energy prices. Surely it shouldn't come down to me to discover this, and surely it's a failure on the part of BG to deliver on any of their promises of service.

Any thoughts welcome...is it worth me bothering to claim for more? The Ombudsman case may result in all billing being rectified, plus a refund and £200 as a goodwill gesture. Could I expect to ask for more??

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Don't take me to court if it took you an hour, pretty please...

born_again

How can BG reset smart meter to zero?

MWT

square_eyes said:

Today, I received a call from the Ombudsman - their investigation is complete, and not only do they agree that BG has failed to deliver on any kind of customer service, they also found that in fact, BG have billed us incorrectly to the tune of 21,000kw, and overcharged us by around £5,000. This is due to them resetting our smart meter to zero at some point and basically double billing us. This was NOT discovered by BG, and only came to light due to the Ombudsman investigation. Without work by me, and on my behalf I would never have discoved this. 

Something is wrong with this as in general the Ombudsman does not investigate, they merely look at the evidence provided by both sides and make a ruling.

Similarly it is not possible for a supplier to reset a smart metre to zero, but it is possible for a smart meter to be replaced with a new meter which would start from zero and would not directly cause any double billing.

Can you clearly see this reset happening in your bills with no change in the meter number?

Is is at least conceivable that a faulty firmware update could do it in rare circumstances but the consequences are usually immediately apparent in the rare cases when this might have occurred... 

Was this actually a refund and then rebilling for the period perhaps so there is a balancing credit already on the bill?

Is it even vaguely credible based on what you have paid them over the same period for you to have been over billed by that amount?

square_eyes

Sorry, just had some clarification on this from the Ombudsman. The £5k in overcharges was what they were going to charge us after re-calculating all of our bills, in the process of working out how credit they were to refund us. So, the bills at the time were correct, but the Ombudsman spotted that they were about to overcharge us by 21,000kw. They had reset the smart meter reading to zero in their calculations, not in reality.

MWT

Have BG completed their rebilling exercise and does your account show what you believe to be a correct balance at this time?

If so how much is the new balance, as what date have they billed up to now?

square_eyes

They completed their initial rebilling (discovered to be erroneous), leaving us in DEBT for £1600 as things stand. They have not rebilled since the Ombudsman noticed the error. Rectifying that error is part of the Ombudsman's ruling, which I've accepted. 

QrizB

born_again said:

How can BG reset smart meter to zero?

I suspect they didn't reset the meter.

During 2023 and 2024, BG shut down their old billing platform and moved all their customers over to their new one. What has happened to many people, and I suspect this includes the OP, is that during that move the "current" meter reading for the account was reset to zero.

So, for example, on the old system the meter was (correctly) recorded as reading 21000. This was lost and, on the new system, it was opened at zero. When the next meter reading was submitted it was eg. 21500. This should mean a bill for 500 kWh but, because the new system thinks the previous reading was 0, instead it generates a bill for 21500kWh.

There have been many threads with this problem, and BG have eventually sorted them all out (with or without the encouragement of the Ombudsman).

square_eyes

QrizB said:

born_again said:

How can BG reset smart meter to zero?

I suspect they didn't reset the meter.

During 2023 and 2024, BG shut down their old billing platform and moved all their customers over to their new one. What has happened to many people, and I suspect this includes the OP, is that during that move the "current" meter reading for the account was reset to zero.

So, for example, on the old system the meter was (correctly) recorded as reading 21000. This was lost and, on the new system, it was opened at zero. When the next meter reading was submitted it was eg. 21500. This should mean a bill for 500 kWh but, because the new system thinks the previous reading was 0, instead it generates a bill for 21500kWh.

There have been many threads with this problem, and BG have eventually sorted them all out (with or without the encouragement of the Ombudsman).

Hmmm could be this, but from what I understand from the Ombudsman, during re-billing they've made a significant miscalculation and would have charged us had he not noticed.

square_eyes

MWT said:

Have BG completed their rebilling exercise and does your account show what you believe to be a correct balance at this time?

If so how much is the new balance, as what date have they billed up to now?

Sorry should have used the quote button, replies above, just in case you aren't notified

HillStreetBlues

square_eyes said:

Any thoughts welcome...is it worth me bothering to claim for more? The Ombudsman case may result in all billing being rectified, plus a refund and £200 as a goodwill gesture. Could I expect to ask for more??

If you go to court you need to show actual loss, although frustrating if BG cough up amount owed and the £200 compo I would be calling it a day.

square_eyes

HillStreetBlues said:

square_eyes said:

Any thoughts welcome...is it worth me bothering to claim for more? The Ombudsman case may result in all billing being rectified, plus a refund and £200 as a goodwill gesture. Could I expect to ask for more??

If you go to court you need to show actual loss, although frustrating if BG cough up amount owed and the £200 compo I would be calling it a day.

Mmm yeah I wasn't sure if I was due much more. It IS really frustrating - hours and hours on the phone trying to reclaim my own money sat on the account, months of broken promises, a missed deadline for an SAR, and then a £5k billing error only picked up by the ombudsman...it just feels like really shocking service and a massive amount of stress and wasted time for me.