British Gas estimated my bills for 5 years despite meter readings being sent in

harri56

I have just been sent a notice by British Gas, that my Direct Debit is going up from £42.01 to £168.57, as they claim they have been estimating my bill since 2019, despite me sending quarterly readings in.
Plus I had no gas usage between December 2023, and July 2024, as the engineer who attended to do maintenance on the boiler, said that the fire was a risk. so they isolated the supply, and put a disc in the meter, but during that time, they said I was using £60 of gas per month.

I have asked for details of usage, and get met with silence, and they will not listen to my complaint, and they say they cannot send any old bills as they have been archived.

I know my original amount was low, but all I use, is the gas for hot water, for washing up, and heating for 2 hours once a day at most, but not every day. 

The boiler is just over a year old, so is in good working order.

Robin9

Make a written complaint as their  procedure. 

p00hsticks

Were you not receiving bills ? Either by post or via an e-mail telling you that a bill was ready for you to look at online If so, do they show your submitted readings or that estimates were being used ? 

QrizB

harri56 said:

I have just been sent a notice by British Gas, that my Direct Debit is going up from £42.01 to £168.57, as they claim they have been estimating my bill since 2019, despite me sending quarterly readings in.

As asked by p00hsticks:

p00hsticks said:

Were you not receiving bills ? Either by post or via an e-mail telling you that a bill was ready for you to look at online If so, do they show your submitted readings or that estimates were being used ? 

Have you had any bills at all since 2019? If you have, what meter readings have they used - Actual or Estimated?

On your most recent bill, does the meter reading match up with your current Actual reading?

elsien

Are you taking the standing charges into account in your figures for when you weren’t using any gas?

Ectophile

Check if the back billing rule applies: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/what-do-if-you-get-back-bill . If it does, British Gas are not allowed to charge you anything more than you have already paid for energy used over a year ago.

British Gas have an obligation from Ofgem to obtain accurate meter readings at least once a year.  6 years is ridiculous.

If it's been 8 weeks since your original complaint, you can go to the energy ombudsman.  If not, make sure they have opened a formal complaint.  Just having a general whinge to their customer service people may not count.

Scot_39

Scottish gas did the same for 2.5 years - to my mum - disabled and on PSR for failing eyesight and physical inability to reach meter to read it. Unfortunately that was before the days of back billing.  They had all readings on her account records - 3 family including theone I submitted at end to get actual bill - and 2 by meter readers they had sent - as mum on PSR - just had never copied over onto billing system apparently.

As above we need more info on past and any revised current bill to justify the demand.

The question you need to find out initially - is exactly what the basis of the new £168.57.

Does it include repaying a newly created debit on the account - and crucially what period might they have calculated that debit over.

Have they sent you any calcs or details - like a new series or one off bill to bring your account up to date for a current reading - showing you now in debit by several £100 pounds.

Any extra - as a rough rule - for a period longer than 12 months before the corrected demand - may fall under so called back billing rules - and BG if not already done so - might have to "right them off" - due to its own failure not to provide an accurate bill at least once every 12 months.

It may not even be real - there were many issues around the transfer of user accounts between the old and new BG systems over the last couple of years.

How good are your records of the readings and any bills that followed ?

harri56

Thank you to all for your replies and advice. I will collect all the information required over the next few days as life taking over at the moment, so I thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.
Kind regards.