British Gas have destroyed my partners Credit Score

Karsh

Apologies for the long thread, but hoping for a bit of advice.

My partner checked her credit report recently as she was having issues applying for a new bank account. We found late payment marks (totalling £1300) from British Gas every month since the start of 2025 for a property she hasn't lived in for over 15 years; this has decimated her credit score.

After waiting an hour to speak to someone from British Gas to find out what this was about, they mentioned this was for a unpaid debt against the property and that a payment plan was agreed in 2017 (my partner has no recollection of this and was not living at that address at the time), the debt was sent to a debt collection agency acting on their behalf and they are the ones marking this on her credit report (there is no indication of this on the marks though, only mentions British Gas late payments against the old address).

In short they pretty much washed their hands off it and told her to contact the debt collection agency directly to pay the debt, which sounds like the absolute worst idea, as asides from not having live at that address for years, she never received any bills nor contact about the debt (she doesn't even have an active British Gas account).

We contacted Citizens Advice, who essentially told us to ignore it, as even if the debt was legitimate, it would be statute barred at this point, our only problem with this is they've continued to mark her credit report every month which is continually damaging her credit score, preventing her from being able to apply for any new bank accounts, loans etc..

Is our only recourse to speak with the debt collection agency to resolve this and get the marks removed? (she's never dealt with them before so is very reluctant) Or do we need to continue pushing British Gas further for a resolution? Appreciate any advice.

WiserMiser

Karsh said:

After waiting an hour to speak to someone from British Gas to find out what this was about, they mentioned this was for a unpaid debt against the property and that a payment plan was agreed in 2017 (my partner has no recollection of this and was not living at that address at the time)

Welcome to the forum.

Start by making a Subject Access Request to BG.  That will either jog her memory or show that the payment plan relates to a different person.

Ayr_Rage

Something doesn't ring true, they cannot be marking an address, she must have at some time had a contract with BG at that address and that is why the debt is in her name and appears on her credit file.

Arrangements to pay do not appear from thin air, they have to be agreed.

I fear you don't have the whole story.

Karsh

Ayr_Rage said:

Something doesn't ring true, they cannot be marking an address, she must have at some time had a contract with BG at that address and that is why the debt is in her name and appears on her credit file.

Arrangements to pay do not appear from thin air, they have to be agreed.

I fear you don't have the whole story.

She lived at the address between 2009-2011, the supplier at the time was British Gas and she was responsible for paying the bills; no issues (that she was aware of) were ever raised during the time she lived there. What's strange is they said a payment plan was setup under her name in 2017 (that she has no recollection of) but they've only decided to mark her credit file for late payments starting from 2025 a full 8 years later; if there were issues with payments surely they would have been flagged up a lot earlier.

gpman

Karsh said:

Apologies for the long thread, but hoping for a bit of advice.

My partner checked her credit report recently as she was having issues applying for a new bank account. We found late payment marks (totalling £1300) from British Gas every month since the start of 2025 for a property she hasn't lived in for over 15 years; this has decimated her credit score.

After waiting an hour to speak to someone from British Gas to find out what this was about, they mentioned this was for a unpaid debt against the property and that a payment plan was agreed in 2017 (my partner has no recollection of this and was not living at that address at the time), the debt was sent to a debt collection agency acting on their behalf and they are the ones marking this on her credit report (there is no indication of this on the marks though, only mentions British Gas late payments against the old address).

In short they pretty much washed their hands off it and told her to contact the debt collection agency directly to pay the debt, which sounds like the absolute worst idea, as asides from not having live at that address for years, she never received any bills nor contact about the debt (she doesn't even have an active British Gas account).

We contacted Citizens Advice, who essentially told us to ignore it, as even if the debt was legitimate, it would be statute barred at this point, our only problem with this is they've continued to mark her credit report every month which is continually damaging her credit score, preventing her from being able to apply for any new bank accounts, loans etc..

Is our only recourse to speak with the debt collection agency to resolve this and get the marks removed? (she's never dealt with them before so is very reluctant) Or do we need to continue pushing British Gas further for a resolution? Appreciate any advice.

Welcome to the forum.

I think your thread would probably have been better suited to the Debt Free Wannabe board on this forum where there appear to be a number of posters with a lot of specific experience in dealing with debt matters like this.

I think if you report your own post (there's a report button at the bottom when you are logged in) and ask for it to be moved, the powers that be will probably do so for you. But it's almost the weekend now, so it might be next week before that happens.

I don't think the advice you say you were provided by Citizens Advice was particularly helpful especially because you are continuing to experience resultant difficulties, even though the debt may be statute barred. Note that a statute barred debt does not write the debt off, but rather prevents the creditor pursuing you for it via court action, etc. If there is an attempt to do so, you have an automatic defence.

Did you explain to Citizens Advice the ongoing issues you are suffering from this aged debt? If not, I suggest going back to them in the first instance.

Otherwise, I would suggest getting a second opinion from one or more of the following debt advice providers:

National Debtline - 0808 808 4000

Stepchange - 0800 138 1111

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) - 0800 328 0006

Hope you are able to get things sorted soon.

(I've used the term 'you' in this post as a form of shorthand, but it probably should be 'your partner' in most cases)

gpman

Ayr_Rage said:

Something doesn't ring true, they cannot be marking an address, she must have at some time had a contract with BG at that address and that is why the debt is in her name and appears on her credit file.

Arrangements to pay do not appear from thin air, they have to be agreed.

I fear you don't have the whole story.

I suspect this may just be imprecise wording by the OP

The way I interpreted the post was that the OP's partner was a BG account holder at a property 15+ years ago, and that the alleged debt presumably relates to that period. BG claim a repayment plan was agreed with the person in 2017 to repay that debt. (although this is disputed, or at least not able to be recalled. The person was no longer living at the property involved in 2017).

If this is an incorrect interpreation, I do not think BG would/should have given out the details they appear to have over this debt.

The simple fact the OP's partner has since moved address would not prevent the credit report being marked (although it may be that other factors do), especially if the debt collection agency has since somehow uncovered the current address of that person.

gpman

Karsh said:

Ayr_Rage said:

Something doesn't ring true, they cannot be marking an address, she must have at some time had a contract with BG at that address and that is why the debt is in her name and appears on her credit file.

Arrangements to pay do not appear from thin air, they have to be agreed.

I fear you don't have the whole story.

She lived at the address between 2009-2011, the supplier at the time was British Gas and she was responsible for paying the bills; no issues (that she was aware of) were ever raised during the time she lived there. What's strange is they said a payment plan was setup under her name in 2017 (that she has no recollection of) but they've only decided to mark her credit file for late payments starting from 2025 a full 8 years later; if there were issues with payments surely they would have been flagged up a lot earlier.

It does appear rather odd that BG would only start raising this matter about 15 years after the alleged debt occurred.

Perhaps even odder is that less than a year later, BG now appear to now be washing their hands of this matter entirely, and referring you to a debt collection agency to resolve.

doodling

Hi,

The key question here is "did your partner close the account when she left?".  I can imagine a scenario, particularly in a multi-occupancy property where everyone simply kept on paying (or not) the bills whilst the account remained in your partners name, at least until money difficulties arose.

As others have suggested, your partner needs to get details of the account from British Gas through a SAR.

Once that information has been obtained then the solution might be simply to get British Gas to correct their records.

In the worst case, if the debt arose in 2017 then it should have fallen off her credit report by now.

Karsh

Thanks for all the input and suggestions so far, what's confusing is her credit report shows a negative mark against every single month since the start of 2025 and for Jan 2026 (13 marks in total) indicating late payments every month against her old address from 15 years ago, her credit rating was Excellent up until those marks started appearing.

It almost looks like BG are billing her for the current gas usage for that property, even though she does not live there nor receives bills from them.

Could this be a case of Identity fraud? (someone using her ID for the gas bill) or a British Gas billing issue (this seems to be a common occurrence)

We suspect the agent we spoke to had no idea what they were talking about and took us down a rabbit hole regarding debts and agreements from decades ago we had no clue about, I'm assuming those would have appeared on her report years ago which we could find no evidence of.

t0rt0ise

You can raise a complaint with British Gas even though you're not a customer. You probably won't get anywhere so after 8 weeks of complaining go to the ombudsman. I am in a similar sort of situation and have a case with the ombudsman ongoing at the moment. Good luck.

Karsh

t0rt0ise said:

You can raise a complaint with British Gas even though you're not a customer. You probably won't get anywhere so after 8 weeks of complaining go to the ombudsman. I am in a similar sort of situation and have a case with the ombudsman ongoing at the moment. Good luck.

Thank you, yes, I'll be sending a written formal complaint next week to get the timer started. Best of luck to you as well.