British Gas Final Bill

RelievedSheff

We have recently moved house to a property that was supplied by British Gas (BG). Immediately upon moving in we took photos of the meter readings, submitted them to BG and then started the switch to Outfox Energy (OFE)

It appeared that everything was going to plan with the switch to OFE taking place 7 days after we moved in.

Yesterday I received the final bill from BG. The gas bill was fine and the meter readings tallied up so I have paid that bill but the electric bill readings were 10800 units out and recorded as "actual" readings

Not only this but the bill was dated 30 days ago and was only received by post yesterday with a payment due date of 6th May so today!

I have immediately raised a complaint with BG and through their webchat have managed to submit evidence of the correct meter readings on the dates we moved in and switched supplier. They have agreed to issue and amended bill which I await receipt of.

My question I suppose is how can this happen with functioning smart meters? Surely they are supposed to stop this kind of billing error?

BG did not really have a satisfactory explanation and blamed it on a system error but were very quick to accept the corrected readings.

TroubledTarts

Don't forget one moment think any electricity company knows what they are doing with billing and smart meters is the first step.

Good you have the actually meter readings and proof so this should be relatively painless for you but imagine if you didn't.

Reed_Richards

Is it possible that the meter is recording on more than one register so two readings were required rather than one? I think that could happen if the meter was installed for Economy 7 then changed to a single tariff. But others will know more about this than I do.

MWT

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81990545#Comment_81990545

Exactly, it is not safe to assume that the reading the existing supplier is billing on is the Total Import reading for example, so I'd always check to see if there is anything recorded on the individual registers…

RelievedSheff

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81990545#Comment_81990545

It's a 7 year old house with gas heating and a single rate electric meter.

Reed_Richards

I used to live in a house that was heated by oil and then by gas but it had an Economy 7 electricity meter, so dual tariff. I never found out why.

RelievedSheff

So the saga continues with this one.

We received a final reminder for the incorrect bill yesterday so I have been on with the BG webchat team again this morning.

The new "advisor" gave a completely different story to the last one. No new bill has been issued. This one is claiming that the meter was changed on 20.03.26 which it definitely wasn't, I was sat on the drive all day waiting for legal completion on the property!

I have raised a formal complaint now.

To top it off this advisor threatened that they would be putting late payment markers on my credit file if the bill wasn't settled in 14 days. I had already explained many times by this point I was not paying a bill based in incorrect meter readings.

So I will await a response from the complaints team. I won't hold my breath!

TroubledTarts

So many similar issues with BG it seems they are hopeless.

RelievedSheff

Their customer service is absolutely hopeless. Which is why we moved away from them as quickly as possible.

Just waiting for their next excuse now. No doubt it will be that we have managed to use the "missing" 11,000kWh in the 6 days we were with them!!

RelievedSheff

So yesterday we got home to another letter from BG on the door mat this time threatening to add £28 to our bill and send it to the debt collections team.

I forwarded a copy straight to the complaints team via email and reiterated yet again that I will not be paying a bill based on incorrect meter readings.

We are still awaiting a response back from the complaints team.