British Gas Backbilling Dispute

gooseberry_man

Hi,

Yes, yet another dispute with British Gas!

The whole case is very complex but the short story is we left British gas in Nov '24. Our account showed we were nearly £4,000 in credit so I kept contacting them to ask for the money back. After asking for the money over several months, BG then said our bill was being investigated. Over the next several months they would send us an email periodically to say that it was still under investigation. Finally, in Dec '25 over 1 year after leaving we got an email from them with a final bill saying, surprise surprise, that we actually owe them £1,700. They said that although we were paying a direct debit they had failed to bill us during that time so we had to pay the shortfall.

We have been through the ombudsman, but naively, we agreed to start paying off the debt whilst going through the process to get them off our backs with threats of debt collection agencies etc. This would come back to bite us at the end. The result of the ombudsman (who I have to say did absolutely nothing really) was that British Gas said we had nothing to owe and that our account would be closed, so naturally we cancelled the direct debit we had agreed to set up. This is when it got messy and they said that they had taken out the money we had agreed to pay from any calculations and that we still owed it! The ombudsman basically said that because they hadn't declared that they had done that then a new investigation would have to be started. I have tried getting a new deadlock letter but was told that we already had a case ongoing so would not give me a new one no matter how many times I told them the ombudsman said themselves we would have to start a new case.

We have had multiple emails from British Gas with hand-typed calculations that are incorrect and have typos in them. Each time they have said something different and none of it adds up.

So here we are, nearly two years after leaving and facing having to pay nearly £2k extra on energy whilst current bills are going up too.

I guess what I am here for initially is to try and understand what the backbilling rule is here? Because the final bill took over a year to arrive does the backbilling credits apply to the final year we were with them or not?

Sorry if that is a bit rambling, I can give more information if needed.

Many Thanks.

Sherlock33

Did you have a working smart meter with which they could obtain a final reading in Nov 24? Or did you give them a closing meter reading when you left?

When did they issue you with an accurate closing bill? Was this the Dec 25 bill?

Woodstok2000

Did you have a smart meter? If so, was it sending readings throughout your time with BG?

If no smart meter, were you sending readings to BG, and were those reflected on your bill, or did the bill use estimated readings?

What was the last bill you got before you left, what was the Dec '25 bill, and were there any bills at all between those periods?

gooseberry_man

We had a smart meter and thought it was sending readings, it certainly said on screen how much we were using. Most of the readings on the bill they sent are estimated, however. Before we wanted to switch I went to read the meter on the gas unit and found it wasn't working so they had to come and get it replaced. I gave BG readings from the actual meters on leaving. Our online account didn't have any bills in it when I was looking to leave, just a statement that we were in credit to the amount I stated.

The supposedly accurate closing bill was the Dec '25 one, that came a year after we left. I say supposedly because they keep changing how much they say they have applied to back billing, though the final amount we owe always seems to stay the same. Another instance of the inaccuracies between what they tell us and what they do. They have just issued us with another bill yesterday, again even after saying in an email last week they had applied another £800 in backbilling, the amount they are asking for hasn't changed at all. They are now saying we need to pay by October 8th.

I looked through our payments to British Gas and they total £7,997, plus they are asking for an additional £1,450 AFTER applying backbilling. This is for a 2 person household in less than 2 1/2 years, something does not add up.

Woodstok2000

I assume you cant access your BG account now? Do you have access to the opening readings when you joined them, and the closing readings, and what tariffs you were on over yhat time? It should be relatively straightforward to work out what sort of ballpark the bill should be in....

gooseberry_man

I'm afraid our beginnings with BG are very sketchy. Unfortunately we used that company that was on Dragon's Den, Look After My Bills or something like that. They put us on with a small company that went under when gas prices went up and we didn't get informed straight away. When we found out we had been moved to BG we tried to set up a direct debit but they said it would be something crazy like £9,000 a month. This as it turns out was just the beginnings of our problem. Someone did come out to read the meters on behalf of the previous company but I can't find any correspondence with it on.

I can access our online account and can see bills for Sept '23, Oct '23. Then it jumps to Dec '25 which is the one 1 year after we left. The bill we just got said total energy costs £6,606.05 so I don't understand how we can still owe them £1,450 if we have paid £7,997 in total.

Woodstok2000

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82154057#Comment_82154057

Sep/Oct 23 bills were estimated readings? Do you have those figures? And your leaving readings from BG? And the tariff(s) you were on over the period? If you can post it that would be helpful...

gooseberry_man

Sorry, been a bit too busy with 2 young children to keep on top of this. I found the last bill we had before they stopped billing us, it is dated 21 October 2023. That bill says that we were £260.41 in credit. When I add up the cost of electricity and gas used SINCE that date from their latest bill sent this month it comes to £3591.35. When I total the amount we have paid in direct debit from that point on it comes to £3,942.10. We also paid £235.98 when we stupidly agreed to start paying. This calculation doesn't even take into account any back billing due so surely they owe us money not the other way around. I have emailed them today with this evidence but I am not hopeful of getting anywhere.