I'm stuck on the Pants cap!

JCHA2026

I'm the first person to live in this new build property I purchased on 30th September. I'm trying to switch from British Gas to Scottish Power, duel-fuel. My electricity is in process but my gas switch has been rejected by British Gas. When I contacted them they said my gas meter was out of date and decommissioned, and they need to come out and recommission it before they can take a final reading and initiate the switch (A little strange since my neighbours, also in new builds, haven't had this problem). BG say they can't get to me for another 3 weeks. In the meantime, I'm stuck on their standard variable tariff and after asking them what we can do, they've said I'm unable to temporarily move to a better rate, or to match the rate of Scottish Power's deal. To me, I'm now stuck at a high gas rate for another 3 weeks purely because of a BG technical error (i.e. no fault of my own). Is there anything I can do?

MeteredOut

There is very little you can do unfortunately, but is there another tariff you've found that is significantly cheaper that the BG tariff? Even if so, I suspect 3 weeks at the current tariff is going to be a minimal amount.

You could raise a complaint with BG and they might throw you a few quid as a goodwill gesture to offset it.

t0rt0ise

Are you sure they are talking about the right meter. New builds are notorious for getting meters in a muddle?

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82174490#Comment_82174490

Yes get the serial number and a photo - and call them back - the chances are the meter will even have a manufacturing time stamp on it - these days under MID regs something like e.g. M25 for 2025.

The old and decommissioned bit makes no logical sense.

You may be having a conflict with an old property - at roughly the same address problem on the meter database or GDN database - for when an old supply disconnected before the new build commenced.

Just bad luck it flags on your new home - and not another neighbours

JCHA2026

UPDATE: Thanks for all of your help and suggestions. On my 4th call to BG, I was mistakenly put through to the sales team. Turns out it was VERY useful. They told me that Customer Care had no reason to hold up the switch to get the meter's smart function commissioned. As a precaution, we compared meter serial numbers etc and it matched up. He apologised for the Care team's mistake - from a sales perspective, when he onboards a new customer there is no requirement to have the smart bit working (only needs a meter read) so there was no reason it would be required to work when leaving BG. Perhaps a clever ploy to keep us on the pants cap for another billing month? Either way, I've woken up this morning to a lovely message to say the switch to Scottish Power has finally been approved! :)