Money grabbing Scare Tactics

lilwead

At the beginning of Dec, I had my gas bill in, telling me I was £40 in credit to British Gas. Great I thought, no extra to find, until I got to the other side and it said "consequently we're putting your monthly direct debit up to £84 per month". I rang the helpline to find out why, if I was in credit, they were putting my payments up, and the lady on the other end said, "Just in case you haven't got the money to pay the bill in March". This despite me always being able to pay any extra amount, I wasn't trusted to 'do it myself'. To say I was angry was an understatement. I told her that I wanted to cancel my direct debit, and I'd pay the bill in full when it came in. The money would instead go into my high interest account and earn me some interest. She said that I would lose my direct debit discount. I countered with "But I will gain a prompt payment discount, instead. Also I will get the interest for my money, NOT British Gas.' She seemed a little lost for words at that. So, I now put extra in my savings account (a little more than my payment plan was!)

debsy42

Sounds about right with BG, I was over £400 in credit and like yourself got notification that my DD was going up :eek: After much complaining and eventually involving Energywatch (I think it was them) I eventually got a refund and my DD was lowered. Just gotta love them eh :rotfl: :rotfl:

SwanJon

lilwead wrote: »

the lady on the other end said, "Just in case you haven't got the money to pay the bill in March".

Really sorry you had that experience. What she said is nonsense. The reason it went up would be that the system expect you to use that amount, on average, until the end of your plan.

lilwead wrote: »

This despite me always being able to pay any extra amount, I wasn't trusted to 'do it myself'.

That isn't how the system works - you pay for your usage monthly - that's why you get the discount. The system doesn't expect you to pay quarterly on top.

lilwead wrote: »

"But I will gain a prompt payment discount, instead.

BG don't offer a prompt payment discount anymore.

debsy42 wrote: »

Sounds about right with BG, I was over £400 in credit and like yourself got notification that my DD was going up

The only reason I can think of the system doing this is an estimated read. It then doesn't release the credit until an accurate read is input. It is as smiple as this to fi