British Gas - Dual fuel... or not

SilasFeather

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

We moved into this property Nov 06, couldn't transfer our Scottish Power account to the new property because British Gas were the previous suppliers, and it had a card meter (prepayment), and after many painful and aggravating hours on the phone,and getting emergency credit and being left without heating for days on end, finally managed to get the accounts in my name, and get the card meter removed, finally set up (or so I thought) a dd dual fuel account for gas and electric. For this reason we were then tied into British Gas (BG) for a period of time, may have been a month, 3 or 6 I can't recall now. Unfortunately because we are dd payers I didn't scrutinize the bills that carefully since no action needed to be taken (that was dumb, I know).

However, I got a call last week from BG saying the account was still showing a card meter, and the gas hadn't been paid for, and there would be quite an accrued bill, they didn't know how much, but would arrange for the account to be changed from card meter to a meter that gets read (terminology?) and would call me back when they could tell me how much the debt was and I could arrange a payment plan over a year.

Effectively this means we haven't as we hitherto thought been paying dual fuel, but just for the gas. However, when it comes to the debt, I'd like to argue that we instructed them to put us on dual fuel and that the accrued debt should be recalculated on that basis, preferably taking into account the rises in gas prices over the last year.

Anyone any ideas how we stand, or any advice on how to deal with the situation. Sorry this is a bit involved. We're getting married this year, our fixed rate mortgaga eis up for review in November, and we're really going to struggle to pay double gas bills for the next year!

Thanks in advance!

Garz

You should always get any agreements in writing, keep hold of letters and take names/departments when dealing with these companies. Without that proof you go round in circles wasting time and or money otherwise from my experience.

You hopefully took a reading of when you moved into the property, and also a final read of the meter when it was removed (meter op should have left a card with new meter showing final read(s)).

By using this info they can then bill you anything remaining from the prepayment, and pickup from the new meter to make up the current owed amount.

SwanJon

Don't understand why you couldn't switch, was there something else?
Should be easy enough to get the account in your name, then switch your meter. There is no tie in period after this, so you could have switched at any point.
Think there may be some confusion over Direct debit and Dual fuel. The DF discount will have been on your electricity bill, so you havn't missed out on that. You could argue for the DD discount to be applied when the gas account is billed. Did you recieve any bills at all after the meter went in? If no gas bill at all, then you may be able to get them to knock the bills down to the last 12 months. They should also give you as long to pay it back as it took to build up.

Another way to look at it is that you had your gas paid for with an interest free loan.