Daylight Robbery by British Gas - Help!!!

topbargainhunter

I was checking my bank account online last week, and found to my amazement that British Gas had taken a Direct debit out of my account for £175! This came as a massive shock as I switched suppliers to Scottish Power in January 2007, over a year ago.:mad:

Obviously I called BG immediately expecting them to say they'd made a mistake, and was told "We've just got your final meter readings from your new supplier and that's your final bill". Scottish Power tell me that they gave the final meter readings on 22.1.07, and they were under the impression that it was unlawful to charge me even if proved correct after a year had passed.

My bank were very unhelpful and told me there was nothing I could do to get my money back but Scottish Power told me about the idemnity in the DD guarantee. I have now got the DD of £175 back but BG have sent me a bill for this amount so they still want me to pay up.

I am disputing the bill anyway as I paid by monthly DD and always had my meter read so I can't see how I can owe so much just on Electricity for a one bed flat.

Does anyone have any knowledge on this subject? Such has do I have any rights at all or do I have to pay this? I've thrown my old bills away, as I wasn't expecting this at all, so I have nothing to check the readings to. I've got a summary from BG but I don't trust their figures at all.

Thanks in advance.

CarolynH

A year later is a LONG time!!!!!

My tuppenceworth (for what it's worth), is that if they had billed this in a timely manner, you would have to pay it. I'm not trying to be mean here :-(

When you pay by Direct Debit, you essentially 'pay on account' which is then offset against your consumption. You don't pay a set amount for your gas/electricity in a period. (Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here, I used to work for an energy supplier and used to have to explain this to people a lot of times a day!). So if your direct debits were for less than you were using, you would owe them money when you left. However, if you were always billed to AMR (Actual Meter Readings) then they should have been aware that there was a deficit accruing on the account.

That aside, I do think that it's a bit of a cheek for them to ask you for this a year and a bit later! Did they already send you a final bill?

The other thing to bear in mind - I have seen this a few times from a LOT of utility companies - when you switched over to SP, did you provide them with a meter reading on the day of transfer? When a client moves from one supplier to another, the new company picks up billing from where the old one stops - so if you paid BG up to MR 12345, you'd start paying SP from 12346.

If the meter reading was an estimate, it may have been estimated incorrectly - ie it may have been taken at ??? units higher than it actually was. So you would pay BG for however many units from SP. (It's all the same stuff from the same place regardless of who your supplier is, although I'm assuming you moved for a cheaper unit price?) If you don't have the meter reading, there's probably little you can do about this - but bear in mind it will make your last bill from BG look high, and your first bill from SP look low (as you feel like you have paid them less for the same amount of units. SP will probably not point this out to you.

If you were underpaying on your DD with BG, it might be that it happens again with SP ( One of the reasons I left is I saw a lot of people deliberately under quote on DD figures in order to convince the customers to move suppliers on the ground of cost. The result is always a big bill or massive hike for the custome later on but by then the salesperson has been credited with the sale). Prices do vary by company, but do keep an eye on your account. It's quite normal for people to go into credit in the summer months and debit in the winter months as compumption can vary a lot, but if you're permanantly in debit, it may be that you are underpaying.

Good luck, hope my insane ramblings have been vaugely useful

espresso

Why did you not cancel the direct debit with your bank?

Cardew

The DD guarantee is with your Bank and covers you if you haven't been notified that they were going to collect the money from your account.

However it doesn't affect what you owe BG provided their bill is valid.

The $64,000 question(or £175!) is the validity of the bill.

I would doubt that the '12 month rule' applies in your case. BG have only to prove that they raised a bill - not that you received it - and presumably they raised the £175 bill before 22/01/2008?

Even if it were raised after 22/01/08 I am not sure that the 12 month rule applies where accounts are closed; as it may be the normal 6 years for any bill. Although it would be worth checking with Energywatch.

Your questioning of the amount of the bill should be much easier to resolve. You have the readings that Scottish Power use; as long as BG use those readings it will be easy to check if their bill is correct.

topbargainhunter

espresso wrote: »

Why did you not cancel the direct debit with your bank?

I did, but apparently my bank say that BG resurrected a very old dormant dd on my account that didn't show up on my list of DD's on the web. The bank couldn't explain why I couldn't see this other DD.

topbargainhunter

Cardew wrote: »

The DD guarantee is with your Bank and covers you if you haven't been notified that they were going to collect the money from your account.

However it doesn't affect what you owe BG provided their bill is valid.

The $64,000 question(or £175!) is the validity of the bill.

I would doubt that the '12 month rule' applies in your case. BG have only to prove that they raised a bill - not that you received it - and presumably they raised the £175 bill before 22/01/2008?

Even if it were raised after 22/01/08 I am not sure that the 12 month rule applies where accounts are closed; as it may be the normal 6 years for any bill. Although it would be worth checking with Energywatch.

Your questioning of the amount of the bill should be much easier to resolve. You have the readings that Scottish Power use; as long as BG use those readings it will be easy to check if their bill is correct.

They raised the bill in February 2008, I didn't get a bill at all until I phoned to claim about the money being taken from my account, so I had no prior knowledge of the bill at all.

topbargainhunter

CarolynH wrote: »

A year later is a LONG time!!!!!

My tuppenceworth (for what it's worth), is that if they had billed this in a timely manner, you would have to pay it. I'm not trying to be mean here :-(

When you pay by Direct Debit, you essentially 'pay on account' which is then offset against your consumption. You don't pay a set amount for your gas/electricity in a period. (Sorry if I'm stating the obvious here, I used to work for an energy supplier and used to have to explain this to people a lot of times a day!). So if your direct debits were for less than you were using, you would owe them money when you left. However, if you were always billed to AMR (Actual Meter Readings) then they should have been aware that there was a deficit accruing on the account.

That aside, I do think that it's a bit of a cheek for them to ask you for this a year and a bit later! Did they already send you a final bill?

The other thing to bear in mind - I have seen this a few times from a LOT of utility companies - when you switched over to SP, did you provide them with a meter reading on the day of transfer? When a client moves from one supplier to another, the new company picks up billing from where the old one stops - so if you paid BG up to MR 12345, you'd start paying SP from 12346.

If the meter reading was an estimate, it may have been estimated incorrectly - ie it may have been taken at ??? units higher than it actually was. So you would pay BG for however many units from SP. (It's all the same stuff from the same place regardless of who your supplier is, although I'm assuming you moved for a cheaper unit price?) If you don't have the meter reading, there's probably little you can do about this - but bear in mind it will make your last bill from BG look high, and your first bill from SP look low (as you feel like you have paid them less for the same amount of units. SP will probably not point this out to you.

If you were underpaying on your DD with BG, it might be that it happens again with SP ( One of the reasons I left is I saw a lot of people deliberately under quote on DD figures in order to convince the customers to move suppliers on the ground of cost. The result is always a big bill or massive hike for the custome later on but by then the salesperson has been credited with the sale). Prices do vary by company, but do keep an eye on your account. It's quite normal for people to go into credit in the summer months and debit in the winter months as compumption can vary a lot, but if you're permanantly in debit, it may be that you are underpaying.

Good luck, hope my insane ramblings have been vaugely useful

Thanks for your comments. I do understand that I could have been underpaying by DD but I check my bills quarterly and always give a reading if they estimate it (although they rarely did due to the meter being outside). My penultimate bill was nothing out of the ordinary, possibly slightly under/over paid, which is why this bill for £175 for 3 months (on top of my monthly payments) was such a massive shock. I pointed this out to the lady I spoke to at British Gas, and she agreed that the amount was very odd after she looked at my account history.

With Scottish Power, I'm paying a higher monthly amount, but I'm in credit by quite a bit.

I wonder what they'd have done if I'd moved house, and not had a dormant DD on my account that I wasn't aware of?

Cardew

topbargainhunter wrote: »

They raised the bill in February 2008, I didn't get a bill at all until I phoned to claim about the money being taken from my account, so I had no prior knowledge of the bill at all.

That presumably is the bill that was raised after the £175 was reclaimed?

They must have raised a bill to claim the £175 from the bank? - even though you didn't get a copy.

Certainly worth asking Energywatch to investigate. If they are involved it is possible BG might write off some or all of the outstanding amount as a 'goodwill gesture'

CarolynH

topbargainhunter wrote: »

I wonder what they'd have done if I'd moved house, and not had a dormant DD on my account that I wasn't aware of?

B******d up your credit rating probably!! :mad:

Cardew

topbargainhunter wrote: »

I wonder what they'd have done if I'd moved house, and not had a dormant DD on my account that I wasn't aware of?

As stated above, they might have passed the bill to a Debt Collection agency, and that takes forever to sort out - even if you are no way at fault!

BigBenDee

Hi topbargainhunter,

I'm currently in a similar problem with British Gas where they backdated over a year and recalculated my final bill, so instead of them owing me £50, I owed them £75

This has been going on since Feb. 07, where despite assurances they would send me information relating to link between my old bills and the new one, nothing has been forthcoming.

In the meantime they have instructed Debt Collectors, which has made my credit rating go from Excellent to Poor - not good as I need to remortgage in around 6 months. :mad:

I've now sent them a 21 day notice for an explanation of my queries, prior to sending the issue to Energywatch. I'll wait and see.

Good Luck!