British Gas for Electric - Day / Night Rate Mixup

indiegirl_2

Hi all,

I hope you can offer me some advice. My parents moved into their present home in November 2006. They are on a capped price plan with British Gas (dual fuel) and haven't wanted to switch from this because of the cap.

Anyway, they've received a bill today for a fairly large sum. When they questioned this, BG have admitted that they mixed up my parents night and day rates; and since they moved in they have billed them with the night rate readings for day rates, and the day rate readings at night rate prices. Mum has (thankfully) been putting money away for her bills and did believe that the bills were slightly lower; but put this down to being in a more efficient house.

My parents' meter doesn't state a 'night and day' rate - just 'rate 1' and 'rate 2'. The meter readings tallied up when the bills came in so my parents paid the bills.

BG have blamed the meter readers - stating that the use a separate company to do this. My parents want to know why BG didn't spot the obvious mistake in their billing numbers; and continued to bill them regardless.

A representative told my father on the telephone that they have been reviewing the billing on my parents' account since May 2007 - so BG have allowed this to go on for an entire year - before landing a huge bill on my parents' mat with no correspondence in between. Something to notify them would've been nice.

Now my parents have no qualms about paying the bill; as they have used the electricity and therefore will pay. However, do they have any claim against BG for such a monumental error on their part? Naturally they are very angry and want to know how BG let this go on for so long.

Would you involve Energywatch? Should they do anything?

Cardew

This happens quite a bit I believe.

The bottom line is that they have no claim against BG unless the situation had gone on for over 6 years.

The reason it is not spotted is that there is very little 'human' involvement with bills these days. The numbers are fed into 'the computer' which coughs out a bill. Once a pattern of consumption is established, their is normally no reason to review the bills.

They can of course always fall back on the 'small print', in that it is the customer's responsibility to check the accuracy of their bills.

That said, BG are one of the better companies at making some sort of gesture where there has been an error in accounting. I suspect a phone call and a little 'negotiating' might get some reduction in the outstanding amount - ask to speak to a supervisor.

motts

I have just had the same trouble with Scottish Power. They were adamant that they were billing me correctly, but couldn't explain how I could use my
storage heaters, immersion heater daily plus overnight washing machine operation and only use 370 units in 80 days! I said I would carry on with their
billing, and use the storage heaters, immersion heater etc during their 'day'
readings(on my meter reading 1 is day, it has a "rate now" in the LCD window during the day to 23.30 then rate 2 has "rate now" in window. All
of a sudden they changed their minds and now have a credit of £133 and
monthly debit gone down from £73 to £42.50 starting in August. This took 12
days to put right. I wonder how many thousands are wrongly billed. I asked the person on the phone, but she declined to answer as they do not study
the bills sent out. I assume it's up to the customer to work it out themselves.