british gas and an old bill.

sandraroffey

a quick post here to try and get others to check, and check with british gas. my son left a property around two and half years ago owing british gas quite a sum - nearly £400. we came to an agreement that he paid it back at £5 per week, paid by a payment card. and its just been paid and paid since then, without any thought. so suddenly last week i thought that it must be almost paid by now so i phoned british gas and asked them for a statement of what was outstanding, explaining why. the chap i spoke to was insistent that as soon as it is paid, they write and tell you so it must be still owing. however, bless him, he kept looking on his computer and couldnt find the account!!!! he looked for ages and the only way he could find anything was by the post code. when he found what he wanted, he had to go away and talk to someone else, then came back to me and said 'errrm, you should stop paying that now'. i asked if it was paid and was there was a credit balance (bare in mind that all the while this half hour conversation had been going on he had insisted we would be told when it was paid), and he said that yes there was, to the tune of around £150 !!!!! i asked why then, had no one contacted us and told us that it was paid and he said (a gem this one) that it is on an old system for old accounts and 'no one looks at them anymore'. i could have been paying for ever and no one would have told me it was paid.

so, if you are paying back british gas for an old bill, phone them!!! urgently!!! they may owe you a lot of money.xx

IKWeb

Good news in a way tho, atleast you get some money back :beer:

Guess also though some responsibility has to be taken from the customer of these companies to know 1) how many payments they have to make and 2) when to stop paying, I have been reading these boards for a few days now and one thing that stands out is the blame is always put upon the companies, and that the customer is an :A and always right, when 9 times out of 10 it’s 50/50

Anyway nice to hear it all worked out oki for you in the end :T

sandraroffey

of course we should have checked previously. its just when you are paying a little for a long time it seems to blend into the rest of everyday living. what did concern me was that they have a whole loads of 'old accounts' that 'no one looks at any more' so how many other people are paying off old accounts and dont know that they are in credit. that would worry me hugely. there must be thousands!!!!!