I agree it seems strange, but the verbal contract is supposidly binding. At least that is what you are told during the phone conversation. You are also told that having agreed terms you are not supposed to engage any other service provider. Having said that I have always received a subsequent physical contract from my energy provider eventually, but this arrives long after you have verbally agreed terms. This did not happen in this instance. Maybe I should request a copy of the verbal cotract ? Last year my combined gas and electricty for the whole of Feb was £2100 and the whole of March £2400. This year they are charging me a combined figure of just over £7000 for the whole of Feb and 9 days of March.

Confirmation of prices letters: If my last bills had been charged at my contracted rates electricity would be about £1,500 instead of £3,000 and gas would be about £1,500 instead of £4,000. Confirmation email from Utilitywise.pdf Pricing Agreement.pdf

Hi I have a letter from by broker confirming the prices and length of contract agreed with BG. I then went through a process whereby you agree contract terms over the phone, a verbal contract if you will, which is presumably recorded. Following that I received another email from my broker confirming that I have 'placed my energy contract through Utilitywise' and they attached a 'terms and conditions for SME's' from BG. At no point did I receive a physical contract from BG. I have a copy of the 'Letter of Authority' that I signed and agreed with my broker allowing them to act on my behalf. I had some initial success communicating with BG who said they would investigate but they then passed me around different departments, customer service, resolutions department, finance etc etc. I have an open ticket with the customer services department and they asked me to provide all the different account numbers that relate to this issue. Having provided those on the 30th May I have had no further success in getting a response from BG despite follow up emails on the 8th and 14th June. My broker tells me that he has spoken with BG and they have told him they believe the reads are correct and that I should pay. But as I am technically no longer a customer of BG my broker is no longer authorised to act on my behalf. Meaning he can wash his hands of the issue and I'm on my own. As for the trading history issue. The only thing I can think off that might have caused some confusion is that my old invoices from BG were addressed to the pub (ie our trading name), whereas the new (final) ones received in February 2017 were addressed to my company. I'm not sure why this would be an issue as the contract signed in 2013, that expired in January 2017, was addressed and agreed with the company. And I have copies of those contracts from BG.

As I understand it all business energy contracts are listed on a database which is accessible to energy brokers and utility companies. As you approach the end of your contract you start to get inundated with calls, mainly from brokers, offering to negotiate new deals for you. Whether they do actually negotiate deals or just have cosy arrangements with their 'favourite' companies who give them the best commission is open to question. Nonetheless it takes the leg work out of searching for deals and you can play one broker off against another to try and get a good deal. This process started in June 2016 and I agreed prices with British Gas, via a broker called Utilitywise, in July 2016. I have a confirmation letter from Utilitywise dated 21/07/16. In November 2016 I received a letter directly from British Gas saying I needed to agree new terms immediately otherwise I would be moved onto 'variable' rates in January 2017. I forwarded this to my broker querying why I had received this letter as we had already agreed new contracts. They assured me this must be an error as contracts were in place. I didn't receive any other warning letters so thought the issue was indeed resolved. Then in January 2017, around the middle of the month, my broker came back to me and said BG had refused to honour our agreement as my company had no trading history! I obviously said this was nonsense but he confirmed BG weren't prepared to go ahead and we would have to find a new supplier. As of the end of January 2017 I was moved onto 'out of contract' rates even though we had agreed new deals with SSE, but apparently these could not go live until March 2017 because BG insisted on 30 days notice. Then low and behold throughout February and early March, while 'out of contract' my consumption apparently tripled compared to the same months in previous years! As I have stated previously our electricity usage does not vary much and our gas usage can go up if the weather is particularly cold, but it wasn't this year. I have tried both through my broker and by directly emailing BG to try and resolve these issues but I'm being ignored. BG have now passed both my electricity and gas accounts to debt collectors, claiming I have made no attempt to resolve the issue. By which they mean I've made no attempt to pay. What can I do ? Cheers, Paul.

Hello My business, a pub company, had been a customer of British Gas for 8 years for both electricity and gas. As both these contracts were due to end in January 2017 I agreed terms and rates to renew with British Gas once again through my broker. For reasons that are unclear to me British Gas declined to honour the agreed terms at the last minute and forced me to find an alternative supplier. My broker suggested it was because my business had no trading history, which is absurd as I have been trading since 2009 and have been with BG for the entire time. I then started to receive a series of 'final' bills from BG. The first set of bills, for both electricity and gas, were for the period up to 30th January 2017 - my contract end date. The rates applied to these bills were as expected and the consumption was inline with previous years and were duly paid. I then received a second set of 'final' bills, with new account numbers, up to the 28th Feb 2017 for electricity and up to 9th March 2017 for gas. My rates had changed to 'out of contract' rates and my consumption had supposedly more than tripled compared to previous years. As a pub our electricity consumption barely changes from one month to the next, it powers the lights, fridges and freezers, and is pretty consistent. The gas powers the ovens in the kitchen, the central heating and hot water and can go up in the winter months. But considering February and March weren't particularly cold this year the increase in consumption that BG are claiming is hard to believe. The upshot of it all is that I now have outstanding 'final' invoices from BG for approx. £7,000, instead of the £2,500 that I might have expected. Added to which, the rates I was able to negotiate with my new supplier at the last minute are significantly worse than I had agreed with BG. I have refused to pay these invoices and believe that the consumption BG are claiming is wrong. I also think that they should honour the rates we had agreed for the new contract on these last bills rather than apply 'out of contract' rates. They have chosen to pass the accounts to Debt Collection companies, claiming I have made no attempt to resolve the issue, which is not true. Instead BG are choosing to ignore my complaints. Should I continue to fight this and if so, how ? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.