£14.00 Penalty charge from British Gas

[bazza.a]

Hi all, just spoke to British Gas to see if they received payment (it was late) and was told they're charging me £14.00 penalty charge for being late and not paying the correct amount. The bill was £54.21 but I mistakenly read the wrong side of the bill which was £51.63 (no Vat), I've put a payment through for the £2.58, anyone know where the £14.00 comes from and is this as illegal as the bank charges
thanks all
bazza

[Sirensinger]

Hi, I have been getting these for the past year (posted the whole story on another thread) because I was paying off a debt with BG but didn't 'make an arrangement' with them to pay so much a week/month, though I was in frequent contact with them by letter and e-mail and they knew very well that my debt was reducing. After about a year of paying, in cash at the Post Office, I am now up to date with my payments for gas usage, but over £80 worth of 'telemessage' charges remain on the account, and BG are saying they're going to get a Warrant. I've written a 'preliminary request' letter like the ones I did with the banks, and am hoping I can use the same argument to get these charges removed. Haven't heard anything from anyone else about these charges, so I'm pretty scared I might not be in the right! If anyone else has ideas about our rights in this case, it would be nice to know.

Sirensinger

[Edz11]

Why am I am wide awake at this time of the morning....

Gas charges. If you've paid for the gas then I think they can't cut you off. Look at this link;
Gas Act 1995 (c. 45)

Look at the disconnection section ."Recovery of gas charges etc"

It talks about "for the supply of gas". Well, you've paid for the Gas but they want payment for something other than the gas supply you've had. Those extra charges are not for the supply of gas. I would write and point this out and say that any sworn statement to the relevant Magistates Court (needed before they get a warrant) will be challenged as perjury. Yeah, it's on oath from memory. You'll get a letter from the legal section in response and we can follow it up from there.

There's other legislation too;
Utilities Act 2000 (c. 27)

Read the bit about pre-payment meters - "A pre-payment meter installed by an authorised supplier on any premises shall not be used to recover any sum other than a sum owing to an authorised supplier in respect of the supply of gas to those premises or the provision of the meter.” It doesn't say "and any other charges!". So I think they don't have a leg to stand on. They can take you to County Court for the collection cost charges... oh yeah.

[Edz11]

And a further thought...

Schedule 4 of the Utilities Act 2000 (which substitutes Schedule 6 of the 1989 Act) says at 2 (Non-payment of suppliers' charges) that the supplier has to send you a notice of what their charges for the supply are. You then have 28 days to make payment of the charges for that supply. (the requisite period). If they have notified you that the charge is £50 then that is the charge for that supply. If they then to decided to up it by a further £20 for debt collection charges then the increase is not in respect of the charge for the supply - it can't be as you've already been told it is £50 - it has to be for something else.

This relates to electricity and should also relate to Gas.

[tiglet]

Subbing