british gas unbelievable!!!!

[hendersons]

I have never written a complaint, never been on a forum, but british gas is enough to drive anyone to distraction. We pay by direct debit - BIG MISTAKE - it was estimated we need to pay around £45 per month around 2 yrs ago. The meter was changed around that time. We had estimated bills. We were presented with a bill for £1645 10 months ago, we complained, we wrote, we phoned, nobody ever got back to us, we finally got through to someone who told us they thought we were being charged for a different serial number, and that we would probably get a refund, we then had a bill 6 months later for £2100! During all of this period we were inundated with threatening letters, we phoned and said we would consider reporting them for harrasment as this case was in dispute, we got a bill for £2200 about a week later. During all this time we were told that BG did not understand why we were getting letters threatening to cut us off when we were in dispute. After about a year, they admittred it had never actually been put on file that there was a dispute, they submitted this on our file, a few weeks letter, we got another threatening letter to cut us off. Finally, we got through to a supervisor, I have to admit she was trying to be helpful, and was polite, we were told that they wanted to change the faulty meter, we said no until the dispute was settled, guess what, we went on holiday - the meter was changed. We had a bill for £2400. They are now saying they have tested our usage and we do owe £2430 - but they wold give us a discount of £70 to pay for the 30 hours we have spent dealing with this, the many many phone calls, and the many many registered letters we have sent. exasparating, feels like we are banging our heads against a wall. Oh, and the last comments from them was, that the electricity could be seeping into the walls of the house and therefore costing us more money??? anyone ever heard of that one!!! Having found this forum, I have found a good bit of info, turn everything you have on electricity within the house for - 10 mins or so, take a reading x it by the day, week month and it should give you a maximum usage - I am going to try this and will post info. If anyone else has had this situation i would be interested to know if it was sorted. But to anyone thinking of going the British Gas route - save yourself a headache - DON't DO IT>

[Bigmac versus]

Hi hendersons and welcome to the forum sounds like a nightmare that.
When they changed the meter the first time did they put the reading on your £1645 bill or was it estimated again?
The second meter was changed whilst you were on holiday you said was faulty, do you know this for sure?

[bullyboy]

Just a thought but do you have any utility bills from before British Gas took over that can show what your usage was? if you do you at least have a basis to show what your usage used to be in units. I had a disagreement some years ago with Eastern Electricity when my usage unexpectedly went up and they changed the meter and monitored how much the usage was in the following quarter and then amended the bills accordingly.

[hendersons]

bullyboy - I am sure I will have some old utility bills somewhere, I will check it out - thanks.
bigmac versus - good point - I will find out if it was estimated. regarding the faulty meter, what the gas board originally said - on the phone, it was never put in writing, of course, was that it looked as though we were charged for a different serial numbered meter than the one we were using, a while later they said they wanted to change it.

Today I am going to turn everything thats electric on - take a 10 min reading, this will give me the maximum usage, times it by 24 hours and work out what a maximum monthly rate could be. BG said we are using 43units per day. I am also going to turn everything off, and see if there is a reading?

[Bigmac versus]

Good thinking, keep us update. I used to work with Transco and on many occasions customers meters were changed from imperial to metric (5 digits instead of 4) and this led to wrong bills being sent out.

[Bigmac versus]

Start a thread in here where you will see some similar problems.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...tricity-water/

[Cartoon Head]

i am in the middle of similair dispute about gas now.

Had a gad leak and called transco who cahnged something, then after 5 months of estimated bills i rang to change a direct debit and they asked for the meter reading.

I told them and they said i had made a mistak, i was a digit missing or a digit to much, turns out they neber knew about the change and i am now awaiting for a revised bill for the last 3 months.

[Bigmac versus]

Hi cartoon head what has happened hear is that you have had your meter exchanged from imperial to metric which means instead of 4 digits you read the first 5, this is a typical mistake when it comes to billing, on the front of your new meter you SHOULD have the closing reading of the old meter, it is on a yellow sticker, this should clear any confusion.

[lou5]

We moved into a property 6 wks agoand since have received a letter from powergen asking for w bill to be paid which is from before we moved in. I have contacted them and they said we need to send proof of when we purchased and completed on the property which is fine. Is it right for me then to forward the company the previous owners forwarding address or their solicitors details?

[Surfer01]

Hendersons, I suggest that the first thing you check is the meter serial number (MSN) on your premises and compare this with the meter serial number on the bills. If there is a mismatch the MPAN may belong to abother residernt in the area or a business.
Regarding the old meter, I suggest that you check back as far as possible and try and find a genuine read and not an estimated read. BGAS should be reading our meter at least once every two years. Compare this with the closing read when the old meter was removed and work out your consumption per month. Even better if you have some in between genuine reads and not estimates.

[shane5408]

Might be worth sending a Subject Access Request as well hendersons, that will give you a complete history of the account

regards,
shane