British gas won't take debt off metre

[boogiemaster]

My old token metre broke down and British gas told me to ring back when the metre was down to 50p credit or the engineer would charge me £50?

The engineer said he was sick of them saying that and replaced my token metre with a new key metre.
He said to me you owe no debt so that’s ok and put me some electric in.
A few days after we bought some electric and it started going after a few days, I emailed British gas to complain and they said they had accidentally put a debt of £837 on my metre?
After a few calls and them keeping me on hold and asking me stupid questions they decided the debt wasn’t mine and told me when I buy some more credit it will be taken off.
So after topping up that bloody metre and ringing them about five times the debt sill hasn’t come off the metre.
They put the debt on quick enough but it isn’t being taken off the metre. Now they don’t reply to my emails at all.
What can I do about this dam debt I don’t owe? I haven’t been in debt with them fro over ten years?
Thanks

[ozzywizard]

Ok, first off the engineer canot and will not charge you 50 pound. The reason they asked you to phone back when you was down to 50p is they will not send an emergency engineer out unless a customer is below 50p as not classed as an emergency.

Regarding him being sick of them sayingb this, it seems to me he was just telling you what you wanted to hear, remember he is only an engineer who doesnt even know who your supplier is.

Him saying you owe no debt is again saying wehat you wanted to hear, he has no access to your account and no way of knowing if you owe money to a company or not. Yes he can access your meter details but that will only show a meter collection not your account that is held at your suppliers. I doubt he even checked the meter details or settings as his job would of been to change meter and take final and start readings.

To repeat, he does not know if you are in debt.

Phone your supplier and ask to speak to prepayments, when you get through demand to speak to an account manager. Then ask for a balance of your account, once received ask for a full statement to be sent. (by law they have to send you one within a 12 month period) Check correct readings etc. Explain to the manager he/she needs to remove the debt of the meter untill resolved. This can be done by sending a remote message from a system named telaxus to your paypoint/payzone and then is collected by your key and put into your meter.

It takes an hour for this message to be sent although you may have to top up 3 times for the message to transfer from shop to your key but usually works first time.

If you do owe debt and are on any benifits the max they can take is 3 pounds a week.

Oh they will also need to send a credit adjust to your meter to reimburse you for debts you have paid, you can request this by cheque if you prefer. do not let them send both messages in the same one as they will cancel each other out. Let them send the debt removal message first.

Keep us posted and let us know how you get on.

[boogiemaster]

The engineer said if the metre is faulty its faulty and British shouldn’t be telling customers to wait till its down to 50pence!
The reason they do that is because they know you will have to buy electric for your new metre and if they transfer the credit from the old metre to the new they won’t be making money?
Before he programmed my metre I looked at the paper he was holding and it said debt for me £0.00 and other people on the list had some debts.
I’ve spoke to prepayments about seven times and mangers and nothing has been done!
I don’t owe the debt and this has been confirmed by a few people!

[ozzywizard]

We have allready established the professionality of the engineer when you said he said he knows how much you owe and the facts are he has no access to your account.

He should of also known that you are not entitled to an emergency appointment unless below 50p. Yes if it is faulty it is faulty but if above 50p credit a normal planned appointment can be made giving the negineers time to go out to emergencies.

Regarding transfering credit to make money, this makes no sense as you pay for the electric you use no matter which meter you top up. If it is transfered over then it is still credit you have used.

The debt slip you may of seen would of been his instruction from the supplier to set debt on your meter, this does not meen you do not have any just meens that he is not instructed to set any at this time. The det setting would of been on the key as a message.

I do hope he didnt break data protection and allow you to see who was having debt set on their meter.

[boogiemaster]

British gas sends me some winter payments for my gas and electric and I receive a letter saying dear sir, please find enclosed a postal order for £16.00 as we where unable to send it to your metre as its not accepting payments?
It’s a brand new metre????
Also, we tried to take off he debt but it seems you metre is faulty?
No ****!!!!!!!
Have they done anything about it? No

They know its faulty but they haven’t done a bloody thing!!!!!!
Also the fact that it uses £5.00 a day?????

Yes it uses £5.00 a day

The sheet of paper said debt is £0.00 because if there was debt he would have adjusted the metre to take it off.
I said to him I don’t have any debt and he said yes I know it says here and he showed me.
Screw data protection, I don’t care who owes what, I just wanted to see if British gas where trying to con me.
And yes they did when I bought a token, the engineer also put me on ten pounds because I had bought two old tokens.
British gas said I had to send them back and claim back my money? Duh it was the only money I had and the engineer credited the £10.00 on my metre.
He’s self employed and no he wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear, not everyone is a complete twit!!!!!
British gas do tell lies and they proved that by saying the engineer wont come out if the metre has over 50 pence.
British gas said that’s what the engineer states, the engineer said that’s a load of bull.
I said who’s policy is that ? They said that’s the engineers policy, I rang Bg and told them what the engineer said and they changed the dam subject.
You gave me advice on what I had already done before I posted, not everyone is in debt, I got in debt because my company went under.