British Gas problem

[M_A_A_B]

Our gas and electricity is supplied by British Gas. We pay £10 a week on each as our regular payment scheme.

I had a letter today saying that we owe £51 that they have not received towards the payment scheme and this must be paid in 7 days. We dont have the money but, as far as I was concerned, we were totally up to date with our payments.

I phoned BG and was told that I am now meant to be paying £22 per week now for gas. We have had no letter telling us this and so obviously, we just didnt know!!

Now we have to try and find £51 in 7 days and somehow find an extra £12 a week to pay our gas.....not going to be easy with my on disability benefits.

We are in arrears but it's basically from when we switched suppliers and BG charged us two huge bills we couldn't pay. We cant check our gas meter as we cant get to it so I'm not sure that our gas bills are right but I have no way to check.

Is there anything we can do about this? Even just to get the weekly payments reduced a bit??

[ozzywizard]

I would phone them and ask for the balance that is owed in 7 days to be split over a 6 months period to be added to the payment plan, it is their fault for not writing to you on the reveiw of your payments. Ask to speak to a manager and explain to them what has happened. If you still get no were put it in writing.

[tripchar]

Hello MAAB
recently had a nightmare with British Gas about something else but got it resolved very quickly...what you should do is call the Energy supply ombudsman on 0845 055 0760 or 01925 530263 they investigate a complaint on your behalf. What they did with me is put me back through to a direct number at British Gas and basically British gas get into alot of trouble if they do not deal with your complaint when you come thru this channel. I goto my prob sorted quickly.
Good Luck