Need help, owed a refund

[escort69]

In February this year I changed my supplier from British Gas to powergen for both my fuels.I received my closing statement and it states that I was owed a refund for quite a bit of money.I phoned BG and asked for it back and they told me a cheque would be issued automatically within 28 days.So 28 days go by and still nothing so I phoned once again and was told there was no problem although a lot of people had looked into the account because it was such a high amount, and that the cheque would be with me in about 7 days.So I waited 7 days and nothing! I phoned again and this time was put through to the pre payment department who told me that my meter reading was incorrect, but I'd read it myself and told her that it wasn't, and she then told me that apart from one last June that I hadn't had a meter reading for 3 years!! So I told her that I must have been letting con men into my house to take meter readings and nothing else?Anyway she told me that they would have to start at the beginning of my contract with them to work ou all my readings,Why she couldn't take it from the June one last year I don't know,anyway she said it could take up to 60 days for this to happen.Not happy with that I phoned the customer relations department, who are now looking into it, so I should hear something this week.But I want to know is can I take this further with anyone coz they are certainly dragging their heels, and if this is money they do owe money they are with-holding it from me.And to top it all got my final gas bill this week and I owe them £1.74!!!!!!!!!! Gonna wait for the red bill and tell them to take it off what they owe me.

[gondukin]

I would guess the reason it is taking so long is all the accounts have been transferred to a new billing system over the last 12 months (as featured on energywatch ), if they are going back three years then part of your account will be on an old system and part on the new one, which will probably make it more complicated. However 60 days is still an unnaceptable timeframe, my advice would be to wait and see what customer relations do this week, if they don't sort things out and get a cheque to you pronto then go to energywatch or the energy ombudsman.

As for your final gas bill of £1.74, I would just ignore it. I believe their system writes off debts under £5 anyway.

[indebtstudent]

My dad had a similar prob, he got a red letter for the elec account (although he maintains he was always in credit) even though he never had any bills sent to the new address he gave them.

The daft thing is he was in credit on the gas account by more than the elec 'debt' so they sent him a cheque for that. I've advised him to check his credit report in case they have put anything on there and I'm going to write a letter for him stating that he paid the elec charge under protest and takes exception to the fact that they didn't send him a proper final bill when he gave a forwarding address. Also I've come across people in the past saying that the final bill bore no relation to the actual meter reading.

Unfortunately he has misplaced his final meter reading, what can we do?

The cynical side of me says they probably haven't read the meter given that they didn't bother in the whole time he was living at his previous address.