Incorrect final bill from British Gas

[JackieJ]

Hi All,

Been reading some threads and seems I am not the only person staggered by the incompetence of British Gas.

Dissatisfied with their charges, I changed supplier to Atlantic and was told by BG that I would get a final bill and if I wanted to come back to them, they'd throw a party etc etc etc..

Anyway, I'd been paying by DD at £33 per month for my electricity with them and my last statement had been about £25 in debit which I expected as it was over the winter so I reckoned my final bill would be around £30 or so. When it arrived on the doorstep, it was £241.93 which is around 8 months payments!!!

I read through the monthly breakdown and not only was it added up incorrectly, they had backdated my electricity usage to November 05!!
Now this would not have been too bad had they included the payments I had made since November 05 but they decided just to take account of the last 9 months payments!!

I rang and spoke to a really nice girl who agreed there had been some kind of a problem and it looked like I may have been charged twice. She said she would get someone to look into it and call me back once there was any news. She did call me back the following week but only to tell me there was no news!

The next thing I heard from BG was a letter threatening legal action if I didn't pay up immediately!!! Needless to say, I rang and ranted and they then told me it was still being looked into 2 weeks after my original call!

I'm about to write and complain so has anyone had a similar experience and can you advise who I should write to??

[THEREBEL]

Jackie

BG have done exactly the same to my daughter, raised a bill from Nov 06, or more precisely when she first moved into her new rented house without fully taking into account previous payments. Basically, when you look at the bill it's almost impossible to decipher how they have arrived at their cost. I suspect its been computer generated without human intervention to check that is correct. I will shortly be writing to BG and may send a copy to their chief exec as I am very annoyed at their continual incompetence. We have to date made several telephone calls to sort out her billing all with promises to resolve etc but to no avail. The moral of this story is to 'Bin BG' until such time that they can get their act together which unfortunately has been a long long time and still no better. It's about time Watchdog gave them another humiliation I think.

Send your complaints to BG's chief exec, I am sure his name and address are on this site somewhere. Also mark it 'Personal and Confidential' then his secretary won't intercept it and add it to the thousands of other complaints.

[IIIUMINATI]

same problem changed to Atlantic both gas and elect expected bill about
£30 each =£60ish.
Gas ok no charge Elect £292.35 then £277
Passed to Robinson Way debt collectors .Phoned them they told me they were managing the account and if I could settle now they would knock £100 of the account. ???
I have requested a copy of the agreement/ contract which I signed
I requested this March 2006 and disputed the amount no reply.
My details have now been entered on the Experian site as a bad debt £277. The default date is 4/2007 . A default notice has not been issued.
I did not give my permission for my data to be shared with two third parties.
I intend to use the Data Act Subject Access Request (199(£10.00fee) and will be requesting all details which BG have including a transcript of all telephone calls manual intervention all correspondence bills statements tariffs price increases everything that applies to me.
BG will try to define exactly what you want to reduce there costs and the time taken to provide the details I am requesting the last 32 years and I expect it within the 40 day
This information may help me understand there demands as I have lived in the same house for over forty years from this i will be able to see what my usage was

[carrothead]

Hi ,
I am going through similar problems with BG ,
I moved in with my partner in Jan and rented my place out to a tenant,

I rang BG and told them and gave them a final reading, they sent me a 'Final bill' for £11.50 which i paid by cheque.

Just a few weeks prior to this i had a rebate of £87.24 from BG as i had overpaid on my Direct Debits.

A couple of months later i had a letter sent to my partners address
saying i owe a bill of £87.24 for gas used at my old address.
(seems a coincidence that the bill is for the same amount of my rebate)

I went through the usual procedure of ringing them and being put on hold for half hour , eventually getting through and being passed to 3 different depts as nobody seemed to have a clue.
I got fed up and hung up on them.

Since then i have had a couple of reminders, then i had a postcard saying i was going to get a calll from a Mr Lewis of Hunter Forrest,
(i believe these are some debt agency)

Has anyone any ideas of what i should do next?
I dont have time to waste trying to get through to BG,
I was thinking of taking the matter up with a solicitor
but any advice would be good.

Regards
carrothead

[IIIUMINATI]

#72 (permalink) Notpayinapenny vbmenu_register("postmenu _775571", true);
Basic Account Customer

Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 8



Re: UKPC parking fine
I received yet another letter yesterday from Hunter Forrest with all the usual ...County Court Judgement...Registry Trust ...court fees...etc and a phone number to ring 01527 571060. I started the converstaion asking about the relationship of Hunter to UKPC and was told UKPC are a client - I questioned the reason for the same address and registered number - I was put on hold for a while then told that Hunter Forrest send out letters with UKPC logo printed on them - this means that the debt collector was sending out letters pretending to be the client. After this I told the person I was speaking to my reference number so I could discuss the case and was told that UKPC had instructed them to send everything back. The letters must have apparently crossed in the post. I asked Hunter to withdraw their latest threatening letter, to which I was told they would wrote confirming that their client had told them not to proceed.
I'm not celebrating yet, bit I am feeling much happier - stick to your guns folks!!
vbrep_register("775571")

This is on our site have a look it will tell a lot about hunter forrest

[IIIUMINATI]

who were the reminders from BG ?
Have they told you that Forrester's will call you?
If I called you would you pay me money ?
How did Mr Lewis get your information without your authority
Data Protection Issie ?


Advice wait for the call stay in for the next week you may miss it lol

No seriously it`s there call excuse the pun
keep us all informed
and all out there help CARROTHEAD

[carrothead]

who were the reminders from BG ?
Yes reminders from BG, threatening me with legal action etc

Have they told you that Forrester's will call you?
No, the first i knew about Hunter Forrest was the postcard i recd.

If I called you would you pay me money ?
probably not

How did Mr Lewis get your information without your authority?
Actually a couple of days previous my next door neighbour told us that she had recd a phone call from someone(they wouldnt say who)asking for our names! she didnt tell them anything. im thinking now that this was something to do with it as the postcard we recd was to 'The Occupier'
But surely if they were acting on behalf of BG then they would know my name !???

Data Protection Issie ?


Advice wait for the call stay in for the next week you may miss it lol

Thanks for the advice,
I will keep you posted, cheers
Carrothead

[JackieJ]

Dear All,

Thanks for the posts but oh my God!!! I sort of thought that if I hung on a bit they would realise their mistake and apologise with a bit of a refund but it appears they prefer to stick their heads in the sand and keep asking for the money!!
Anyway on 27 May got a further letter demanding payment so I rang up in a fury and got the usual oh yes, we are looking into it, automated letter etc etc etc but I was not having it this time. I demanded the name of the complaints manager and eventually after about 30 minutes got to speak to a Mr Abbas who said he was "one of the managers". I wrote a letter of complaint to him and sent it recorded delivery on 1 June. I told them they had 7 days to reply as my initial complaint was made by phone in early May and also said that if I got further calls or letters, I would be pursuing them under the harrassment act.
Needless to say, yesterday I got a phone call from BG and as usual, they asked me to confirm who I was etc and she then said, "Right, lets see what we are calling you about" Unbelievable!!!
I said " Are you calling me about a final payment of over £200 that I don't owe and have written to you and spoken to you about on a number of occasions?"
She then decided to look at my account and told me that a complaint reference had been entered on 8 June and they would try and get a response within 28 days!!!
I didn't even bother arguing - I've gone straight to energywatch and entered the details of my complaint on line. Watch this space!

[JackieJ]

Grrrrrr....

Letter in the post this morning from good old BG. Nope, wasnt letter of apology etc etc etc, it was a letter threatening court action!

Rang them in a fury and was answered incredibly quickly - only to be told that all the systems were down and someone would phone me back. Needless to say, nobody has.

Should I inform Energywatch of this latest development and can I use the Protection from Harrassment Act as I have had 2 threatening letters from them now despite their admitting there is some kind of error on my account?

Any advice would be gratefully recieved!

[JackieJ]

I now know why BG charge so much - it is because they send me a bloody letter every single day demanding money they have already agreed I don't owe!!

I rang and absolutely blew my top at the poor operative who answered my call. She told me that because there wasn't a 'block' on my account, I would keep getting the letters. She said 'blocks' were only put on in exceptional circumstances. I spontaneously combusted and asked her if it was normal for BG to send incorrect bills and then attempt to scare the life out of the customer by sending threatening letters despite regular contact being made by myself - or was this exceptional?

She went away for a while and came back and told me a block had been put on my account and it would remain for 28 days by which time I should have had a response to my complaint. She then gave me her name and telephone extension as a point of contact.

I should say that this lady was very pleasant and didn't try and waffle her way out of dealing with me but it is a shame I had to rage to get that level of service.

Just as a matter of interest, there is an article about BG in todays Guardian G2 section with further evidence of the incompetence of BG. It appears I am actually getting quite good service as they did threaten a couple with court who had never actually had an account with BG!!

So still waiting to see what happens with Energywatch and my complaint.

[JackieJ]

Well, they seemed to respond quickly to Energywatch! I got a letter on Friday from their Customer Relations Team. All looking good so far?

No, of course not. I was now clearly worthy of a 'prompt response', but sadly, not yet worthy of an accurate one.

BG say in their letter that they had billed me in March 2006 and had taken into account the 3 payments I had made up to this time - CORRECT.

They say that the balance as at March 2006 is shown on the final bill- CORRECT

They say that all payments since March 2006 are included on the bill - (Well I think they have overlooked one but in essence - CORRECT)

So, if everything so far is based on figures at March 2006, why are they STILL basing my electricity use on November 2005????

Surely this is not complicated!!!!

To make matters worse, Energywatch had recieved a copy of the letter and stated it appeared to resolve all the issues I had raised and so considered the case closed - I THINK NOT! (In fairness to energywatch, they didn't have full details of the bill)

I rang in a rage and spoke to someone who completely agreed with me and said he would look into it and get back to me, at the latest, by Monday.......we shall see...

[Darren]

Good luck Jackie,

we left BG 9 years ago as they were completely incompetant (still are by the sounds of it).

[JackieJ]

Really can't believe this is still ongoing!! Got a letter from BG all apologetic etc etc etc but still saying that their final bill was correct!!!!
Energywatch asked me if they could close my file? What?! Anyway, replied to energywatch telling them still not resolved and to keep on.

Got another letter from BG recently saying really sorry, really busy, still looking into it etc....yawn yawn yawn..

Few days later, got another letter, yep another one threatening court action but this one for a lesser amount?

Got reply from energywatch with a further reply from BG saying that they were still looking into it etc etc etc and had put a block on my account to make sure no reminder letters were sent out? Hmmm, so the one I got a few days ago was???

To be honest, bit peeved with energywatch too; they don't seem to have any real teeth when it comes to getting BG to act appropriately when dealing with complaints.

Think best course of action is to let them take me to court - should be fun if anyone fancies a day out!!

[2Grumpy]

When I had issues with BG (not as bad as this) I phoned energy watch who then put me through to the team that could sort things. Eventually they asked me how much I thought the bill should be and changed it to that figure.

[rosemaryednam]

I had an incorrect bill from NPower. I got it resolved and written off by energy watch. The bill was for over £300. It was because I was being billed by British Gas and NPower. I moved into a new house and the supplier was NPower but I had always been supplied by British Gas so I asked to change back to BG. NPower put up a fight but after 2 years eventually decided that I could go.

[wiggins]

can i join in??
I moved from BG to Scot power in 2006 using uswitch.
last week i received a final notice saying that i owe BG £337.50.
When i phoned to ask which cloud this ammount had been plucked from i was told " oh thats your final bill calculated from 2002!!!"
Turns out that Scot power and BG have 2 different meter readings.
Good aint they ????