Hi,

helping my dad with a bill from Staywarm for 2 months from when he switched last year to BG.

He's not paying it on principle because of something he found out that he didn't realise.

With Staywarm you've got to be over 60 and have less than three people live in the house. So it's aimed at old couples mainly.

You pay a flat amount based on #people and #bedrooms. Now mum (now passed on) and dad have only lived downstairs for past 5 years at least 'cos they can't get upstairs very well. So they only heated 2 rooms downstairs.

But because they've been on the 2 people, 3 bedroom tariff they've paid about £700 more over the 4 years with Staywarm that someone on a 2 people, 1 bedroom tariff, but olny used a fraction of what they've paid for. Staywarm of course haven't told them they were paying for more than they used.

Now dad is 85 and not good with money or figures and didn't put 2 and 2 together about the rooms/price relationship until last year after mum died. Staywarm wrote to update the price and said it's this cos there's 2 of you and you have three bedrooms.

Finally put 2 and 2 together and realised how ripped off theyd been getting and switched and refused to pay for the last two months at about £90 a month!! Now getting demanding letters, nothing too heavy but not nice.

I'm worried they'll send it to collections so I'm going on the attack first and have threatened amongst other things small claims, press and TV consumer programmes, Energywatch (toothless) etc.

Just wondering what other's opinions are about our chances of getting this written off. It surely won't be commercially viable to fight it in small claims court where they can't recover their legal costs?

What do you think?

Invictus.

Firstly as you have stated the Staywarm tariff from Powergen is a fixed rate scheme based upon occupancy and number of bedrooms. Even if a Staywarm customer doesn't use any of the bedrooms the tariff will still be based on how many there are as there will be some secondary heating of these roooms caused by convection. As a general guide the number of bedrooms is determined by how you would describe the property as if it were being sold.

Secondly you mention that your mother has sadly passed on. Did you or your father inform Staywarm of this fact, as this would have had a significant relevance to the monthly installment. It may still be possible to get Powergen to backdate this, and is usually done on a case by case basis. I used my discretion as to how far back I would backdate the tariff dependant upon the circumstances as to why Staywarm weren't informed sooner.

Speak to a manager in Staywarm first and put your case forward, but bear in mind that Staywarm run one month in arrears so there will be at least one installment due.

Thanks for the reply installspark, I'll bear it in mind.