It means that OFGEM will look at the case if they are a micro-business.

If all the sub-units in the building are sub-metered then the bill from nPower should not be in your or your mothers name, surely it should be in the name of the landlord. It is then your landlords responsibility to bill you based on the sub-meters for your part of the building. Are you saying that you are paying the bill for the full building on behalf of the landlord and you then have to chase him/her for the payments from the other tenants? Can you put on here the section of the lease (type it in) that deals with the electricity please.

Zedraz - I do this for a living more than happy to help. Please drop me a private message with your contact details and we can go from there. I'm out of the office in about 5 minutes until Monday morning, but we can chat on the phone on Monday. or you can get me on Twitter @MrOverheads

I'm aware of lots of problems, but then all of the Big 6 are the same to a lesser or greater extent depending on the case, but then I resolve these issues for a living so I come across more than your average business would. In my experience E-on and Scottish Power are worse than British Gas Business and nPower is on a par with BGB. With BGB if you know their process's well and you correctly manage your energy supply (as the customer) then their are very few uncorrectable issues. However I appreciate that the average SME/Medium business won't know the in's and out's and will get caught out. Then because they don't know the process's they will then get themselves in further hot water and often ends up in a big bill on deemed/out of contract /rollover contract rates.

Sorry to be pedantic but you need to be really specific when talking to them "termination date" could be interpreted as a) the date you need to terminate by OR b) the date that the contract ends, the notice period with BGB is 90 days. Those are high, but if it has only just rolled over and you are nice to them on the phone AND you get the right department, but don't use terms like rip off, unfair, extortionate and even illegal as you used above etc etc then they may put you on a lower rate contract but you need to be calm, nice and polite. Also diarise that termination notice window (120 days to 90 days) before the contract ends for 2 years time to ensure it doesn't happen again. What is your annual usage? (in kWh and in £, if you don't know kWh then £'s will do, but kWh is better.) The last thing that is still unclear. If you contracted for 2 years in 2007 ,that takes you to 2009, then a 2 year rollover takes you to 2011, where does the 2009 2 year rollover come into it? Did they roll you over for 1 year in 2009 and another 2 years in 2010?

The letter will typically go to the meter address rather than the billing address if different. The letter would have started "Congratulations you don't need to do anything"...and at that point you probably binned it as marketing material. Later in the letter it would have given you a date to call them by and to email a termination letter to them by. The new rates would have been on the back of the letter. What rates have they locked you in to? i.e. what are you calling extortionate and what are you comparing it to? The market has moved significantly over the past 2 years with both highs and lows so are you comparing like with like when you are assessing what is fair? I'm not defending their practices but the reason that business's pay high rates on non-tendered contracts is because the energy market moves on a daily basis and when you contract with them at say 10p/kWh when the market is at 8p/kWh the extra 2p is their profit so they will buy your annual estimated consumption upfront to lock in their margin. However when they don't hear from you OR you are not in contract they have to buy what you actually use at the time you use it and because they have no idea which direction the market is going to go in, they put you on a higher rate to hedge the risk of the market rocketing. The new rules took effect from 18 January 2010 and will apply to all new contracts entered into on or after that date. The conditions will not apply retrospectively, meaning that for customers on existing contracts, the new rules will only begin to apply when the contract is extended on, or after that date. Is the 26th October the date the contract ended i.e. date the rate changes on the invoice OR the date that termination had to be given by? There may be things you can do to reduce the rate (but not leave BGB) depending on the answer to this question.

Do you have a web address / contact address for British Energy that you can post here? It seems very odd that you contracted directly with British Energy as they are a generating company now owned by EDF. On the estimated bills you are getting from BE what is the full registered address and company name/number on it? Try Googling "British Energy Direct Ltd". If BGB say they supplied you BUT the MPAN and MSN weren't associated then BGB can't bill you for the meter for that period. It's also very rare that an energy company would call you to make you aware that they were supplying you. You do get very dodgy third party brokers that will ring up companies that have just taken on new premises and intentionally mislead you into verbally agreeing to a supply contract. They'll use carefully selected wording to imply that they are something they are not e.g. National Meter Registrations, British Energy Consortium (disclaimer: these 2 company names are made up on the spot and are not intended to imply that these companies are in any way "dodgy" should they actually exist) Based on your company size then you do at least qualify as a micro-business and you would need to make this clear at the start of your letter to the ombudsman. If you want to send me copy invoices/correspondence with BGB/EDF/BE privately I can advise better (I'm not a lawyer or a broker, I just specialise in Overhead Management for companies for which as you can imagine Energy is a big part of overhead costs). I can calculate for you what you do owe British Energy and/or BGB and make a counter offer to the £70k (that offer may be £0). At the moment I would suggest that the case history and the issue that you want OFGEM to resolve is not clear enough to put it in writing to OFGEM. You need to set if all out clearly, make a counter offer to their £70k before going to deadlock (I hate that term it sounds like a gameshow). i.e. you need to be writing a report that states the sequence of events in date order, what rates you were charged, the known consumption etc etc that comes logically to a conclusion of an amount owing (refund you or payment o BE) to resolve the matter. The screenshot you put above is of such low quality that it's impossible to read anything.

No - for a business supply they can go back 6 years under the Statute of Limitations Act

Gary Over 6 years your contract rate would have changed maybe on 1, 2 or 3 year cycles or perhaps variable depending on your contract/tariff. hence the £50k now demanded may or may not be correct. It might be that your original billing was correct. Take a photo of your meter now before it's changed as part of the Smart Meter rollout process, so you have photographic evidence of a 5 or 6 digit read (the crux of the case) As part of the calculations is the only thing they've changed being to add a digit, or ave they changed the consumption pattern? Have they changed the unit rate? Do you agree with their new calculations? You don't say whether the meter is actually a 5 or 6 digit read. Do you qualify as a microbusiness? Do you have less than 10 employees AND a Turnover of

This bit right at the start sounds very dodgy. It doesn't make sense. If you had a contract with EDF the only way out of most energy contracts is a change of tenancy. However you were in the property throughout and hence there hasn't been a change of tenancy from what you've said. British Energy sounds like a dodgy broker that's sold you a bad deal by implying they are British Energy plc. British Energy are an owner of Power Stations (and to confuse matters EDF Energy bought British Energy in January 2009) You don't need s solicitor at this stage you need someone who knows how the energy industry works as it might be possible to reduce or even write off the bills. If your MPAN was denenergised on ecoes then British Energy have no right to bill you for that period and neither does anyone else. There are lots of unanswered questions here BEFORE you go to a solicitor. Need to carefully track through the Actual Readings and Estimated Readings, change of contract rates on what dates, change of MPAN's and MSN's and all matching up with photo's of the meter actually at the premises taken before it's changed as part of the smart meter rollout. Rebel11's post below with the billing code is irrelevant as it clearly states in the code that it isn't applicable to business customers. The Energy Ombudsman will also be uninterested unless you qualify as a microbusiness, which given your energy usage is unlikely but how many employees do you have and what is Turnover and Balance Sheet total?

BGB would have sent you a letter on or around 120 days before the end of the contract period. It would have offered new prices (the ones your on now) and would also have given a date that you needed to inform them that you wished to cancel to be free to tender in the open market for a new contract. I'm a little unclear on your dates above: 1) What date did the 2007 contract start (date of the opening reading) 2) What date did the rate change in 2009? 3) What do you mean when you said you noted the date 26th October? In what year and why did you note that date? You have a 30 day window in which to cancel with BGB you can't cancel before or after and it needs to be in writing/email not on the phone. BGB also have various different "sales" departments and depending on which one you approach will depend on the response/helpfulness.

Rednurse, yes they can do this. As you say it's a business contract and part of that contract are terms & conditions to be adhered to. EDF require 30 days notice and they will have sent you a letter offering new prices BUT it will have been phrased along the lines of "you don't need to do anything....etc etc" it catches many many business's out. There are way's and means of improving the situation but every situation is different and without more information I wouldn't be able to help. If you're still on here (as OP was back in July) let me know where you are with negotiations with EDF.