We have suffered years of phone calls, letters & emails from BG demanding payment on bills which we had constantly disputed, then BG pass on our personal information on to a debt collection company, who then started with daily phone calls (at least 3 to 5 calls each day) then all the letters threatening us with court action & disconnection. This company then do go to the courts to have our "3" electricity supplies disconnected, where someone did come out to cut off our supply, just to find the single supply we had & not the 3 we were accused of having. This debt collection company then sell/pass on our private details, which they should not have been given in the first place by BG, which then causes us to start receiving cold calls from various different companies. It then took us a further 10 months to get our phone number changed, after first having to pay for a blocking service, which didn't work. We do have documents showing the threats of disconnection & court action, plus mountains of threatening letters from BG for late payment. So do you still think that we have not suffered enough to make a claim?

Sorry for the delay in replying. I guess I'm just showing my age, as remember that there was a small claims court, but I never had need to use it. As said I am not after a huge sum of money, certainly not £10k, so I think I'll have a look at the costs for taking it to court & take it from there, I would like to think I have some sort of a case against BG for all the problems brought on by them getting a debt collection company involved & the damage they have caused my credit score. I must give my thanks to all who have gave me advice, it is very much appreciated & it has helped point me in the right direction. I'll post an update when I have one, so fingers crossed.

Thanks for that. I do have letters from Chase Solutions, debt collectors who were appointed by BG which show demands for payment & threats of disconnection. I also have a copy of my credit score showing the weekly additions for late payment by BG, but it confirms that it was only ever BG whom I owed money to thanks to the incorrect bills. I was unsure if I just go through the small claims court, or as a friend has suggested, try the courts mediation service.

Hi, British Gas have only recently admitted over charging my electricity account since 2007, something I have repeatedly contacted them about over all the years concerned. However, over all of these years I was not always able to pay the extra high bills I was receiving on time, so this ended up affecting my credit score, which is now fairly non existent thanks to the years of the large bills. BG then passed on my details to a debt collector, giving out all our private phone numbers, including our ex-directory land line, but this company sent many threatening letters to go along with the constant calls, the company even sent a court official out to disconnect our electricity supply, but non of this would have happened had I received the correct lower bills. I have also had a BG account manager call me a liar & accused me of sub-letting my house, plus he even told me to f-off, which I would say is fairly abusive & unacceptable. I have always went out of my way to get my bills paid on time (when possible) & I pay money in to both my gas & electricity accounts weekly, to try to lessen the blow of the high bills, so I'm normally in credit & don't owe anything. I had predicted that I was owed anything from £1000+ & BG ended up a week ago coming up with the £1438.79 figure, which I do feel may not be correct, but we are so fed up with it dragging on we just agreed to the amount. However, when it came to compensation BG offered a maximum of £150 & said that they would NOT pay anything for the harassment we suffered from the debt collectors they passed our details to, they also said that they would not compensate for the abuse from the account manager who called me a liar & who told me to f-off. They are not prepared to compensate for all my time making the many, many calls, emails & letters I had to do over the many years. So I am now wanting to find out how I can take court action to get a more fitting amount of compensation which we think is fair, but not trying to be greedy with a stupid figure. I have read several similar cases but where the people had not suffered as long a time, nor have they had quite as bad abuse & they have been getting around £2000 upwards, but as I say I'm not trying to be greedy & I asked for £2500, which they rejected instantly. Are there any sort of specialist solicitors I can talk to, or can I just take this through the courts myself? I hope that helps make more sense & thanks for the help.

Well, here's the latest from BG. They are still only prepared to offer £150 compensation so I feel I have no other option but to take this to court, but I'm not sure exactly how to go about it, so any ideas on what I need to do? Do I just complete info of what, why & who I want to make a claim against via the online system on the .gov.uk website? Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi again, Well here's a quick update.... I was offered.....£150 ......Yes that's correct £150, for years of incorrect bills, my having to change phone numbers, debt collectors ringing & knocking, a court official coming to disconnect my electric supply, not to mention all the stress caused to myself & my family. I was told that was all he could offer & he would have to now take things to a higher office of people who could possibly offer higher, but chances are won't. So I said I would end up having to take things to court should a much higher offer not be made, I've suffered for years so what's a little bit longer. As for the refunded amount, they are going to finally sort out copies of the past bills for me to look through & I'll compare figures. So that's it so far.

Hi, Yes BG have asked me what I think is fair, yet they have also said they don't give compensation, but a "Possible, Good Will Gesture", but that may only be £20 per call made regarding my unresolved problem. I checked the online details re the £1438.79 & it was added as a single credit, without any sort of breakdown, that's why I've kept asking them for the breakdown. I tried to ring a manager earlier at a prearranged time, just for him to not be found anywhere, so I have via email arranged a time this evening to talk to him. I'll add an update later to let you know what was said, hopefully it will be good news.

Hi, The bills were shown as 3 separate charges on some & only 2 separate charges on others (why I don't know), but they claim that the over payment came to a total of £1438.79, but they have failed to show how they came to this figure, even though they said they would email all of the details. I will make sure I get the VAT back & I am going to push for this missing email which confirms the figure so far. They have now asked me to come up with a figure for the compensation I think is fair, but I am at a loss of what to ask....some people asked say £3000, others more & some slightly less, but I have never been in this situation so I don't want to sound greedy, but don't want to under estimate. Any advice? Thanks

Hi, My account has only been in credit with weekly payments I have made myself to try to lessen the impact of the past high bills, but on Friday evening just after 8pm, there was a refunded of £1438.79 placed in to my BGas account, but this amount has not been checked or agreed by me & went in without any sort of notice. I was asking about court action, as I have been billed for 3 meters, but I only have 1 metre & I have suffered abuse from a BGas manager, debt collectors & various other issues, as earlier mentioned & this has been going on for years. I was told back on Sept 21st 2015, that they knew how much they owed me but kept coming up with excuses & never offered payment. They then told me on 3 other occasions that they had it all sorted & knew how much they owed, but never told me & never offered payment, so I am so fed up with it all I was told I could take them to court but I thought I'd double check that here first, hence my post. I have been informed that this money is a refund for my over payment, but they have said several times I will not get the VAT added in my refund, even though I paid it to them, but I have to ring today & give an idea of how much compensation I think would be fair. So has anyone got any idea what they think is a fair amount to ask for? I have read a story of a man in a similar situation where he was over charged for 4yrs & got £2000 compensation, but only after he was going to take his case to court, so do I ask for more as my problem has had more problems & has gone on around seven & a half years. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

I have just received the following email at 8:18pm "Hi Mr Xxxxxx All details have now been updated and the credit applied which has left you in credit by a significant margin Please call in Monday to discuss this and hopefully resolve the issue. If you’d like information about our complaints handling procedure you can view a copy by either going online at britishgas.co.uk/energycomplaints, or by getting in touch and one of our advisors will arrange to send you a copy free of charge. Xxxxxxxxxxxx Team Manager British Gas" I'm not happy at all.

Here's something that's just happened..... I just logged in to my BGas account to check my gas bill, just to find that BGas have just added £1438.79 to my electricity account, but they did this without contacting me as agreed, so I could check there figures & also there has been nothing agreed about my compensation. What should I do?

The main reason I have now decided to find out if I can take this to court is thanks to my feeling so sick of being constantly fobbed off by British Gas, a company who just keep changing things/dates to suit themselves. Also I think I have been more than patient enough with them, especially my giving them 2 months over the first date they said they had all the figures needed & the date they said it would resolved. I am hoping that my taking them to court will put an end to what has been a very, very long stressful nightmare. I myself go out of my way to try & have my energy bills paid on time, but the ridiculous electric bills were way more than I could have ever paid on time, so surely a huge company like British Gas can pay back my over payments made to them a bit quicker, instead of dragging things out longer than needed.

That is exactly what I should have said, but I get tongue tied...so thank you for that better summary

That's one thing I questioned them myself about, but they just tried to dodge the subject.

Hi, Sorry, I know it is complicated, but to summarize..... I have been over charged by British Gas for years on my electricity account, which they admit. I have been told that they have the figures of what is owed since September but keep coming up with excuses as to why the won't give me the figure. So far I've had 4 different dates. I have been accused of lying about my electricity supply, ie. I was falsely accused of sub-letting rooms in my property, so that's why I was being charged 3x for my single metre. I was told to 'f-off' by the manager, who accused me of the above. They have stated that I can expect no sort of compensation other than goodwill gestures of £20 for calls made, where problem not resolved. They also say Iwon't get any VAT back which was wrongly paid in the first place. They have caused me to have a non existent credit score, thanks to the high bills, which I could not afford to fully pay. This caused my account to be passed to Lowell debt collectors, which included all my contact phone numbers, which included our ex directory landline, so we started receiving nuisance calls. We had a court official out to disconnect our "3" electric supplies, only to find we only had "1" supply & he did not cut that off as I'm disabled & have a disabled child. So basically, I'm fed up with being messed around, having been told 4 times to expect the figure to resolve this problem & the last straw came today after being told they still didn't have the figurem even though I have another email stating it will be ready. So I was advised by a friend I might be able to take British Gas to court, to claim back money over paid & also compensation for all the calls, emails, time & hassle we have suffered, but wanted to try & find out if this was true. So I hope this summarized version makes it easier to read & understand, as I know my main post was long winded. Thanks

Hi Conniff, Thanks for the reply. They have told me that I am owed at least 12,800 units worth, just off one of the added meters & that I was charged £6.800 over the many years, where the bills showed triple readings/charges for the single metre we have, so if I had to guess it's over £1000 & could be anything up to £4000. We don't really use a lot of electricity as we tend to be out a lot of the time, but we did have a winter bill which was for £750 for 3 months, so I think that sort of gives an idea of how bad our bills were. I hope this helps.

Hi, I have a very long ongoing problem with British Gas regarding my electricity account & I was now wondering if I can take them to court, so I'm hoping I might get some advice. Here's the problem..... For many years (at least 6yrs) I have been receiving large electricity bills, which I have queried with BG, as I kept getting bills with multiple readings & charges for my single electric metre. The problems started after BG wanted to change our old meter for a newer up to date metre back in 2009. We had an engineer turn up on the agreed morning, but he wasn't qualified to change it, so he came back in the afternoon with another engineer, who again was not qualified, so a third engineer came the next day & he did change the meter. So we had 3 engineers come out but only only one metre was replaced, by one engineer, but it turns out that the other 2 engineers, who were unable to change the metre, were logged as having changed the metre, so according to BG we had 3 electricity meters, but only actually had 1. We never noticed that our bills were wrong at first, but we had a G4S metre reader ask to read the metre, which we allowed, but he then asked where were our other 2 meter's, just to then say they all had the same metre number, so just put the reading in 3 times. He then suggested that we check our bills as he thought we would be getting billed too much, which we were. I rang BG at the time but I kept getting told that they had sorted the problem & our future bills would be correct, but they never were. I rang back at one point & spoke to a Customer Service Manager, who went on to call me a liar & told me I was 'Sub-letting' our property & that we did have 3 meters, this was even after him seeing photo's of our metre, he even told me to 'f-off' at one point & refused to take my calls. So I have kept on for years calling & emailing BG regarding the problem & I eventually got speaking to someone, back in July this year, who admitted I was being wrongly billed & that also admitted I was being billed for 3 meters not just the one. This person has now after a couple of months got our bills showing as just having a single supply, after having 2 removed from the National Database, which is great. However BG are still dragging there feet about confirming how much they owe us & are telling me I shouldn't expect much in the way of compensation. I was told by this person in an email that they would have the figure sorted out by 21st September 2015, but it wasn't, they decided they needed it confirmed by G4S that we did indeed only have 1 metre & that someone would be out to confirm this on the 30th Sept, so I said ok.....the person never turned up. I spoke rang again on the 2nd Oct, when I was told they never got the confirmation, so they had to again arrange for someone to come out on the 23rd Oct & they did indeed turn up this time. I had to ring back on the 30th Oct., a date confirmed via email, but the person who made the appointment, the person I had been dealing with for months, wasn't there, he was on holiday & wasn't due back until 9th Nov., so I saw red & was furious & ended up getting his manager involved. The manager tried to dodge helping me by saying he was unable to access details of my problem & could not get the confirmation email regarding my single metre, but I kept on at him & he ended up finding a way of getting the information after a couple of days. I was told by him that they had the confirmation & now they needed to workout the over payments, less VAT (which I have overpaid), so asked if I could ring back on 9th Nov., when they should have the amount......still no figure when rang. I was asked to ring again today, 20th Nov. & was told they would have the figure sorted, but also said I was only able to expect £20 compensation, for calls not resolved & that I shouldn't expect anything else. Now I know that's all long winded, but in all the time this has been going on I have been called a liar, been told to 'f-off', I have had to change all our phone numbers as BG passed my account on to Lowell's debt collectors, who rang loads & also sold our ex-directory number to others & they would not accept the account was in dispute. I have had someone from the courts out threatening to cut off 'ALL 3' electricity supplies, but who only found 1 & couldn't disconnect as I am disabled & so is one of my children. BG have destroyed my credit rating so much I couldn't get credit anywhere, so I have to save to buy anything we need. they have also said that any money owed is repaid less the VAT we paid at the time & we cannot have any interest on the money, even though we would have gained some interest over the years. So back to my main question, Can I take British Gas to court? I'll try to answer any questions that might help you give better advice, if you have any questions that is. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks

I sent a cheque, which they did not cash & ripped up.

Hi MM, I have had a call late Friday gone from Experian re the Protect My Id account & they have confirmed that they have fully closed the account, well they fully closed it while speaking to them. The young lad I spoke to was very helpful indeed & he confirmed that they could see that we had never accessed the account, especially as I had told him we had never had any sort of mail from them as he confirmed the account had to first be accessed using a PIN number, which we never received. He also spoke to the relevant department about how the account was set up in the first place & this was apparently all done by Vanquis direct using a similar system that anyone would use when wanting to signup online. So they gave me all the information they could about how the account was setup & advised to send an SAR request to Vanquis as they would/should have records of the data input ie. name of the person who set it up & hopefully a log of security details which we & them did not know, so the SAR to Vanquis has gone today via recorded delivery. Something else which happened with this farce last week was that we received a letter firstly on Wednesday from Vanquis warning us that they were getting ready to involve 'Impact Debt Collectors' in the near future, to get all money outstanding. But it seems they did not wait too long as we had a letter from Impact the following day (Thursday) threatening action & by friday we started receiving phone calls from them. So I sent Impact a letter on Thursday to inform them of the issues we have & to let them know we are seeking legal advice, which I know they received as I tracked it & the calls seemed to have stopped, so far. I am just waiting on a written reply now from both Vanquis & Impact, so I'll keep you all informed & can't thank all who have replied enough, your help is very much appreciated. Thanks Dash

There weren't any problems on the account when we discovered that they'd added protect my id. They have used my wifes name, email & d.o.b., but we had no idea what the password was for it & when we tried to use the 'Forgot password' option we were then asked security questions which we could not answer, so clearly someone at Vanquis made this without our knowledge.

Hi All, Thanks for the replies. I do know for certain that my wife did not agree to adding 'Protect My Id', but if she had of then we would have no trouble accessing her account direct, but as already stated we have no idea of any password & when trying to retrieve it we get stopped at the security questions as we don't have the correct answers.My wife tried calling Experian about the P.M.I. account & it took nearly 30mins for them to find the account & they themselves could only say that the answers they wanted to the security questions were wrong & all they offered was to have a form from a different company sent out to claim back any payments made for a fraudulently made account. Vanquis are now threatening us with debt collectors, but I am sticking to my guns & will not be threatened or intimidated by them. I will send for the SAR as advised & I will write to both companies again & hopefully will get a better response, though I'm not expecting much from Vanquis. Thanks again.

Can anyone help? please.

Hi, Firstly I hope this makes sense. My wife got a Vanquis credit card with a £250 limit back in March this year, however it seems that they also added Protect my id, (from Experian) adding a £6.99 fee each month, but my wife was sure she did not agree to this. So after finding out it was an Experian product we tried firstly to login to the account on the Experian website, but we found that we could only get so far, they had my wifes name, her email address & even her date of birth, but it also asks for her mothers maiden name as the final security question, which we put in & it did not work. So after trying her mothers maiden & current surnames & then even trying my mothers we could not gain access. So I got my wife to ring Experian who could not find my wifes details at first, but after several different ways of searching, they eventually found her using our post code, but they asked several questions, which my wife answered & again it got to some where they were the wrong answers. Now to be honest I'm rather angry with Vanquis, as I have found that they have been taking the minimum payments as requested each month, but as soon as the payment is taken they have been adding the £6.99 charge for this, plus interest & this then pushes the amount owed back over the £250 limit, so they then add another £12 charge on top. Now with all these added charges, they then add the monthly interest on top of that, so the amount owed will NEVER come down, even when paying what they want as the minimum payment. Over the last few days/week we have been receiving several phone calls & texts demanding not only the minimum payment but also an EXTRA £23, to bring the account back to £250, but I have worked out that they have added nearly £32 in added charges this month, & last month it was close to £24 (added charges). Experian themselves have had a letter sent to my wife to reclaim all fees paid as they say it was taken without my wifes knowledge, but we've been waiting several weeks now for any follow up on that. So can someone possibly tell me do we have any rights against Vanquis for adding this Protect my id, plus all the interest & added charges that have came about through this. Any help/advice would be gratefully appreciated.

My apology....my last reply should read, Hi Silverfox.....my stupid keyboard....I'm so out of the way of forums, could someone (admin/mod) please delete this reply as I found the edit post option,

Hi Silverfox, After receiving your reply I have been on to the ASA website & I have sent a complaint to the ASA re. parcelmonkey's advert & I've also pointed out all the things you have advised, especially section 8 of the T&C's. Thanks