British Gas,advice please!!!

[Katie1480]

Hi,i'm new to the forum

 

Recently i had a pre pay meter fitted to pay of a debt by British Gas for my Electricity as i owed just over £600,when i had it put in i agreed to pay £12 a week back as i only work part time so don't have alot of income a month,last week i noticed the meter going down quite alot especially during the night when we were all in bed and not using anything!! i've worked out it was roughly taking about £5 or just under a day!! so last wed (15/10) i rang British Gas to query it as it was stating on the meter the debt a week was set at £25 (£100 a month!) she confirmed it was and i told them i had never agreed to that amount and she thought it was high so i was told to put some credit on the key for the next 3 days at the same place and on the third day it would change the rate and that would be it,so i did what she said but after the 3 days it still stated the debt a week was £25,so i rang back and explained it all again,was told that the previous message sent didn't work and another had been sent in meantime so to pick that up i would have to put credit on the key another 3 days at same place etc etc and it should change so i did it all again,this morning being the last day,out the key in and nothing happened...by this time i was fuming as since last tues (15th) ive put just under £30 in my meter! i actually had the woman's name and direct number i spoke to on saturday so i gave her a call this morning and explained it all again! she put me on hold for a few minutes and came back with there was a problem with the message being sent to the meter again and i would need to do another 3 days of putting credit on starting thurs and last day being saturday and it should work.

 

I'm at my wits end now,i'm completely broke as i don't get paid till friday,and although i can always borrow some money i don't see why i should have to,i've tried telling them i can't afford to do this any longer,that i may have to have no electric until i get paid,and i have an 8 year old daughter living with me but they don't care one bit,i asked them to send someone out to sort it and all i get is 'We don't have engineers to do that,as they can't change the settings on pre pay meters' i asked to speak to a manager and surprise surprise the manager had just walked off and been called into a meeting,but would call me back...which was almost 2 hours ago...

 

Does anyone know what i can do?? whatever i tell them falls on deaf ears,it's either do the 3 day credit thing which will be the third time now or do without,they can't help me otherwise,if i was to pay £25 a week,i would have to at least put £40 a week on my meter which mounts up to £160 a month,they changed the weekly rate without my knowledge or without me signing anything.

 

Don't know what to do

[nottslad]

Hi Katie, sorry to hear about the problems you're having with BG.

 

It does take 3 consecutive top ups at the same outlet for a message to be sent through Talexus (the database which holds key meter information manufactured by the meter company).

 

You should be able to top up as little as £1 so that this can be done. Also, I believe there is a way to get an engineer round to alter the settings through an emergency appointment, particularly if you are going to run out of credit, I know this is definately the case with gas accounts but not too hot on electric i'm afraid.

 

When you top up are you getting any error messages? You might possibly need a new key

[Katie1480]

Hi, thanks for replying,no error,messages the meter is working fine.

 

I've done the 3 day top up twice now already,only to be told on both occasions that it didn't work because they hadn't picked up the first message which the woman i spoke to let on that i should have been advised about it in the first place and not told to top up until it had been received,the manager rang me back this afternoon finally after me waiting 5 hours...when i was told it would be half n hour to an hour! and she said i need to do the 3 day top again and assured me it would all be sorted this time but i'm not too sure,think i will break down and cry if it fails again,just an example of how much i'm paying at the moment,i put in £5 this morning,there was already £2.54..so at 9.30 am i had £7.54.....now (time is 00.27) i have £4.33 left,i will more than likely have to go into my emergency tomorrow because it will take another £2 odd overnight while nothing is being used and i am absolutely skint now til friday which is payday,i've explained all this to them today and told them i have an 8 year old daughter and all i keep getting is they understand my situation but theres nothing they can do but have me do the 3 day top up.

[mattlamb]

I'm really surprised that the debt repayment was set to as much as £25.00 per week in the first place. How the hell did BG think you would be able to afford this??!! I thought that the default repayment set on a prepayment meter was £5.00 per week.

[Katie1480]

I know,i was surprised myself as i had made them and the bloke who offered to get the meter fitted for me aware what i could afford and my circumstances,£12 a week is the highest i can afford on my income at the moment and i have said if it's possible i may pay over the phone at times some extra off the debt,if i could afford £100 a month which it's set at now i'd have just paid the bill off altogether at the time it just annoys me when you explain to them what situation you are in and they patronise you by saying they understand your circumstances when in reality...they don't.

 

I've emailed a complaint to one of the high up managers but surprise surprise i've heard nothing back.

[elie1977]

Hi, i was in the same situation as you, they had all my contract wrong in the first place and by the time they sorted it out for my new house in 2007 they gave me a bill for £670. No way i could afford it so stuck one of those key things in, supposed to be paying back £7.00 per week off debt besides normal money, but earlier this year it was using loads of electric over night costing a fortune, and i found out it was on something called economy7 tarriff, which uses more credit on a night for some strange reason and you can tell by pressing your button on meter once and you get a long number and if you press it again you also get a long number and if so you are on economy7 which they came and changed meter but never got any money back just knocked it off outstanding debt but now down to £150 debt, hope this helps.

[Consumer dude]

ask to go on the quarter..

[mattlamb]

Yeah, I would check to make sure you are not on E7 tariff.

If your keymeter has a J screen on the display, you are on E7 tariff. Unless you have storage heaters, or use a lot of electric in the night (eg: washing machine on overnight, as well as other appliances may make it worthwhile having E7, note the word MAY), you are better off being on the single rate tariff. In my experience as a meter reader, a large number of prepayment customers are on E7 tariff when they shouldn't be.

Consumerdude - its extremely unlikely that either Elie or Katie could have their prepayment meter removed when there is a debt on it.

[mattlamb]

Actually one thing Katie, Bgas do sometimes set up keymeters so that both H and J screens are displayed, yet the actual reading used is on G screen (normally total units used on both rates). If the H and J screen readings are both extremely low and the G reading is a lot higher than the total of the other two, this will have happened.

I dont understand why they sometimes do this. It does not make sense (as you cannot tell what tariff you are on then) but unfortunately it does happen fairly often.

[nottslad]

Matt, this is probably so that E7 is an option without having to perform a meter exchange, the way to tell the tariff is by looking at the product and pricing on the bill or by calling the suppplier.

 

E7 only works out cheaper if you use at least 40% of electricity at night (normally 11-6, depending on PES area), and you can have an E7 meter but be billed as a single rate meter by just using the total of the readings

[disputer]

If you have young children you could be considered as vulnerable consumer and therefore you can be treated differently, this means Consumer Focus, the Government watchdog for vulnerable consumers can assist you with the issue and help you resolve the issue. Now as important keep a record of all your communications written and phone calls so that if you cannot resolve it you have a record set to send to the Ombudsman, you can do this by paper or use an online system like disputer to assist.