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Crash v British Gas


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Sent a copy of Judgment to Information Commissioner's Office previously, and have now sent them this:

 

Attn: Legal Team

British Gas Services Limited

3 The Square

Stockley Park

Uxbridge

Middlesex UB11 1BN

 

29 Jan 2007

 

LETTER BEFORE ACTION

LETTER REMOVED , please do not post our template letters on the forum , Thanks

 

May be able to kill two birds with one stone if I'm reallly lucky (NOT!) :grin:

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Some woman from BG has left me a message saying she doesn't have the full details of my complaint, and as much as she would like to, she can't help unless she knows what the problem is. Tried to speak to her today but had to leave a message.

 

In the meantime, Ian White from the data team has sent me an identical letter to before, asking me to fill in a form and send a tenner, for them to be able to provide me with my DPA information...despite me speaking to him a few weeks ago about this. They obviously don't know what they are doing, and want to be awkward. Still, we'll see where I get to with this lady who 'wants' to help.

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Spoke to BG trying to locate this woman, to no avail. One woman actually read through my payments etc and it sounded like I may have paid £5 each time I credited the meter rather than the meter taking off the equivalent of £5 per week (why couldn't they give me this info two years ago?) BUT still no statements to back this up, and all she said was the relevant dept is dealing with that issue. Yeah right.

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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And second update:

 

Received a letter from Davis & Co. solicitors acting on behalf of BG 'Trading'. They've advised that BGS only recently became aware of the judgment in default dated 10th Jan, and they've requested a cheque for £60 to be made payable to me.

 

They've also added with ref to my letter further up in the thread of 29th Jan that they confirm they've requested further info/docs in relation to my gas account from BG, saying 'we should be grateful if you would allow us until 5th mar 07 to respond on BG's behalf to your request for a refund of alleged overpayment of £393.06.'

 

All further docs are requested to be sent to them.

 

Well, it looks like someone is taking my complaint seriously, but it's interesting to see that their appointed solicitors are looking into the overpayment even though I haven't started a court claim on it...probably coz the first non-compliance claim is linked to it. Oh well....we'll see.

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Received a cheque on Saturday for £60 to cover the judgment on the first claim - still no statements though. Am waiting for the solicitors to get back to me by 7th March in response to the original query.

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Mushymoo apologies for delay but I didn't have the paper on me. Don't know if this helps your situation as you may need to contact BG's internal departments, but the solicitors acting on behalf of BGT are:

 

Davis & Co.

St Michael's Rectory

St. Michael's Alley

Cornhill

London

EC3V 9DS

Tel: 0207-621-1091

Fax: 0207-621-1050

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Anyway here's an update on my situ. Received a letter from the solicitors on 03 March 2007:

 

In relation to your claim for a refund of £393.06 we are instructed that as of 05/02/07 the status of your gas acct was as follows:

 

The cost of gas used on your prepayment meter: £ 1182.53

Debt assigned to your meter: £ 306.94

Total due to BGT: £ 1489.47

Less monies received by BGT from you via prepay meter: £ 1497.00

Account balance: £7.53 in credit

Please note that prepay meters are set with a recovery rate of £5.00 but the meter will only start deducting once a debt has been assigned to the meter. Therefore, whilst the meter may have indicated that £5.00 was being 'recovered for debt', because no debt was placed upon the meter, there was no sum against which the deductions couldd be placed, and the actual value of gas passed through the meter would be the total credit placed upon it;and the indicated sum of £5.00 'recovered for debt' would not in fact be

taken.

Should you not agree with the calculations, a meter dump may be carried out in which the data stored on your gas meter is placed on a card and can be reviewed. Please advise should you wish a meter dump to take place.

Now, on the face of it, it sounds like perhaps I'm not owed a refund afterall. But I have a major concern. This is now the THIRD time they are stating that no debt was added to the meter, yet I have still managed to pay over and above debt (albeit by £7 odd according to their figures). What is even more alarming is that when I called them about the debt in Mar 06 their system showed £5 left on the debt one week, then £6 the next (!) then when I was told to check the meter for the accurate figures, it showed over £100 debt still owing. The guy on the phone said 'don't worry, I'll wipe the whole remaining debt off for you right now'.

 

SO...had I not called for the next 6 mths or year...I probably would have still been paying this so-called debt.

 

I disagree with their figures and am going to draft a nice long letter requesting this 'meter dump' AND I still haven't received my statements/transactions.

 

At the end of the day it is a matter of principle, and I require peace of mind. If I am not owed a refund, that's fine. But I need to know why there are so many different stories/opinions and debt figures that have been given to me througout this quest. They can't ALL be right!

 

The saga continues...watch this space :)

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Right, am sending the following letter to BG today by recorded delivery:

Davis & Co. Solicitors

St Michael’s Rectory

St Michael’s Alley

Cornhill

London

EC3V 9DS

14 March 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

Mrs. Crash v British Gas Services Limited (BGS) Aylesbury County Court Claim xxxxxx

Thank you for your letter dated 02 March 2007. I have read your comments with interest. I have several concerns with the information you have provided. According to the information in your letter, this is now the third time I am being informed that the debt of £306.94 was not passed to the meter in my house.

‘Please note that prepayment meters are set with a recovery rate of £5.00 but the meter will only start deducting once a debt has been assigned to the meter. Therefore, whilst the meter may have indicated that £5.00 was being 'recovered for debt', because no debt was placed upon the meter, there was no sum against which the deductions could be placed, and the actual value of gas passed through the meter would be the total credit placed upon it; and the indicated sum of £5.00 'recovered for debt' would not in fact be taken.’

Yet, according to your breakdown of figures, I have still managed to pay over and above the debt amount, despite this being a pre-payment meter. The amount you have shown is £7.53 in credit. Please can you explain to me that when I was exasperated with the debt situation and spoke to BGS customer services in February and March 2006, how is it that I was given so many different debt amounts? Or perhaps you can explain how it is that I was informed one week that the debt I owed was £6.13 on the ‘system’ and the following showed £13.65? Or that a physical check on the meter indicated £170.87 still outstanding? Or how it is possible that when I called customer services to inform them of this discrepancy, they immediately wiped this debt clear over the phone for me? I am enclosing the letter I sent to British Gas in March 2006, as it will explain in detail my concerns over the mis-management of this debt.

I am amazed that I am still a customer of British Gas. Had it not been for this overpayment of debt, I would have moved to another company a long time ago. I am NOT satisfied with the figures you have given me. I believe there has been a serious error in either the meter, the assignment of the debt to the meter, or the way my account has been handled. I DO require a meter dump, and I have STILL to receive the statements and transactions I requested in my Subject Access Request letter, as I need to know if there was any manual intervention to the running of my account, and I need to see what the transactional information shows. Please note in reference to court claim xxxxxxx, although the £60 for the court claim fee/costs has been paid, as I am still awaiting the information I requested, the court claim will not be discontinued. I have already informed the courts of this. Until I receive this information, or a satisfactory resolution to my issues, I cannot make further comment, and therefore still hold BGS accountable for refund on the overpayment of this debt by £393.06.

I look forward to receiving my statements/transactional, and meter dump information from you within the next 14 days. I would expect this to be ample time to resolve a query that has been ongoing for almost five years now. Should I not receive a satisfactory response, then I will be escalating my complaint to Energywatch and to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Yours faithfully,

 

Mrs. Crash

cc:

Roger Carr

Chairman, British Gas

Sam Laidlaw

Chief Executive, British Gas

Helen Alexander CBE

Non-executive Director, British Gas

Phil Bentley

Managing Director, British Gas

We'll see what happens....

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Please note that prepayment meters are set with a recovery rate of £5.00 but the meter will only start deducting once a debt has been assigned to the meter.

 

In regards to the above statement by them, I have ran a few tests for and it is not possible to send a message through to the quantum meter of a setting to collect 0 at the rate of 5 pounds. The meter will not accept this as a message being how can you collect 0 at a weekly rate. The debt to be put on the meter needs to be greater than the weekly collection rate. Hope this helps, it can be changed at any time through a message sent to the terminal you top up and when card is inserted into your meter it inputs the message to reset. But at no point can they set 0 with a weekly collection rate. Hope this helps.

The info received in yuor SAR will be interesting when you finally get it. let us know. Dump card will arrive soon hopefully put it in your meter for about 5 mins then send it back, however this isnt really going to prove much apart from what the meter is currently doing.

 

 

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Thanks Ozzy, I appreciate it. It will be interesting to see how this all unravels but I'm just astounded that this has gone on so long, and how incompetent their internal affairs is!!

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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  • 1 month later...

Right, it's taken me forever to get respond to the letter I received from the solicitors in response to my letter. I hope it makes sense :)

 

Thank you for your letter dated 20 March 2007. I apologise for the delay in responding but I have been very ill as of late. In response to the comments you made to my points, in my letter of 14 March 2007, I would now like to comment in return:

1. Status of Action Claim # xxxxxxxx

Your comments are duly noted that the claim I issued is liable to be struck out as it has been pursued against an incorrect defendant. I am, however, perfectly within my rights to amend or re-commence a County Court claim to the correct defendant. Should the need arise, I may pursue this course of action.

2. Reconciliation of my pre-payment account

Thank you for sending me a statement of my account. I have looked through this and further comments are below.

3. Request for a refund of £393.06

You were enquiring about which 140 weeks I was referring to as a basis for my claim to a refund. I thought my initial letter to British Gas made this perfectly clear. I was referring to 140 weeks from the date the meter was installed (25 June 2003) to the date the remaining debt was ‘wiped’ off my meter by ‘Steve’, when I called to complain for yet another time, on 03 March 2006. I enclose yet another copy of this letter for your reference.

I note your comments about the factors which affect how a debt is deducted from a meter. These factors you mention are in contradiction with what I have been advised by British Gas Customer Services on a number of occasions.

i) that credit is placed upon the meter on a weekly basis – I was advised that the debt would be deducted every week, even if I didn’t place credit on it weekly – in turn if there wasn’t ii) sufficient credit placed upon the meter, or if there was not enough credit in the meter, the relevant deductions would be made next time I placed credit on the meter, even two weeks worth if necessary.

You also yet again make the point upon the basis that the debt has been ‘transmitted’ to the meter for the collection in the first instance, which (apparently you say) appears to be a particular issue upon my account.

Once again, I am surprised that this factor still appears to be an issue. If you are disputing that the debt was never ‘transmitted’ or passed to the meter (if I understand you correctly) then how is it that I have managed to pay MORE than my standard gas usage on a pre-payment meter?

I have also looked at the statement and this worries me further. As you rightly say, I cannot be expected to fully understand how the statement coding works, but certain things seem quite obvious within the transactions. Whilst you say that the transmission of the debt to my meter seems to be a particular issue on my account, there is clearly a reference to the sum of £306.94 on 27 June 2003 – the debt amount, which I can only assume, means that on the 27th, this debt was in fact transmitted to the meter after all.

Throughout the statement of accounts, this debt generally reduces to a lower amount, until eventually on 03 March 2006, it showed as £13.65 outstanding. This ties in with my phone call to British Gas, when ‘Steve’ advised me of the same amount outstanding on the debt I owed.

My concern is that if the meter was correctly deducting and reducing the debt amount, then why does the statement show that on 20 Nov 2003 there was £295.26 outstanding, yet three months later, the debt amount remaining was higher again – at £306.55. Then again on 01 Apr 05 the amount owed showed at £152.82, yet two months later the debt amount was higher, at £154.73. If you look at my letter dated 03 March 2006, this confirms and tallies with the conversations I had with customer services, who read the system to say I owed £6.13 (I believe I misheard by 10 pence, and they were referring to £6.03 as shown on the statement on 09 Feb 06). I was told at this point that in the next deduction, the whole amount would be taken, and the debt would be clear. But this didn’t happen. The meter was still making deductions, when I finally called and spoke to ‘Steve’ then we get back to this £13.65 figure. So once again, the debt went up, rather than going down.

To me, this isn’t very difficult to deduce. The debt was managed incorrectly by the meter, and thus I have been overcharged and am due a refund. This is a pre-payment meter we are talking about. I placed credit on it, some of which was used, some of which was deducted for the debt. Somewhere along the line something has gone wrong, which is why we are in this position now.

Unless you can explain why a pre-payment meter had so many glaring discrepancies, as shown from what I have highlighted of the statement of accounts, I still stand by my request for a refund of £393.06, and look forward to receiving payment from you in due course.

I understand the meter dump information has already been requested. I look forward to receiving this too.

Yours faithfully,

 

Mrs. Crash

cc:

Roger Carr

Chairman, British Gas

Sam Laidlaw

Chief Executive, British Gas

Helen Alexander CBE

Non-executive Director, British Gas

Phil Bentley

Managing Director, British Gas

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Hi Crash,

 

I can well applicate the 'fun' your having with BG, they supply my Electricity and are forever sending 'Guesstimated bills'. I think because I live out in the sticks the private company that takes the meter readings don't even try to find me, it's easier just to guess. At one stage I was £630 (from my own readings) in debt. Try as I might, I could not get them to adjust my monthly payment. It took three years to sort out what should be a easy solution and left me paying £90 per month to clear the debt instead of the £60 it should be.

 

They have to have the worst Public Relations outfit, ever :mad:

 

Good luck in your quest, I don't think they realize who is on their case :D

 

Lex

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Advice & opinions given by me are personal, are not endorsed by the Consumer Action Group or the Bank Action Group. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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Thanks for the encouragement Lex. I thought my case was bad! I'm appalled by the whole saga, it disgusts me that so many people are shafted all the time, and only a small percentage of those people take it any further.

 

I am NOT giving up without what is already a pretty good fight :)

Crash

 

 

 

 

DAY 1: 12/09 - S A R to British Gas

DAY 45: 27/10 - Data Non-Compliance sent off

DAY 67: 18/11 - N1 Deemed served

DAY 114: 03/01 - Judgment served £60 cheque rec'd; Prelim sent for overpayment refund of £393.06

24 Days: E2Save Settled in full £70

59 Days: Barclaycard claim Settled in full £134.39

162 Days: Halifax Settled in full £1543.80

179 Days: Barclays1 Settled in full £2450.45 + £447.02 in costs

254 Days: Barclays 2 Settled in full £1450.91

 

Advice & opinions offered are personal, and are offered informally, without prejudice & without liability. Should you be in any doubt, you are advised to seek the opinion of a qualified professional.

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