@britishgashelp At a loss at how to proceed with British Gas and their random billing

[nounours]

Hi all,

an ongoing exchange with Brish Gas is, let's say, keeping me awake at night and I would appreciate any advice.

 

the facts:

 

1.I have been living in the same 1 bedroom, tiny flat for the past 9 years.

2, I have always paid my bills, on time; some were estimated,some not - regular visits from the meter guy, or I sumitted a meter reading on line.

3. My gas bills have never, ever exceeded £300.

 

4. In early December before the new bill was due I logged onto my online account to see what was coming. It said, quite surprisingly, that my account was £1329 in credit. I laughed it off and waited, figuring an IT glitch since various pages on the webste were malfunctioning.

 

5. I got a bill, about a week later, for a whooping £4242.

After I picked myself off the floor and had a strong drink, I called customers' services. The lady made all the right noises and assured me someone was going to look into it and get back to me within 3 to 6 weeks. She added that my 'estimated bill' was cancelled.

 

I waited.

 

6. I sent them an email on February 18 and received the following:

Dear X

 

Thank you for your email about the gas bill. I'm sorry for the delay in my reply.

 

I can see from your account we've called you on 18 January 2013,(they did not, I was homeall day and no-one called.) we have cancelled your estimated bills and our specialist team is in the process of resolving your enquiry.

 

In order to resolve your query to the best of our capabilities, I have also forwarded your account details to my supervisor. We will deal this for you at the earliest. In the meanwhile I request your patience.

 

I’m sorry I’ve not been able to fully resolve your enquiry today. I will contact you again on 2 February 2013 to give you an update on my progress.

 

7. On February 14, I got the following email:

Dear X

 

This is with reference to our previous email about the bill.

 

We had billed your gas account to the reading submitted by our meter reader. The details of the bill are below -

 

Meter reading: 14141

Bill period: 26 October 2012 to 17 January 2013

Bill charges: £143.36

Amount brought forward: £4,195.08

 

The current debit balance on your account is £4,345.60.

 

Just to inform you that the previous readings we had received from our meter reader were -

 

13888 on 25 October 2012

13805 on 30 July 2012

 

This shows that we had billed your account to the correct reading. Please reply to my email with the meter reading, if the reading we had used to bill your account is incorrect and I'll be happy to help.

 

Please get in touch by 27 February 2013, so I can progress this for you.

 

Thank you for contacting British Gas.

 

8. Again I called customers' services.

Out of the hour long conversation ( I was hyperventilating) came out the following: that my bills had 'always been estimated' (wrong) and that I was probably owing that money. She then filled in the paperwork for a 'task', which is, essentially, some investigation.

And now I'm waiting to see what happens.

 

Am i insane? Does this even make any sense to anyone? Any insight, anything really, would really help. Thank you.

Edited February 16, 2013 by nounours

[citizenB]

Sheesh.. surely there is something very wrong indeed here.

 

Have you kept your bills from previous years or can you access them ?

 

If not, then I think you need to send a Subject Access Request - this will cost you £10.00 and they have 40 days to respond.

 

It was my understanding that they could only claim back 2 years if there was an error.. but perhaps that is wishful thinking. I will alert site team on your behalf.

[BankFodder]

British Gas are wholly incompetent. A journo from the Express the other day told me that apparently the stats show that EDF are worse - but he didn't believe it - and I don't either.

 

 

Firstly, you MUST get a call-recorder. If you are going to deal with any of this on the phone, you must record the calls. Otherwise all sorts of things will be said or agreed and later on denied and you will have no proof.

Record the calls - this is a priority.

 

No. 2 send them an SAR immediately and get everything they have on you in any form and on any matter.

You definitely want to get your entire bill history going back 2 or 3 years.

Also access your account on the website and take screenshots of everything. You should have done this before but I suppose that you didn't.

 

Next write them a letter - sent special delivery containing a forma denial that you owe the money they claim - and explain why. This will have absolutely no effect on them but you need to get it on the record.

 

Whenever you call them - recording the call - do not give them the account reference number. Give them your post code and let them find the account. Then ask them to give you the account reference number. It is not unknown for them to be working from multiple accounts without knowing it. They may accidentally reveal this to you by giving you a different account number. This happened to me once - and luckily I was recording the call. They were trying to bill me for three separate accounts in the same street.

They went mad that I had recorded the calls and I even got a threatening call from their idiot solicitor at the time who was more concerned that I was recording calls then the fact that they couldn't manage their accounts correctly.

Eventually they compensated me.

 

For the moment you must simply gather as much info as possible. Compare account numbers, meter numbers - build up a file. Make sure that it is clear that previosu payments have been based upon meter readings.

 

When you have collected all the info possible, come back here. You may need to go to court to sort them out.

Record your calls. If you don't - you'll regret it

[nounours]

Thank you both - this is so helpful.

 

One interesting thing is that whenever I log onto my account to check previous meter readings, previous bills, consumption - they are all unavailable.every single time. The only 2 pieces of info I can get are my bill (£4000 etc) and the following : last bill : £32.You paid : £1520. THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

So, I'm going to proceed with the SAR and I'll be back!

[BankFodder]

Make sure you take screenshots of everything - including the fact that certain data is unavailable to you. It is all important.

Once thing I forgot to tell you to do is to sit down and write a chronology of everything that has happened.

 

Print out the screenshots and annotate them to show how they differ now from when you had seen them previously with the data on them.

 

You need a full story - fully illustrated so that you can show it all to a judge in a way that it will make sense to him quickly and without a lot of explanation.

 

You are effectively preparing for litigation here. Be scrupulous .

[citizenB]

It has also been suggested you contact the energy ombudsman, OFGEM

 

http://www.ombudsman-services.org/energy.html

[BankFodder]

Also, when you record calls - make sure that you check each one for quality. Store the files safely in at least two places.

[Surfer01]

the first thing you need to do is to check your meter serial number which should be visible on the front of the meter and then to check that BGAS have the correct meter serial number on your paperwork. Is the flat above a shop? Try and folow the pipework to make sure it does not supply any other premises except your own. While it si being disputed they should not be handing the account over to a DCA. If that happens please let us know ASAP.