BG wont accept my payments, threatening disconnection

[ICY]

We moved into this house in March this year

the supplier was for the gas supply was with British Gas,

 

I had tried to change suppliers to another company,

however they blocked it claiming a bill hadn't been paid, this bill was for £16.68, and yes I had missed it,

 

the letter they wrote stated that the reason for blocking the supply was this unpaid bill

which was fair enough even if it was only for a pathetic £16,

this was then paid and I thought nothing more of it, and expected the transfer process to go ahead.

 

I next received a bill at the beginning of August from British Gas for £372.24, stating this payment is due by the 9th August,

 

things went into a panic as there was no way I could afford that. I had never agreed a contract with BG,

and tried to move away from them, I am also on the standard tariff which is far from the cheapest.

 

"then followed a letter which says in large bold letters across the top Your gas is now at risk of disconnection"

 

My wife called their very unhelpful call centre and offered all we could manage right now which was £70 every month starting on 15th Sept (payday),

he said no chance and they want £150 by the 20th September or it would be going to court.

 

I wrote to them following this call letter below clearly expressing the fact that we could only afford to pay £70 per month

 

Account Number xxxxxxxx

 

Dear Sir/Madam

 

I received a letter yesterday dated 30th august 2013, threatening disconnection, I have been having some financial troubles recently and as such have been really struggling.

 

I have however set up a standing order with my bank for £70 each month to start making payments to this account.

 

This is the very most I am in a position to pay at this time, and having a standing order gives me the option to increase the payments as I am able to so the balance is cleared as soon I am in a position to, the minimum amount received each month will be £70.

 

I would also like to question why the bill period is 29th March to 25th July, had it been on monthly billing for actual usage then we would not be struggling to pay such a high amount, you have engineered this problem by only billing 4 monthly, to then threaten disconnection at the second letter little over a month later I think is very extreme and only goes to cause unnecessary stress at what is already a very difficult time.

 

I have attached a copy of the printout from my bank showing that the payments have been set up, to leave my account on the 15th, which is the date I get paid. When I rang the call centre I was told this isn’t good enough and it must be £150 by the 20th, despite being told that I cannot afford this, I was also then told that proceedings would continue, I have made an offer of payment if you continue to take proceedings it is not going to help you in any way, it won’t magically make more available money appear to me, I will still only be able to afford the same amount, all you will have achieved is adding unnecessary costs to the bill which I find wholly unreasonable.

 

For clarification its Mrs not Miss.

 

I received a response to my letter basically saying they are refusing to set up a payment plan (the spelling/grammar mistakes are not mine)

 

Dear Miss XXX

 

I am sorry for any offence caused by the way we worded our reminders, just to let you know that this is a system generated letter which is automatically send to the customers once their balance is overdue.

 

I understand from your letter about your financial difficulties and proposal to pay £70 per month to clear your account. A appreciate your willingness to clear your debt under your current circumstances.

 

I am sorry to inform you that we longer accept Standing Order as a payment arrangement; instead if you prefer not to pay your bill in full each quarter, we can spread your payments out using our monthly Direct Debit payment scheme. You can also pay a set amount every month or fortnight using a payment card at any PayPoint or Post Office. For more information, or to set up a payment scheme, please call us on the above number with your up to date meter reading.

 

Unfortunately at the moment, I am unable to set up any payment arrangement on your account because the amount proposed by you is insufficient to clear your current outstanding balance of £382.24 and your onging consumption. Therefore, your balance is still outstanding and due for full payment.

 

Do not worry, please call our specialist team on the above number with your up to date meter reading to discuss your current situation and to negotiate a suitable payment arrangement to clear your account. A late payment charge of £14 is already applied on your account on 30th August which is included in your current balance so it is important that you call us at the earliest to discuss further.

 

We wish to help you with the better payment arrangement to clear this balance easily; you can opt for the following payment arrangement-

 

Fuel direct Scheme

If you are in receipt of Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance, you can apply to the Benefits Agency for assistance. They can arrange to have deductions made directly from your benefit on Fuel Direct Scheme. The amount deducted would be based on your average weekly consumption plus a further £3.60 per week to clear the arrears. If you are interested in fuel Direct, please contact your benefit agency with your full name, date of birth and your National Insurance number.

 

British Gas Energy Trust fund

The British Gas Energy trust fund is an independent Trust set up to provide financial help to customers who need it most. Grants are available to help individuals and families meet their domestic gas and electricity arrears and other household bills and costs.

 

The trust is funded by British Gas, but operates completely independently, by a group of Trustees. Each request is reviewed on its own merits and in some cases, applications may not be successful.

 

To apply for the British Gas Trust Fund, you can call ....

 

Please call us on the above number and one of our Customer Services Advisor's will be happy to help you. We will continue to send reminders for the outstanding balance and further charges may be applied until full payment has been received or payment agreements are agreed.

 

I have no intention of calling them after they way my wife was spoken to on the last call,

they were extremely rude abrupt and demanding, and wouldn't listen to a single thing she said,

simply saying that the offer wasn't enough and action would be taken unless we agree to their terms,

 

we only use gas for cooking and hot water, we hardly ever have the heating on,

the only reason this bill was as high as it was is because we had a burst mains water pipe in the loft causing a lot of damage,

the heating was on full for around 3 weeks constantly to try to dry everything out before work could begin on replacing the electrics,

sorting the plaster out and putting new floor down.

 

When she called he also said there's no way we know that you have set up a Standing Order so you could be lying to get more time,

so we sent a printoff from online banking showing the payment was set up as she told them.

There is also no way they are fitting a prepayment meter, I have had them before they are terrible, and also much more expensive.

 

Now today (our anniversary which should be a happy day but has just been destroyed)

received another letter from BG, the paid was made successfully on 15th for £70 we said it would hence the lower balance.

 

NOTICE OF DISCONNECTION YOUR ACCOUNT HAS NOW BEEN PASSED TO A COLLECTIONS AGENCY

 

Dear Miss xxxx

 

Your unpaid debt of £316.24 for energy used at your property has been passed to a collections agency, who will be visiting you in the next few days to collect it. You will be charged £54 to cover these costs.

 

 

You can avoid this charge and disconnection of your supply by calling us to:

• Pay this bill immediately, or
  
• Make an alternative payment arrangement, or
  
• allow us to fit a new, free of charge prepayment meter in your property
  

We need to speak to you.

If there are any personal circumstances that you think we should be aware of-reasons why you are unable to pay this outstanding bill or why you should not have your supply disconnected-please call us immediately.

Contacting us now on .. and agreeing to alternative payment options will stop this action against you.

 

If you fail to resolve the debt in the next 7 days you may lose your energy supply and the following charges could be added to the amount you already owe:

 

Cost of visit to property £54.00

Application for legal warrant to enter your home (to fit a prepayment meter) £52

Execution of warrant up to £150

 

Please note that if you try to switch to another supplier and have an unpaid bill, your transfer will be blocked.

 

Again you must contact us - without delay on .. to avoid disconnection.

 

If they had switched suppliers at the start after I paid the pathetic bill I received then this wouldn't have happened,

 

I forgot to mention that in my letter, after the bill was paid they had no legitimate reason to block the transfer,

they also never contacted me to set up onto a tariff at any point they simply started billing

I had no idea how much we would be paying until the bill came through the door.

 

This isn't we don't want to pay, its that we cant pay the amount they are demanding,

as I have said we have set up a SO for the most we can afford right now, yet they are refusing this,

can they do that?

 

Also can they refuse payments simply because it is a SO and not a DD which they can set to whatever they want without us having a say in it.

[ICY]

I should add that the OS bill has 686 units used between 29th March & 25 July, since the 25th July we have only used 41 units of gas, that gives an indication of our usage.

Edited September 21, 2013 by ICY

[Conniff]

Don't talk on the telephone unless you record the calls.

[renegadeimp]

Looks like BG are doing the same as they did to other people. You need to get a full written complaint in to them and the energy regulator.

[dx100uk]

simply pay what you state by internet transfer,

and keep doing

 

i'm just a little concerned that £70PCM

will not even cover your current usage

 

if you used the gas drying your house out

theres not really any excuse for the high bill is there?

 

I cant quite grasp what you are complaining about here.

 

yes you could of switched as theres now a £500 ceiling I think.

 

but that would still not have made the bill go away....

 

sorry if I've not grasped your post

but that's how I see it.

dx

[renegadeimp]

I think the point the OP is trying to make is that they never signed an agreement with BG but actually put in a request to transfer away. Bg stalled this request and have charged them for the quarter. To the OP's credit, they are willing to pay off the amount they have used, but BG seems to be refusing it.

 

They have also been doing this to a fair number of people. We've had a good number of reports of it on this site already.

[dx100uk]

thanks imp...

 

yes prob correct

 

I hope the OP has been paying since the start of the quarter stil lthough

 

theres no good people keep saying I want to pay this

but at the end of the day don't for one reason or another

then the bill gets worse

 

pay what you can when you say, then atleast the problem does not escalate.

 

dx

[ICY]

Hold on a minute, I clearly said that after I paid the initial bill which they used to block my transfer I then expected the transfer to go ahead, I dont know how long this takes, the next thing I heard was 3 months later when a bill for £372 came through the door, the high bill is because the heating was on day and night for around 3-4 weeks after a mains water pipe burst, they claim the payments wont cover my usage but they have no idea what the usage is.

 

How can I have not made agreed payments when I didnt know it was coming, once the old bill was paid the transfer should have gone ahead and at the end of that a FINAL bill, they have simply refused to transfer and not bothered once the bill was paid, meaning I am charged probably nearly twice the amount I would have had the transfer gone through.

 

Please do not insult my intelligence saying if I pay then the issue doesn't happen I am not stupid I pay my bills, this is a bit different, I made an offer of payment as soon as we figured out how much we can after receiving a bill we shouldn't have received as the new supplier should surely have taken over by this time, if you re read my post you will see when I agreed the payment and that the first payment was made on time, there were no payments arrangements set up at the start of the quarter as we didn't expect to be with BG its only them blocking the transfer (for no reason once we had paid their bill) that means we still are.

[renegadeimp]

As I said before, bg seem to be doing this a lot.

 

Formal complaint to ofgem and bg head office.

[ICY]

Thanks, I am going to copy CEO into the complaint too

[dx100uk]

thank you for clarifying what happened

 

it was not the idea of my post, to upset you.

 

now it does seem they have charged you at a higher rate

it would be a good idea to get a good estimation of what the usage should have cost you

 

that way you'll know what you are aiming for with the complaint.

 

as far as I know, if the transfer is blocked, you have to restart it yourself

the process does not automatically restart.

 

when bg did this to me, eventually I got back what I had been over charged under the higher rate.

I also got a £100 apology compensation payout

 

dx

 

this was through ofgem involvement.

[ICY]

Sorry I am feeling a bit raw today after this,

 

They wrote to me on 1st may stating they couldn't transfer the account as I needed to pay off my outstanding balance,

 

the bill they refer to was printed on 2nd April which had a payment due date of 16th April, the request to transfer to npower was made on the 23rd April, BG then responded a week later 29 days after the initial bill had been printed, although it wasn't overdue until 16th April

 

on the letter they sent blocking the transfer it says nothing about restarting the procedure,

this is clearly a way for them to make as much money as possible.

They know the industry and how things work,

they have clearly not been open and transparent in their tactics.

 

I cant find the rates I would have been on,

however I have just looked at suppliers now and there is a big difference

Npower are charging Unit price (pence per kWh) of 3.665p

British Gas have charged 7.638p for the first 874 kwh and 4,266p for the remaining 6745 kwh

 

If I have this right this is around £100 more expensive with British Gas.

 

The bill that was overdue was £16.68 and was less than 2 weeks overdue when they blocked the transfer.

 

The high bill was also from March to July, this is 4 months not quarterly.

 

 

Hope I am making sense :/

Edited September 21, 2013 by ICY

[dx100uk]

the really annoying thing here is if you'd had a pre payment meter, they cant block you switching

with debt under £500

 

with a std meter they can and then put you on their 'default' tariff.

as you've tried to switch and deem the contract over.

 

should not you previous bill indicate the rate that you were being charged?

 

dx

[ICY]

We only moved into the house in March, I have only ever had 2 bills from them as follows,

1 dated 2nd April for the period 15th March - 28th March £16.68 Standard tariff

1 dated 26th July for the period 28th March - 25th July £372.24 Standard tariff

 

The transfer acknowledgement letter from npower was dated 23rd April I attempted to switch suppliers after receiving the first bill

 

I did not arrange a contract with them as I had no intention of staying with BG

[dx100uk]

ok well see how the complaint goes.

 

but you'll need to show how you intended to pay for whomever was going to bill you

whatever that came through.

eitherway you still would have gotten a bill.

ok maybe not so high,

 

ideally you should have been putting money away each month

then it would not have been such a shock?

 

but we all do that, forget....

 

dx

[Surfer01]

Hold on a minute, I clearly said that after I paid the initial bill which they used to block my transfer I then expected the transfer to go ahead, I dont know how long this takes, the next thing I heard was 3 months later when a bill for £372 came through the door, the high bill is because the heating was on day and night for around 3-4 weeks after a mains water pipe burst, they claim the payments wont cover my usage but they have no idea what the usage is.

 

How can I have not made agreed payments when I didnt know it was coming, once the old bill was paid the transfer should have gone ahead and at the end of that a FINAL bill, they have simply refused to transfer and not bothered once the bill was paid, meaning I am charged probably nearly twice the amount I would have had the transfer gone through.

 

Please do not insult my intelligence saying if I pay then the issue doesn't happen I am not stupid I pay my bills, this is a bit different, I made an offer of payment as soon as we figured out how much we can after receiving a bill we shouldn't have received as the new supplier should surely have taken over by this time, if you re read my post you will see when I agreed the payment and that the first payment was made on time, there were no payments arrangements set up at the start of the quarter as we didn't expect to be with BG its only them blocking the transfer (for no reason once we had paid their bill) that means we still are.

 

I think what the poster was saying is that you should have realised that a gas bill was due at some point and make allowances for it.

 

I am fairly sure that BGAS are not allowed to block a transfer for debt unless the debt is enormous.

 

Perhaps someone else can confirm this because if I am correct, it may be used as leverage.

 

If BGAS blocked the transfer then the supplier who was trying to register the account will wait for further instructions and will not proceed with the transfer.

Smaller suppliers will chase it, but not any of the big 6.

 

You have the arrears plus you have the current usage so maybe £70 may not cover it.

 

By hook or crook unfortunately BGAS have you trapped and you do need to contact them to arrange a payment plan.

 

Do whatever is needed to pay it as soon as possible and change supplier, but avoid Npower!

[ICY]

My usage since the last bill 2 months ago was 41 units, that's going to be less than £40 for 2 months of gas

so I would be paying money off the debt and for the usage,

BG stated that I wouldn't be covering my usage with the payments I have put to them without even knowing what my usage is.

 

The fact is they DID block the transfer for a £16 bill which was at the time 14 days overdue,

resulting in an extremely high bill which wouldn't have been so much had they allowed the transfer to go ahead,

when my wife spoke to the call centre she was told to send in proof that the SO had been set up,

I hope they will be listening to that conversation in their investigation.

 

I have contacted them with a payment offer, this is the most that is available each month

 

had you read the full thread you would see that, to try to demand more than twice of the amount of money available

after being told many many times over the phone and then to write rejecting a payment offer is sheer madness

 

the only reason I see for them doing this is so they can escalate things and add charges and fees on top of the debt meaning I would never be able to get rid of them,

 

they have already written saying they have passed the debt to a collections agency (who will probably be part of the same group)

saying that they will be sending someone round to collect the money,

 

this AFTER I have made a payment offer and the balance has reduced as they have received payment,

 

they then go on to threaten disconnection and say it will add £256 onto the bill,

this seems to me to be a way of making sure that I cant leave them,

or a way for them to get a prepayment meter fitted which is not happening.

 

I could understand had I made no attempt to pay, but I have made a legitimate offer and they now know that payments have been made as I said they would.

 

The MD at Centrica is now looking into this matter and all I can do is wait and keep making the payments.

[Surfer01]

The other option is to request a pre-payment meter and when the debt is paid, change suppliers and get the pre-payment removed.

[ICY]

I am not paying through a PPM, when I can pay the same amount through my bank without the risk of running out of gas

and not being able to cook a hot meal for our daughter,

 

they can adjust the PPM to whatever they like same with a DD, it is extremely inconvenient, more expensive and I would have to pay to have it removed.

 

If I cant get to the shops to top up then I would be without Gas,

 

I have a neurological condition which has a major effect on my life, including my memory,

there's a good chance of totally forgetting to get gas, which also means I would be forgetting to pay the payment plan,

 

what I have set up is a guaranteed way for BG to be paid every month without fail.

 

I am not paying them more than I need to and by installing a PPM it will cost more.

 

The whole organisation seems to go out of its way to constantly try new ways to bleed every last drop out of people,

including threatening legal action (which would almost double the bill after they charge for this action) despite receiving payments

[45002]

I am not paying through a PPM, when I can pay the same amount through my bank without the risk of running out of gas

and not being able to cook a hot meal for our daughter,

 

they can adjust the PPM to whatever they like same with a DD, it is extremely inconvenient, more expensive and I would have to pay to have it removed.

 

If I cant get to the shops to top up then I would be without Gas,

 

I have a neurological condition which has a major effect on my life, including my memory,

there's a good chance of totally forgetting to get gas, which also means I would be forgetting to pay the payment plan,

 

what I have set up is a guaranteed way for BG to be paid every month without fail.

 

I am not paying them more than I need to and by installing a PPM it will cost more.

The whole organisation seems to go out of its way to constantly try new ways to bleed every last drop out of people,

including threatening legal action (which would almost double the bill after they charge for this action) despite receiving payments

Unfortunately the long this is left the worse it going to get for the OP...

 

They can and do apply for a warrant to fit PPM, use locks smiths to gain entry, I even read of a case where the police where called to stop a breach of the peace while the PPM was fitted.

 

When a PPM is fitted via a warrant,legal cost,cost of fitting PPM are added and All paid back via a PPM.

 

There are plenty of threads to read on CAG and other forums where people have Had a PPM fitted under warrant thinking the utilities supplier wont do it !

 

They do ...

[ICY]

The point is I will be paying less to the debt with a PPM and they will keep me longer, I am paying the maximum I have available to me, which is nowhere near my consumption, and if they are going to court to get a warrant then I should be able to put my case forward, I am not trying to get out of paying, I am paying the most I can, they refused my payment offer, which will pay the debt off much quicker than by using a PPM, they are being unreasonable by making these threats as that will benefit them financially, I want to get it paid as quickly as I am able and get away from these leaches.

[45002]

The point is I will be paying less to the debt with a PPM and they will keep me longer, I am paying the maximum I have available to me, which is nowhere near my consumption, and if they are going to court to get a warrant then I should be able to put my case forward, I am not trying to get out of paying, I am paying the most I can, they refused my payment offer, which will pay the debt off much quicker than by using a PPM, they are being unreasonable by making these threats as that will benefit them financially, I want to get it paid as quickly as I am able and get away from these leaches.

It's standard threats you get from All the utilities supplier in the UK when payments are late or over due so on...

 

Your not alone