Utilities-Direct debits

[GazzaK]

I have recently had to contact both my gas supplier and my electricity supplier to stop them making unwarranted increases to my direct debit payments.

Despite ending the year £85 in credit and gas prices going up by 24%, British Gas tried to increase my payments by 63%.

 

I am interested if others have had the same problem. If this is a widespread practice it must mean utility companies are in receipt of billions of pounds worth of interest free loans from their customers.

 

Please share your experiences here or e.mail me.

 

Many thanks Gazza K

[sean5302]

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[Guest Lueeze]

Thats a disgrace contact this...

 

http://www.energywatch.org.uk/contact_us/index.asp

[crusty git]

I sorted a similar situation out for my mother in law with Powergen recently and got a monthly reduction and refund. This does appear to be standard practise in the industry these days particularly when the utilities are dealing with the more vulnerable sections of the community

[mahala]

NPower always over estimate our gas bill, and we've just had the meter read for the first time in 2 years. No attempt was made to read it before then.

 

Every time a bill came through with an estimated reading, we rang and gave the correct reading, which was always lower. Still they put our monthly payments up by a huge amount, based on their estimated reading. We called and complained, and the increase didn't happen. Two days later someone read our meter.

 

It seems to be common practice.

 

However, we get our electricity from Ecotricity (who get their power from wind farms and the like) and we haven't had this problem with them.

[Krystyna]

British Gas lowered my payments without telling me.I had to call them to get it adjusted then the buggers said you are £195 in credit after your new meter reading.

 

LOL I said ohh no I'm not ohh yes you are they said.The meter reader read your meter.No they didn't I said. The meter reader obviously fabricated the meter reading and got it so wrong.all my bill for the year were for 1 or 2 units only surely to God they musy have thought something was wrong.Are they all idiots

[GazzaK]

Thankyou everyone for taking the trouble to reply, and thanks for pointing me at energy watch Lueeze I am about to contact them now. Many thanks Gazza K;-)

[Guest Lueeze]

No probs thats what im here for!

 

Lou x

[thecornflake]

This is quite interesting - my Gas bill for last month from EDF Energy was for £65. Previously (on Virgin) it was set at £8 a month and always in credit.

 

Actually, slightly off topic but must take the opportunity to rant about this - Last year my DD fo rVirgin failed so I got the standard £35 charge from Virgin and £38 charge from the bank. the annoying thing was my Virgin account was about £30 in credit but their system doesn't work like that.

[Bookworm]

And the above posts just show once more why people on tight budgets should not use direct debits.

 

All those companies can be paid by standing orders, where you set the amount and the date. If they want to increase your payments, they'll have to contact you to do it.

 

Companies LIKE people to go on d/d. It's not for your benefit.

[Surfer01]

The problem is that you then get charged an admin fee if you use a standing order and if there are insufficient funds to meet the standing order you get a penalty of between £20 and £30 anyway. So direct debit appears to be the cheaper option however I am open to correction as banks impose their own T & Cs as and when they like.

[thecornflake]

Ok now I've had my electric bill, £95 from Southermn electric. Tiny little bit of print on the bill says 'E - Estimated, C - Cutomer meter reading' and then as part of the meaningless reference number for the main charge there is an E as the last letter. I'm so glad I read this post!

[Guest GraceCourt]

And the above posts just show once more why people on tight budgets should not use direct debits.

 

All those companies can be paid by standing orders, where you set the amount and the date. If they want to increase your payments, they'll have to contact you to do it.

 

Companies LIKE people to go on d/d. It's not for your benefit.

 

Fair enough, Bookworm, as you say, for those on tight budgets it's not a good way to pay. But for everyone else - don't forget the Direct Debit Guarantee. I was advised in February that my £75/month was being increased to £130/month due to our level of usage. Now I calculated straight away that, yes, it had increased a bit, but also the higher energy prices also meant the payment needed increasing - but to £90/month not £130. So I wrote, agreeing to an increase to £90 but NOT £130 - and this was confirmed back to me.

 

Surprise, surprise - £130 was taken. So I instructed the bank to recover it. Next month - same again, duly recovered. And again... by this time the amount owed for electricity used was increasing, but every time they took the wrong amount, I advised the bank that it was unauthorised, explained why, and they grabbed it back again!

 

Life is too short for me to bore you with the detail, so here's the important bit: I wrote again to say that I understood EDF Energy charges letters to trace defaulting customers at £25/letter... coincidentally, so would I, for all unnecessary letters from now on. So the next time I had to write, I offered to settle the outstanding amount in full, less £25 to cover the cost of that new letter.

 

They wrote back to advise that they could not credit the £25 to the account because... [there then followed three assertions, all of of which were factually incorrect, and provably so. E.g. they had told me they would be taking the £130, so it was OK for them to do so, etc., etc.]

 

I wrote back with the dates/names of relevant correspondence, refuting all three points... and advising that this would cost them another £25. I also sent the payment for the electricity, less the £50, and asked them to commence proceedings against me to recover the outstanding £50, so that I could counterclaim and present all of the historical correspondence. I also then cancelled the Direct Debit authority.

 

Needless to say, I received a letter yesterday confirming that they had credited the £50 to the account.... And the best news... during all this I realised I could save by switching elsewhere, so no more bills from EDF Energy..

[buzby]

Out of interest, who did you switch to?

[Guest GraceCourt]

Out of interest, who did you switch to?

 

Scottish Power - but bizarrely, when I checked on a number of the "switch" sites listed at EnergyWatch (see: energywatch: Price Comparison Services)

 

... I found that they didn't ALL agree! So the trick is... check on four or five of them, but note the ACTUAL TARIFF in each case - some helpfully show when their data was last updated.

 

And don't forget that moneysupermarket.com passes a large slice of the commission directly back to you - £30 for a dual fuel deal!

[Guest ArthurP]

I missed a dd with Sainsburys Energy one month, then paid it later, then missed the next month and paid that later too.

 

However, I was on a deal with them for the last two years and avoided all those large hikes but they ended my price plan and put me on a standard one with Scottish Power for being late twice!

 

Yet even with the two missed dd's I was always in credit anyway!

 

So now I've dumped them and gone elsewhere and, interestingly, it was cheaper to go to two providers for gas and electric rather than just the one on a dual fuel deal and I get £30 for doing so.

[buzby]

Scottish Power - but bizarrely, when I checked on a number of the "switch" sites listed at EnergyWatch (see: energywatch: Price Comparison Services)

 

I don't trut these sites - especially as they get paid to refer! I left Scot Power as they offered dreadful customer service, and with EDF I'm on a fixed tariff that beats SP - so I'll probably stay!

[Shoestring]

What I keep saying about the Direct Debit Guarantee is that banks do not always react so promptly as in the case cited GraceCourt. Sometimes it takes many attempts for them to respond. Also, it is worthbearing in mind that when things do go wrong (as they very often do) YOU have to do all the work to correct things, thus becoming an unpaid employee of the firm mucking you around.

 

As GraceCourt did, the best answer is to apply a per letter charge for responding to their errors and make the sum sufficiently punitive to ensure that they stop misappropriating your money.

 

Shoestring

[buzby]

As GraceCourt did, the best answer is to apply a per letter charge for responding to their errors and make the sum sufficiently punitive to ensure that they stop misappropriating your money.

 

Shoestring

 

Sorry, I disagree, although I like the idea.

 

You cannot impose a 'letter charge' without first having approval from the company, either by advance notice, or their subsequent agreement to it. This means you cannot arbitrarily impose a penalty and expect them to pay. When they do not and your only option is court, they can prove they did not agree to this and your case hits the wall.

 

Firms do it to you, because it usually forms part of their T&Cs you signed up to. You ability to charge them doesn't automatically follow, allowing you to do the same in return.

[Shoestring]

Sorry, I disagree, although I like the idea.

 

You cannot impose a 'letter charge' without first having approval from the company, either by advance notice, or their subsequent agreement to it. This means you cannot arbitrarily impose a penalty and expect them to pay. When they do not and your only option is court, they can prove they did not agree to this and your case hits the wall.

 

Firms do it to you, because it usually forms part of their T&Cs you signed up to. You ability to charge them doesn't automatically follow, allowing you to do the same in return.

 

Yes, correct. First you send them a letter with a sentence explaining that you will charge a specified sum for the current and each subsequent letter you write to defray the cost of your time and costs of sorting out what is their problem (I include this sentence in letters that contain other information such as a continuing complaint etc). You enclose an invoice for the specified sum with the current and each subsequent letter. They do not have to agree. Not to respond is seen in the same light as when they send you a variation of the original contract where a reply is not usually expected and non-reply is regarded as de facto acceptance. IF they do not reject the charge outlined and presented with your first letter then they are seen as having agreed to it.

 

My current charge is £25.00 covering an hours work, the cost of printing the letter, driving miles in a round trip to post it, posting it Recorded or Registered etc.

 

Rarther than collect it you merely tell them you are deducting it from their current bill/invoice etc.

 

It's not so much the money as the principle... the bloody cheek that they expect you to sort out their cock-ups and poor administration for them.

 

Shoestring

[buzby]

Don't get me wrong - I'm with you for getting some sort of recompense for the effort they needlessly put you through, and charging them gives a little satisfaction.

 

Where if falls down is if you HAVE to challenge through the courts. You do not have their explicit consent, therefore with no agreement in place they could challenge your assertion and you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. By giving advance notice of your costs, you're going for implied consent, and are in a (slightly) better position - but a decent lawyer could make much of this and have your price list of charges thrown out. This is based on the usual premise that is costs money for a business to deal with you, but your time (as an individual) has no cost.

[Shoestring]

Again yes I agree, Raymond. If it goes to court. I'm deducting from their bill, however. They HAVE to challenge through the courts. I only array this argument and costs when I'm correcting errors and charges that "they" have made.

 

It's a case of using their own techniques against them.

 

Shoestring.

[buzby]

Keep us updated. We're rootin' for you!

[Shoestring]

Keep us updated. We're rootin' for you!

 

At the moment, "they" - who I won't name for the present - are studiously avoiding mentioning all references to the charges (and are ignoring the invoices too). And much else besides.

 

It's a marvelous thing to behold big corporations slither and hide behind their spin and rhetoric when one who is armed with facts and solid arguments presses them for exactitude in their replies. Exactitude is the last thing they want to put in writing. And thereby their weakness is rendered visible.

 

Shoestring.

 

PS, I doubt an early resolution.... the last similar episode took about two years. But I'm learning all the time.

[GazzaK]

This topic was closed on 10 March 2019.

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