British Gas,new bills

[plasticdaft]

Just got off the phone to british gas after looking online at our latest bill. 6 pages long and more confusing than a confusing thing on national confusion day.

Our old gas and electric accounts have been combined,thats great,but as they didnt tell us I have been sending 2 seperate standing orders,one for the gas and one for the electric,and the latest bill doesnt show any of the £55 a month we pay into the electric account just the £30 a month to the gas one!!

Long conversation with a lovely welsh lady about how we pay by standing order because we got sick of british gas upping the Direct Debit even though the accounts were in credit. She says she understands and explains that during the summer the account will show a large credit balance which reduces through the winter. Yes I said I know but our accounts are well in credit even at the end of winter time but you still wanted to up the DD. Ahh she says I understand now. Would you like me to set up a DD?,I said well how much would it be for?

SHE REPLIED £148 a month!!!! We currently pay £85 a month for both gas and electric and are £140 in credit. She was promptly told to "bolt" and offered to set up the DD at the £85 we pay just now.

Sick of these ###### putting prices up as and when they want,and trying to hang on to more of my money in their accounts!!!


Rant over for now.

Paul

[Shining]

Crazy crazy crazy!

I have begun to read mine monthly and input it online I'm with Scottish Power.

[MrsKnight]

Don't get me started on Gas & electric companies!!!

When we moved into where we are now, the landlord told me what he paid in direct debits, so I expected the same. It was nearly £50 more a month & we had not even been in the property for a few weeks.
When I phoned to challenge them, I explained etc, they just said tough, so I said I would have to look for a new supplier, they told me to go ahead & leave!!! So I did! Then a few months later a rep from Scottish Power came to ask why we left, he was shocked as to how we were spoken too & apologised & left!

[Johndylan]

Wow Plastic daft, i have have jumped at a £148 bill!

For the last 3 months my combined gas and electric bills with 4 %discount, supplying the readings and paying by DD has been roughly £320 a month. That what with no gas fire, gas cooker or tumble dryer. Just a fairly large bungalow with upstairs and an inefficient back boiler and central heating system. This months is only £280! This is still cheaper than when we were with scottish power on a meter.

[Struzzo39]

Omg I couldnt afford them sort of bills!!! I begrudge paying £177 per month combined . Thats just ridiculous

[plasticdaft]

Haha british gas sent out our direct debit paperwork. Its jumped from the agreed £85 to £107 already. They apologised for their mistake when I phoned up and went daft!!!

Paul

[FormerlyST1100]

British Gas, last August, had to refund me just over £200 due to us paying too much but then tried to put up our payments by £20 per month.

When I asked why, they said that is what their system is estimating. I asked them why, if their estimating system worked correctly, would it say it needed to put up the payments when they have had to refund over £200 in the last year and to keep the payments the same.
Their online system means the customer can alter their DD payments but only within certain limits.

They said just to phone them if their system tries to put the charges up again BUT that would be every time you enter a meter reading, as their estimate system cannot get the hang of you using more during the winter and less in the summer but want to pay the same amount each and every month.

[plasticdaft]

I just took a £75 refund and a month off paying anything,new DD starts in march.

Paul

[herbekj]

I just pay what I owe now.

After receiving a £400 refund one November and reducing my payments from say £100 down to a stupid low figure like £30 by July they were threatening me with court action if I didn't pay the £100s arrears and increase my monthly payment to £150 a month.

They just love you being in credit but you owe them a penny and all hell breaks loose.

[Shining]

I've just started reading my own monthly and inputting it onto their webiste and monitoring useage myself. It's working for me at the moment. x

[plasticdaft]

Can you just put your payments up and down as you need to Lesley?

Paul

[Shining]

I'm with Scottish Power and pay by DD it's never changed to be honest so I'm not sure. However there is a link for you to pay by debit card any extra you want.

[FormerlyST1100]

One thing I have just spotted with my British Gas account is that the statements do not tie up with my account balance.

The fault appears to go back to sometime before March 2011 with the statements showing a credit balance lower than my account balance, ie their statements show they owe me less than the account balance does.

If you have a British Gas online account, have a look at your last statement and tie it in with the payment/ charges history, which also shows the correct balances.

I have just notified them of this and asked for a copy of statements and account payment/ balances from before March 2011 to see if I can spot where their statments have gone wrong.

[debt tired]

We are with npower and have had all sorts of problems lately. We had used no gas for 2 years as the boiler needed replacing and we could not afford to. After a while they decided that our gas meter must be broken and sent us a huge bill based on the amount we had been using before the boiler broke. Explained the situation and all seemed well. Then they sent someone out to replace the meter - we sent them away as there was no problem with it, it was just that gas was not being used. If they had bothered to look they would have noticed that our electricity usage had gone up since we were using electric heaters to keep warm.

Then we got a bill saying we owed £4000 on electricity. Eventually discoverd the meter reader had read the figures incorrectly, inputting the first number as a 1 instead of a zero! Thought all was sorted out, then last week week we got a demand for the huge so-called arrears.

In addition to this when we changed banks and informed them of the new bank account, they continued to try to take the DD out of the old account (so incurring bounced DD and more fees). As did Virgin and the Council! Is nobody competent anymore?

[plasticdaft]

British gas profits up 11%.

Consumers shafted as per usual!!!

Paul