British Gas increasing Direct Debit

iaind

iaind

iaind

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Exeter
Hi All,

I'm with British Gas for electric only (storage heating) on the fixed price 2011 contract - been paying £35.50 a month fixed DD for a year now, its only a small flat. It was covering the usage and leaving me in credit over the summer and leaving me a bit in debit over winter. I've just had my latest bill, based on an estimate, which has left my account about £50 in debit.

They also sent the updated DD amount - well over £70! I need to get a meter reading when I get home so I can argue it with them, but where do I stand with this? Even if the estimate is correct, to cover that 50 quid would only require another £4 odd a month.

Any tips on what I should do? Does £34~40 sound reasonable for electric with night storage in a small, well insulated 1 bed flat thats only occupied during the evenings/weekends?

Thanks!
 
Not BG, but I'm with Southern Electric, and they have royally screwed my account over, from not sorting out a previous balance from my old house (which I had a set a DD up for to clear, they now have lumped it on my current account and said my DD payments wont coer what I need to pay, yet when I ring them I get told all is fine) to setting up a neighbours gas/electric to be paid by me! :mad:

These energy companies really are a group of bandits.
 
i pay 110 a month so yes sounds reasonable to me.

These fixed rate deals , i think have so many catches and loop holes, and the way they estimate the 12 months and spread it across the year always seems to be inaccurate - cos they even change the tariffs on their fixed rate stuff.. At least it seems that way to me.

I think the only way to get a decent deal is to be in a perpetual cycle of changing suppliers :)
 
Its not the first time I've heard about them doing this. Ask them why it is going up if you are on a fix price contract. Some people are saying that they are doing it to see if people notice/put up a fight. Pretty sure a story like this has been on watchdog at some point
 
I dont mind them adjusting it to make sure I clear the amount, but (taking the £50 debit into account) my annual bill was £476, on the ammended amount they want to charge me £804!

Its not like I'm using a lot of electric either - 3 night storage heaters only on in the winter, all bulbs are energy savings, 1 computer and its a laptop, washing machine on twice a week, 1 or 2 (electric) showers a day.... uswitch reckons £273 annual for my usage :confused:
 
Efour2 said:
i pay 110 a month so yes sounds reasonable to me.

These fixed rate deals , i think have so many catches and loop holes, and the way they estimate the 12 months and spread it across the year always seems to be inaccurate - cos they even change the tariffs on their fixed rate stuff.. At least it seems that way to me.

I think the only way to get a decent deal is to be in a perpetual cycle of changing suppliers :)
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£110!!? where are you based, that sounds insane if thats a 1 bed
 
Check how much you really owe then offer to clear that immediately if they bring the figures down to a reasonable level. Failing that, go to the toothless regulator and make a complaint.
 
philjohn said:
Check how much you really owe then offer to clear that immediately if they bring the figures down to a reasonable level. Failing that, go to the toothless regulator and make a complaint.
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I think if they don't agree to something reasonable I'll just take my business elsewhere
 
I pay £35 per month for electricity and £28 per month for gas both from British Gas, I live in a 5 bedroomed house with wife and kids and consumption is pretty high. I would say they are overcharging you.
I had the same problem a year ago when the electricity side had a deficit of £87, but the gas has a credit of £138, BG tried to increase my electricity DD to £78 per month, stating that my account was in arrears.
After checking bills, it turned out the several months before I was in credit and BG did not take two months of DD's to account for this. If they had I would not be in arrears. Anyway, I phoned and asked them to pay off the arrears with the credit owed from the gas part of the bill. They could not do this was the answer (no reason given). I paid the arrears off by debit card and asked for a cheque for the money they owed me which I received in around a month. This kept my DD at the current level as I was not in arrears and they had no reason to increase it.
So pay off any arrears you owe and tell them you are quite happy with the DD at its current level, thankyou very much!
 
IMHO all energy suppliers are ********.

When I was with British Gas, they messed up my billing. Somehow they thought I owed them £600 (after only 6 months of being with them), so they upped my DD from £35 to £170. It took many phone calls to convince them that they were wrong. How can one man in a flat use up that much electricity? It turned out that the problem was, they could never get a meter reading. Thanks to being in a full time job, the meter reading guy never got a chance to read the meter and the cards I left out never got taken. So BG went on their 'estimates'. In the end I left British Gas. And as they took the final meter reading (I had to take a day off work for that) they worked out that my account was a touch under £1,000 in credit.

Im now with Npower and after 18months, the same is happening again. I've missed 2-3 meter readings and now the bill has jumped up somehow. Seems like they are all the same :(
 
That sounds like a good idea.. as I say, I dont mind increasing it by a few quid to ensure it's covered but I'm not doubling it!

Sounds like the chap paying 110 above is being seriously overcharged then!
 
Kodiak said:
IMHO all energy suppliers are ********.

When I was with British Gas, they messed up my billing. Somehow they thought I owed them £600 (after only 6 months of being with them), so they upped my DD from £35 to £170. It took many phone calls to convince them that they were wrong. How can one man in a flat use up that much electricity? It turned out that the problem was, they could never get a meter reading. Thanks to being in a full time job, the meter reading guy never got a chance to read the meter and the cards I left out never got taken. So BG went on their 'estimates'. In the end I left British Gas. And as they took the final meter reading (I had to take a day off work for that) they worked out that my account was a touch under £1,000 in credit.

Im now with Npower and after 18months, the same is happening again. I've missed 2-3 meter readings and now the bill has jumped up somehow. Seems like they are all the same :(
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The odd thing with this is I'm on an online only tarrif, they send me the bill based on an estimate by email and if I submit a reading online within 12 days they use that figure.

I've done that for every bill they've sent me, but the history is only showing one as "customer read"...
 
£150 for gas, was £160 for Elec that was after they couldn't be bothered to come and read the meter for about 18 months, really ought to sort it out as it is a little bit high for me..... Sounds like I'm being screwed a bit. :s
 
Depends on your usage - hate to stereotype but a lot of people here will have multiple PCs on 24/7, which can really jack up the usage..
 
I'm with Southern and am paying £18/month for gas and £36/month for electricity in a 3 bed semi, (just me).

They did put up the electricity to £50 last year because I was in appears due to estimated readings being wrong but I had that put down again in August based on the actual reading for the previous 12 months, (they sent me a nice cheque for £200+ at the time too) ... they would have dropped it further than £36 but I wan't to leave a little headroom in the amount I'm paying. The estimated reading were laziness on their part as the meter is externally accessible so they could read it even when I wasn't in.

Gas was a right mess last year with my estimated reading at the start of the year being higher than my actual reading at the end of the year ... they were massively overestimating the amount of Gas I was using since I moved in so even paying £18/month I still was over paying.
 
Ring up the one stop energy team for billing and ask the person you speak to re-calculate it for you. Sounds like the estimate may not have been entered correctly. It shouldn't take them too long to recalculate your usage
 
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