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British Gas bill?
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- 2 Lemon pips
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British Gas bill?
Last week I had my quarterly BG bill.
I'm about to send a complaint to the CEO about it.
Not the cost or anything like that.
The quarterly bill covers mid-December to mid-March.
What is really confusing is that it references charges/cancelled charges going all the way back to early July 2023!?
My complaint will be that in the midst of a cost of living crisis if I can't make head nor tail of the bill what is an old biddy supposed to do?
When you get a credit card bill for the month you don't expect them to reference payments going back 9 months?
I'm about to send a complaint to the CEO about it.
Not the cost or anything like that.
The quarterly bill covers mid-December to mid-March.
What is really confusing is that it references charges/cancelled charges going all the way back to early July 2023!?
My complaint will be that in the midst of a cost of living crisis if I can't make head nor tail of the bill what is an old biddy supposed to do?
When you get a credit card bill for the month you don't expect them to reference payments going back 9 months?
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: British Gas bill?
While sorting out mum's estate last year, BG were by far the most difficult and incompetent organisation I dealt with. Over 6-8 months, they continually got the bills wrong, retrospectively changed bills, ignored my meter readings, gave me information over the phone which turned out to be false, sent correspondance to the wrong address. I found phone and online complaints useless, so sent letters, which generally resulted in a reply weeks later saying they would reply to my complaint in 21 or 42 days. I was finally thinking of writing to the CEO and then got a call from a complaints manager out of the blue a few weeks back. He was much more efficient, and after a few calls back and forth he agreed to just write off the outstanding balance.
I will never use BG for my gas and electricity
--kiloran
I will never use BG for my gas and electricity
--kiloran
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- Lemon Half
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Re: British Gas bill?
There is one good reason to use them, so I understand.
EDF are in the annoying habit of sending me monthly bills and pestering me for payment. In my previous house I had BG as my supplier and they billed me in a much more civilised manner, i.e. quarterly.
BG are the only energy supplier doing this I'm told. All the others bill monthly or require a DD mandate so they have authority to help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want from my bank.
EDF are in the annoying habit of sending me monthly bills and pestering me for payment. In my previous house I had BG as my supplier and they billed me in a much more civilised manner, i.e. quarterly.
BG are the only energy supplier doing this I'm told. All the others bill monthly or require a DD mandate so they have authority to help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want from my bank.
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Re: British Gas bill?
To be honest BG make very accurate estimates as to usage.
I fixed with them mid-Feb just in case Putin goes bonkers!
I fixed with them mid-Feb just in case Putin goes bonkers!
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- Lemon Half
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Re: British Gas bill?
ukmtk wrote:To be honest BG make very accurate estimates as to usage.
I fixed with them mid-Feb just in case Putin goes bonkers!
I think THAT boat sailed 2 years ago!
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Re: British Gas bill?
ukmtk wrote:Last week I had my quarterly BG bill.
I'm about to send a complaint to the CEO about it.
Not the cost or anything like that.
The quarterly bill covers mid-December to mid-March.
What is really confusing is that it references charges/cancelled charges going all the way back to early July 2023!?
My complaint will be that in the midst of a cost of living crisis if I can't make head nor tail of the bill what is an old biddy supposed to do?
When you get a credit card bill for the month you don't expect them to reference payments going back 9 months?
We have an account with BG. They send out paper bills and re-issued bills like confetti. I have absolutely no idea of what is correct from their tree loads of bills that arrive in great wodges!
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- Lemon Half
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Re: British Gas bill?
Ah, British Gas. What a joy it is to recall the time, long ago, when they changed our meter because it had reached its replacement date. The new meter was fitted without any fuss, the van drove away.... and two months later we got a bill for tens of thousands of pounds.
It didn't take very long to figure out the mistake, convoluted though it was. They had taken the last-but-one (and naturally very high) recorded reading from our old meter, and subtracted the (naturally very low) reading from our new meter (are you still with me?), and had come up with an upside-down figure that represented perhaps 30 years' worth of gas usage. Or, if you prefer, the cost of sending 30 years' worth of gas back up the pipe and back out into the North Sea.
Go away and check the figure on the old gas meter, I said. We can't, they replied, we've had to do this bill by hand. Why, I asked? Because our fitter tipped your old meter into the skip without taking a final reading, they said. But you still owe us the money.....
Laugh? I nearly went round and broke their windows. Stinky letter to the chief executive got it sorted. Cock-up on top of cock-up. The worst energy supplier I'd seen until the next one, which was Bulb. Which is another story, for another day....
BJ
It didn't take very long to figure out the mistake, convoluted though it was. They had taken the last-but-one (and naturally very high) recorded reading from our old meter, and subtracted the (naturally very low) reading from our new meter (are you still with me?), and had come up with an upside-down figure that represented perhaps 30 years' worth of gas usage. Or, if you prefer, the cost of sending 30 years' worth of gas back up the pipe and back out into the North Sea.
Go away and check the figure on the old gas meter, I said. We can't, they replied, we've had to do this bill by hand. Why, I asked? Because our fitter tipped your old meter into the skip without taking a final reading, they said. But you still owe us the money.....
Laugh? I nearly went round and broke their windows. Stinky letter to the chief executive got it sorted. Cock-up on top of cock-up. The worst energy supplier I'd seen until the next one, which was Bulb. Which is another story, for another day....
BJ
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- The full Lemon
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Re: British Gas bill?
Mike4 wrote:BG are the only energy supplier doing this I'm told. All the others bill monthly or require a DD mandate so they have authority to help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want from my bank.
Can a service provider insist that you pay only by direct debit?
I use DDs for a number of my regularly recurring bills, but I was not aware that could be made mandatory or a condition of supply.
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Re: British Gas bill?
Lootman wrote:Mike4 wrote:BG are the only energy supplier doing this I'm told. All the others bill monthly or require a DD mandate so they have authority to help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want from my bank.
Can a service provider insist that you pay only by direct debit?
I use DDs for a number of my regularly recurring bills, but I was not aware that could be made mandatory or a condition of supply.
They can and do[1] offer deals which are restricted to DD payers. The incentive is it's their best price-per-unit and/or standing charge!
[1] or at least did, last time I shopped around ...
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- Lemon Quarter
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Re: British Gas bill?
ukmtk wrote:Last week I had my quarterly BG bill.
I'm about to send a complaint to the CEO about it.
Not the cost or anything like that.
The quarterly bill covers mid-December to mid-March.
What is really confusing is that it references charges/cancelled charges going all the way back to early July 2023!?
My complaint will be that in the midst of a cost of living crisis if I can't make head nor tail of the bill what is an old biddy supposed to do?
When you get a credit card bill for the month you don't expect them to reference payments going back 9 months?
Octopus bills are just as bad or worse in my experience.
It took months to sort out a couple and their explanations were facile.
regards
Howard
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- Lemon Half
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Re: British Gas bill?
UncleEbenezer wrote:Lootman wrote:Can a service provider insist that you pay only by direct debit?
I use DDs for a number of my regularly recurring bills, but I was not aware that could be made mandatory or a condition of supply.
They can and do[1] offer deals which are restricted to DD payers. The incentive is it's their best price-per-unit and/or standing charge!
[1] or at least did, last time I shopped around ...
I found the same last time I did the same.
Almost every vaguely attractive tariff is conditional on a) paying by DD and b) having a smart meter.
And I constantly hear tales about people who have built up massive credit balances with suppliers who set up a regular monthly DD drawdown too high, and I just dislike the whole principle of giving a utility supplier unfettered access to my bank.
Example thread running now viewtopic.php?p=657166#p657166
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Re: British Gas bill?
The deal I got with BG is without a smart meter.
We can't actually have a smart meter - we don't have mobile reception.
I don't use a mobile much - if I do at home I hook it into the wifi.
We can't actually have a smart meter - we don't have mobile reception.
I don't use a mobile much - if I do at home I hook it into the wifi.
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Re: British Gas bill?
ukmtk wrote:The deal I got with BG is without a smart meter.
We can't actually have a smart meter - we don't have mobile reception.
No 3G here, or even 2G a lot of the time. That doesn't stop Octopus pestering me every six months to get an (electricity) smart meter, since our old meter is up for renewal and they say they can't or won't supply another old-style one.
I've told them that our near-neighbours have already had a smart meter officially ruled out (by Octopus) for the very same non-reception reason. And I add that our house's gas and electricity meters are separated by four feet of solid stone walls, so good luck with getting them to communicate with each other, let alone with Octopus Central. But so far, no dice. The peevy emails keep coming. I'm playing for time.
I could report my own readings via the web every month, just like I already do, but I can't see how that would make things better for either us or them? Absolutely no a chance of half-hourly monitoring.
I suppose it's possible that the national winding up of 3G might force a bit of relief from all this pressure to go smart? And who knows, maybe the south will get the same DCC connectivity as the north has already got? Levelling-up has to start somewhere, I suppose?
BJ
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Re: British Gas bill?
I have an Economy 7 meter.
The BBC is due to turn off the time signal next year.
I thought that you can refuse a smart meter - which means they have to install a normal meter.
I will simply report my usage as the combined values from my meter.
It is fairly simple to do - add 2 numbers.
The BBC is due to turn off the time signal next year.
I thought that you can refuse a smart meter - which means they have to install a normal meter.
I will simply report my usage as the combined values from my meter.
It is fairly simple to do - add 2 numbers.
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Re: British Gas bill?
ukmtk wrote:I thought that you can refuse a smart meter - which means they have to install a normal meter.
Not if your old meter is out of its certification period. Unless anyone here knows better?
I will simply report my usage as the combined values from my meter.
It is fairly simple to do - add 2 numbers.
How do you do that, if your gas is being charged at a different rate per kwh from your electricity? Sorry if that's a silly question, but I'm still on the bottom rungs of this particular ladder.
Meanwhile, the implications of the 3G switch-off are coming into focus. It isn't just smart meters that will need to be replaced, apparently - alarm systems, trackers, some shop payment systems, and the gizmos in your car that will call for assistance if you should have a breakdown may also need to be replaced. The major consolation is that I have none of these.
BJ
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Re: British Gas bill?
My "old" Economy 7 meter was replaced not that long ago (a few years back).
Same with my gas meter.
We have been in this 28 years.
I meant that Economy 7 is 2 different readings - night + day.
I can simply combine them to give my total electricity usage - which is all they need.
As far as I'm aware smart meters are not mandatory.
Same with my gas meter.
We have been in this 28 years.
I meant that Economy 7 is 2 different readings - night + day.
I can simply combine them to give my total electricity usage - which is all they need.
As far as I'm aware smart meters are not mandatory.
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Re: British Gas bill?
Mike4 wrote:...
And I constantly hear tales about people who have built up massive credit balances with suppliers who set up a regular monthly DD drawdown too high, and I just dislike the whole principle of giving a utility supplier unfettered access to my bank.
...
I'm with Octopus, with direct debit and smart meter. I switched my payment method to variable direct debit, so I pay what I owe each month, and Octopus can't build up a credit balance. (There hasn't been a variable direct debit yet because they've been using up my (small) credit balance. Let's hope they get the variable direct debit right!) You could do something similar?
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Re: British Gas bill?
clissold345 wrote:[
I'm with Octopus, with direct debit and smart meter. I switched my payment method to variable direct debit, so I pay what I owe each month, and Octopus can't build up a credit balance.
Not all suppliers support this. Southern Electriity did this with quarterly bills, but when they handed over to Ovo, Ovo were allowed to discontinue this method. So although I get monthly billing, they take the same amount of DD every month. As it's for electricity which isn't much used for heating, the bill is relatively stable, so no great credit or debit balance builds up.
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Re: British Gas bill?
bungeejumper wrote:ukmtk wrote:I thought that you can refuse a smart meter - which means they have to install a normal meter.
Not if your old meter is out of its certification period. Unless anyone here knows better?
I have so far successfully resisted a smart meter.
I am not sure that my existing meter has passed its certification expiry date but even if it had, I would argue that it still works and so invite them instead to merely extend/renew the certification period on the existing meter.
Every time the subject of giving me a smart meter has arisen, they have always asked me. It was an invitation and not phrased as an imperative.
It might also depend where your meter is located. If outside then they can access (and so replace) it without you knowing. If inside or otherwise inaccessible without your prior permission, then the game changes in your favour.
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Re: British Gas bill?
Our business was forced on to a smart meter when we change supplier and tariff.
I don't think it was obvious in the headline paperwork that a smart meter installation would occur but occur it did.
What EDF (the new supplier) did do, was provide a meter reading that was totally at odds with the usage we'd seen so we got lumbered with a bill about 8 times the size it should have been.
Thankfully, there was a sticker on the new meter which showed what the readings were on changeover so they corrected it soon enough. But the irritant to me was that it wasn't a transposition error - it was a totally random different number that EDF had put on their system. While they corrected it, they were totally unable to explain where that number had come from.
If it hadn't been for the sticker on the meter, even though we had taken a reading 2 months before, we would have been screwed over by them and charged a shed load for electric we'd never used.
I don't think it was obvious in the headline paperwork that a smart meter installation would occur but occur it did.
What EDF (the new supplier) did do, was provide a meter reading that was totally at odds with the usage we'd seen so we got lumbered with a bill about 8 times the size it should have been.
Thankfully, there was a sticker on the new meter which showed what the readings were on changeover so they corrected it soon enough. But the irritant to me was that it wasn't a transposition error - it was a totally random different number that EDF had put on their system. While they corrected it, they were totally unable to explain where that number had come from.
If it hadn't been for the sticker on the meter, even though we had taken a reading 2 months before, we would have been screwed over by them and charged a shed load for electric we'd never used.
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