I have just had a letter from British Gas telling me that my direct debit payments are increasing from £5 a month to £866 a month. I phoned customer services expecting this to be a mistake and was told that my account is £4,552.35 in debit.
I have been on paperless billing for years and have supplied them with meter readings every quarter. I must admit I had no idea what my monthly payment was and never checked the bill online, but foolishly thought that the direct debit would be increased or decreased as was necessary.
I am now a full-time carer for my wife so the only income we have is her payment protection insurance and my carer’s allowance. MC, Pwllheli, Gwynedd
Your plight is shocking on so many fronts that it’s hard to know where to begin. Firstly, under the utility regulator Ofgem’s back-billing principle, householders can only be charged for the previous 12 months of energy use if the supplier has made an error in billing. British Gas therefore has no right to claim sums owing from 2012.
Moreover, it should have warned you of the problem and agreed an affordable repayment plan instead of whacking over a massive demand unheralded. Then there’s the question as to why it didn’t twig long ago that £5 a month was an absurdly inadequate payment. For that matter, if you had looked at your bank statements which, tedious as it is, you must do, you would surely have realised that this was an unlikely sum to cover your energy use.
British Gas now admits that its error meant you were undercharged for years and that it should have realised this sooner. However, it was only media intervention that prompted it to write off £3,383.74 of your debt under the back-billing code, and to spread the £1,109 you still owe over 24 months.
To sweeten the still-bitter pill it’s coughing up £50 of goodwill money, and will spare you having to install an expensive prepayment meter.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
