British gas wrote to me last week wanting to put my direct debit up by 120% from £29 per month to £64 per month. I phoned them and they repeatedly gave me the same story, they expect me to use £320 in the next 5 months which is £64 per month. This is because their prices have gone up by 30% He wouldn't listen to what I was saying and wouldn't let me speak to his manager.

I emailed their customer support line explaining all this and my objections and have had a response. The explanaition was that the last 6 months of payments doesn't meet the last 12 months of gas usage, so they need to increase the payments. Not only that but they got my gas usege wrong, according to my bill.

My payments over the last 12 months equal my usages. I am in credit by a small amount. I will accept the 30% increase in costs because uswitch.com says there isn't much to save by switching but I won't accept a 120% rise. Has anyone else had this kind of problem? How can I get through to them?

Threaten to come round to their offices and give them the following






[Edited on 9/9/08 by novacaine]

Tell them that if they increase your d/d to 64 quid that you'll cancel it, and they can send you a new mandate with the 30% increase.

And start your call with "I'd like to be put through to the complaints department please".

And get the name of every person you speak to, and when. After a while they tend to give up in the face of a customer who's prepared to note down absolutely everything they're told....

Can you tell I used to work in a water company and a call centre?

As above, tell them you wont accept that increase in Direct Debit and tell them you are cancelling and wish to receive a quarterly bill instead. They'll soon back down i'm sure.

Been there for a slightly different reason tried ^^ and just got worse and worse off Cancelling the direct debit was a bad idea because the muppets managed to completely f*ck up sorting a new one out not once but 3!! times which meant I went 3 months into arrears which meant they wanted to charge me even more money than the amount I originally complained about - because my account was in arrears...... Spoke to manager/supervisors, took names etc etc - didn't help in the slightest as they still f*cked it up and basically denied all knowledge of anyone by that name working there when I said who I had dealt with previously. Muppets muppets muppets.........and don't get me started on Virgin Media for similar reasons

I'm with Scottish Power, and they have just emailed me, putting my monthly dd for gas and electric up from £100 to £150. But at the bottom of the email was a bit of small print that said "you have 10 days from this notice to cancel your contract".

Guess what.

Mike

Start the conversation with

"This call is being recorded for legal purposes. What is your name and employee number?"

Pay quarterly, that way you can make them wait for their money and you can phone in your readings so that you only pay for what you use not what they predict you should be using.

Yep. ^Thats what I do^. Sometimes I ring the readings through but they're pretty regular at checking the meter. I just won't pay on an estimated reading. I get my bill quarterly then just walk down to the post office when I'm off work and cough up. Easy peasy.
I might add, a couple of years ago (wouldn't happen now) over summer I managed to run up just £3 odd for the quarter so it was worth going to the sour faces in the post office and rubbing their noses in it

Pay quarterly when the final reminder comes through.

Or eat beans and fart into a storage tank.

call them back and do what i said to them....

they wanted to put mine up so i said leave it as it is as i'm going to turn 2 radiators off to save gas....

Several people have mentioned paying at a Post Office.

But whats a Post Office?





(joking, I know what ones is, its that place in the big towns only where you have to que behind 30 Polish people that have bought the wrong bit of paper to tax their cars, but they insist that 'No it right bit, you tax me car yes?' Where as the Post Office used to be where you queued behind old dears who wanted to pay their gas bill with coppers)


Sorry, just realised I'm doing a Post Office Rant in your British Gas Rant post

Today I got quite the opposite from Calor Gas - they actually want to reduce my monthly payments. They seem to yo-yo from one extreme to the other - I suggest a figure which covers the gas and a guess at price rises over a year, they then see that I am in credit during the summer (what summer?) and immediately reduce my payments before I turn up the heating for the winter
Oh well time to throw another peat on the fire

ever thought things are just getting worse . i remeber the days one gas company one bill friendly guy reads the meter and wot seemed like as ong as yu wanted till you paid it .Dont get me started on BT

quote:

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Originally posted by mistergrumpy
Sometimes I ring the readings through but they're pretty regular at checking the meter.

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My gas supplier was basing my bills on estimated readings yet still decided in the coldest quarter of the year I should be giving them (fixed each month IE even in the summer) double what they estimated I would be using even in winter!!!

I wrote a rather blunt letter to their director of customer services asking them what interest rate they were going to pay me for taking money they knew they didn't need.

They wrote back with an apology and corrected the direct debit

After several emails and phone calls, British Gas agreed to reduce my direct debits to a figure higher than I expect to use over the winter but lower than their lowest offer to date. This is on the understanding that if my account dips into arrears by February, they'll increase the debit again. I expect it to be in credit throughout.

Why is it you have to keep on at these people until they just give in? Why can't they see reason?

I tend to think that if I was as rubbish at my job, as the service providers (!!?) are at theirs, then I'd be giving myself the sack!!

We had two years of battling with BG over a holiday cottage we owned. During this time we were charged business rates, economy rates, standard rates, had the bills sent to four different addresses that wern't ours and even received bills for someone elses property with someone elses name on the bill!! At one point we had a bill for £4560 for a quarter!! They had billed us for the whole holiday complex!!
It was impossible to speak to the same person each time we phoned so each time we had to go through the whole story.
We finally spoke to one guy who could see what had happened (although couldn't explain why!) and he sorted it. That one call fixed it all! He then sent us a £3300 refund and a £50 bonus!!