Hi i really need to know if anyone has had any dealings of my mother in law's situation.
She moved into her home in 2002 and informed British Gas that she wished them to supply her with both Gas and Electricity. The house had previoulsy been wired for storage heaters although there were none in the house when she moved in. Within a matter of weeks she'd commisioned British Gas to install a full gas central heating system.
And now we find ourselves in a pickle...it transpires that her house was fitted with an Economy 7 two-tariff meter. Since 2002 she has been trying to get her meter read, with no luck, and she also claims that -on the occasion when she read it herself- BG were unable to make sense of the reading. This was until last july when the meter was read and subsequently a request made for the 2-tariff Econ 7 meter to be removed in exchange for a standard meter. However, throughout all of this she continued to make a payment each month by D/D to cover the electricity consumption she thought she was using.
The old meter has of course been read and as such my MIL was presented with a bill of over £1600. We have been trying to make sense of it ever since- initally (back in January 08) BG said the meter was faulty and -based on readings from the new meter- they'd worked her electricity consumption to be an average of 5 units per days. In light of this we were told her bill would be adjusted accordingly.
Another 6 months have now past and having got on to BG about this again they are NOW saying that the meter was not faulty and that the readings are correct for an Economy 7 meter which -so i gather- charges considerably more for power used during the day in exchange for much cheaper power at night. I also gather that BG charge a lot more for the day rate in consumtion is below a certain level.
Now, the point is this, my MIL did not realise any of this (none of us really knew about the Ec07 meter or its implications), all she knows is that she was allegedly sold a 5-year fixed price tariff when she took both services. She can also prove that she did not need Eco 7, given that her night useage is virtually zero and the fact that her gas bill reflects useage by someone who has gas heating. Oh, that and the fact that BG installed the gas heating in the first place...
I have now passed this matter to Energywatch but in the meantime i am getting increasing concerned that BG seem to think my MIL should pay this bill even though the tariff is far in excess of what she 'should' be paying. We are also lost as to where this all ties in viz a viz the promise of a fixed 5-year tarrif. Unfourtunatly my MIL is having trouble finding her contract...
I am annoyed the BG have changed their story, but whilst this is being investigated by EW is there anyone here who has advice they can share? Thanks in advance.
A CAB might also be able to give practical support and advice. Is it also something she can get legal aid on if legal support is needed?
As you write it, it sounds to me that you should let it play out, given the amount of uncertainty. EW is the right route.
Another possibility is to go to the media and play the "incompetent, greedy utility supplier" line.
Hindsight's 20-20 of course but I guess the key learning point is that we simply can't afford not to get an "actual" bill for five years. It's an accident waiting to happen.
Thank you both for the advice. Vbland, you are quite correct re:5 years of estimations, however, she had been trying (and getting nowhere) to get the meter read. This is why each month she paid religiously an amount of money that she thought would cover her useage (based on what she'd paid in her other house). In the event this amount appears to have been more than enough for her 'correct' usage because since her new meter was installed (at BG request, not hers) the units used has dropped to an average of 5 a day (BG calculation based on her ACTUAL readings for the last year). But they are saying that her old meter (the one they assured us was 'faulty') was reading the correct rate for someone using economy 7. The point is that she never asked for or needed to be on this package and we ourselves -having no experience of how the billing works- did not know that the day rate is more expensive than 'normal'. One would have hoped that this would have been something that BG would have mentioned (or more to the point the need to come off the eco 7 tariff) at the point where my MIL asked them to come and install gas central heating.
It would seem to me that they are simply now 'choosing' to charge her this rate for the 5 year period in question as opposed to what would have been the 'correct' rate for someone who did not need eco 7 tarrifs.
I think the route of Energy Watch (as i have done) is the best option but in the meantime i am keen to hear from anyone who was or knows of someone who was paying eco 7 tarrifs instead of 'normal' tarrifs.
Originally posted by velvet: Tony Levene often investigates these kind of things in the Capital Letters section of the Guardian (Saturday edition).
So does the woman who does the Thursday consumer page.
She highlighted a case yesterday that has received a lot more press today - the old guy who attempted suicide after he was erroneously charged 6k by eon. Seems like EW was the body that proved it false.
My neighbour has not had a gas bill since he moved in three years ago. He has constantly chased BG to come and read the meter, but they keep failing to turn up. The incompetence is astonishing.
The energy charter states that each customers meter must have an actual reading taken at least once every two years. This can be a customer reading, however, your MIL had problems reading the meter, or Bgas couldn't make sence of the reading, so they should have had someone out to read it. Now that you have gone to E/Watch, you should find that the majority of that bill is cleared, as they have failed charter.
The only disadvantage of having an E7 meter when you don't use it, is you pay a higher standing charge, the unit rates should remain the same. I don't work for Bgas, so I don't know their prices, but it shouldn't make any difference.
Bgas can't pursue this until the E/Watch case is resolved, so I would hold out until then.
5 years of estimations, however, she had been trying (and getting nowhere) to get the meter read. This is why each month she paid religiously an amount of money that she thought would cover her useage
bringing back 'happy' memories of paying DD for three years while powergen read the meter LOADS but never applied it to the account and tried to make us pay £1970 - which they actually took as a single payment out of our current account. Despite having REFUNDED us four times on over payments. I don't envy your MIL as I know exactly the worry, stress and complete hassle something like this causes. Luckily I had my mum. She had such a go at powergen, over such a length of time that they slashed the bill, slashed it some more then finally gave up just, I suspect, purely to shut my mum up.
Give them sh!t about it. Claim emotional stress and the like ... write everybody's names that you speak to down and the date and what they say or promise they are going to do. I have no time for BG either - they tried recently to send me a bill for £500 gas - from 28th Nov getting the keys to the 29th Nov. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it. I love southern electric - even if it was only for the scottish bloke with the suavey white knight voice telling me when I moaned about the others, saying 'let's get you out of there!' totally fickle but i was to them! They are *very* good. When this is sorted get your MIL with them.
Thank you all for your helpful advice, EnergyWatch will have only just received my MIL disclaimer which permits me to handle her problem for her, but i hope they will be investigating soon.
BG do seem to have a higher tariff for the day rate for power used on an eco7 meter, however, the man from Siemens who took the meter out and installed a new one said that the old meter was clocking up far too many units, i.e. it was faulty, which is what BG themselves told me for at least 6 months. The people on the phone (who i have to say were superb and courteous, if not consistently unhelpful - i guess they aren't told much by BG either) don't know why BG now thionk the meter is no longer 'faulty', nor do they seem to have any record of why the meter was removed. All they know is WHEN it was removed, not WHY a request was entered onto the system in the first place. I am also lost as to why they didnt fit another eco7 meter if thats what they were taking out (i am not saying my MIL needed another eco7 meter of course, what i am saying is that it seems very odd that they put a 'normal' meter in instead...). It is all so very difficult to make sense of...
I stil go back to the fact that since a 'normal' meter was installed my MIL has dropped to 4-5 units per day and yet she hasn't altered her electricity usage or her lifestyle in any way, shape, or form. Therefore i can only conclude (as BG did 6 months ago) that the meter was running up too many units...
Quick update, on Monday my MIL got a letter telling her that her Direct Debit would be increased to £37 per month to cover her bill, and then yesterday a fone call from BG (i dont know what prompted this - whetehr it was due to me calling them last week or the intervention of Energy Watch) to say that yes, the meter WAS faulty and as such my MIL is almost £15 in credit now that the bill has been recalculated.
It is beyond words (and belive me i've let a few fly when my MIL foned me just now) that a company like BG can ring up one week and tell you that you 'owe' £1600+ and start talking about discounts off of that amount and payment plans, and THEN they call to say they've looked at it again, they've made a mistake, the meter was indeed faulty, you don't owe that money at all. I do realise of course that when you do their job day in, day out, that you can lose perspective of the seriousness and the stress this causes people, however, it is STILL utterly unbelieveable. We await written confirmation of the latest fone call...
Have Energywatch sent you a reply yet? If not hold out a bit longer, if they have and this was their solution (offer you £15 refund on the DD your MIL has been paying for the last 5 years) get straight back to them & tell them it's not acceptable. You want compo for the stress & inconvenience - I would be looking for about 10% of what she has paid over the 5 years - or 10% of the £1600 bill, which ever is less.
Taken from Energywatch's website, General Standard 8 states
'GS8 – Making and Keeping Appointments 3.6 This standard requires the DNO to offer the consumer, within a reasonable period, a timed appointment where it wishes to visit the consumer’s home or where the consumer has requested a visit.The appointment must take place during a specified period up until 1pm on a specified day, after 12pm on a specified day or during a period not exceeding two hours on a specified day. If the consumer requests an appointment at a specified time the DNO must not reasonably refuse, though it is not obliged to offer an appointment during a specified period of less than two hours. Any appointment must be kept within the time specified.An appointment is only kept if the person visiting the consumer has the necessary expertise, has sufficient time to complete the job and has the requisite equipment. If the DNO fails to offer an appointment within a reasonable time, which is within a specified time period, or fails to keep an appointment, it is liable to pay the consumer £20.'
If Bgas have failed to keep an appointment they should have paid her £20 (you shouldn't have to ask for this) all suppliers must report these figures to E/W each month. I'm not sure if an appointment was booked or if she just couldn't get an appointment.
There is another standard about reading the meter regularly, but I can't find this online. Had this been done every year or even two as it states, this wouldn't have escalted quite so badly.
Thanks for what you've written, it is helpful. However, annoying as it has been (and worrying for my MIL), i do want to keep it in perspective. When i got home about 1 hour ago i found I had a letter from Energy Watch. It tells me that they've written to BG and told them to reinvestigate the issue before they involve themselves further. I guess this is why my MIL has been told all of what i've said in my last post.
My MIL claims she was sold a 5-year 'fixed price' deal back in 2002 and when i can work out what the unit price was back then (i can't do it now as all her paperwork is missing off my desk - i suspect my partner has taken it back to her as he is visiting her @ the moment; if this is the case i will NOT be very happy as i have had the house apart looking for it) and work out what it would cost her for 5 units of electricity per day for 5 years. I can then deduct the amount she paid every month and see how much the shortfall is (which i expect will be in her favour). Once i have got that sorted i can then start to consider the possibilty of compensation, although how to start to put a price on the upset that it has caused my MIL is virtually impossible, i mean 'distress' is a personal thing, is it not? At no point was i myself distressed, just fed up at the total inconvieninece of it and fed up of my MIL getting her knickers in a twist over said matters.
The faliure to get someone to read her meter (despite her attempts) is -as far as i can see- more or less irrelivant now because BG have gone back to their original story about the meter being faulty and not that the £1600+ was an accumulation of underpayment from an un-read eco7 meter which is what they had been saying of late. My MIL has been paying £15 a month by D/D since 2002 which has been more than enough to cover her modest usage of electricity. Therefore i cannot see that i have any complaint against BG for consistently not reading the meter. However, as a side thought, since the removal of the 'faulty' meter back in July 2007, the new meter has been read FOUR times no less. My MIL has not done this, but it has been on every bill she's been sent since. It clearly states that it's an actual reading so something must have been done since last July to make sure someone goes and reads the meter??? As the meter is outside of the property (unlike mine ) the meter readers are able to come and go without disturbing her. All she knows is that all her last 4 bills were actual readings and not estimates.
I am not sure i can agree or disagree that having had the meter read would have meant this issue would not have 'escalated' to the extent it did, not really, because it would have given me the same grief regardless of when it was discovered. But i see your point and had the bill been 'correct' due to undersetimation i would agree with you.
One thing i cannot get my head around is the complete inconsistency of everything, like why no one reads a meter in 5 years and then its done 4 times in 12 months, like why the meter was removed in the first place, like why they didnt install a new eco7 meter if this is what they were taking out, like why BG can just change their story to suit themselves. I give up, i really do.
Once i have worked out how much money my MIL should be in credit to, and once she has it, i will then consider how much to ask for as goodwill for all the upset. Then i'll see about getting her to change supplier, although seeing how she did that once before at her old address (she switched from N-power to BG and what a coke-up that was, she switched back in the end) i cannot see her wanting to change. That said, it beats me why she took BG when she moved here, in light of the grief they gave her last time. I suppose like most MIL she is very difficult and you simply CANNOT get a straight answer from her. If she was a younger women she'd be a perfect person to work on the BG helpdesk...
Originally posted by bertie_boo: sorry did i miss something?
I related a tale of when the outgoing vendor under-read their meter by 1000 and despite the fact that the provider's own bloke had read the meter, it took some hassle to sort it out. Probably still not allowed to mention the company concerned...
Sorry, I haven't been on for a while. Any progress?
I would imagine that Bgas have set a marker on your MIL account to ensure it is read every quarter. You may find thats only for the first year to ensure everythings running ok, but you should still have it read every 6 months now & probably an estimate inbetween.
Def go for compo, you (or your MIL) is entitled to it. They messed up, you've had to pick up the pieces, they should pay. It shouldn't even cause you that much hassel, they should be offering it to get you off their case.
Your right, even if the meter had been read you would have just had this problem to sort out a few years earlier, however, the meter may have only gone faulty in the last few years.
Don't give up, they give crap service and get away with it all the time. How much money did they make last year? I'm sure your MIL could do with the extra cash as way of an apology.
Thanks for asking, i didnt want to say anything until i'd seen/heard something from BG myself. And lo-behold someone called yesterday.
Now, i dont know what department she was in BUT she had information going back years and years. I may be wrong but i got the impression she was calling from somewhere that dealt with complaints via energy watch, and BOY was she on the ball.
As it transpires, my MIL's meter WAS being read (as i said it's outside and they come and go as they like) up until some point in 2005 when they suddenly stopped. It is around this time that BG belive the meter had gone wrong (they say it is not uncommon with 2-tariff meters) and i suppose at a guess the meter readers didnt report back to BG that they were unable to get correct readings.
According to the lady, there was no fixed price offer from BG for any customer, not until it's introduction in 2005, which means she's either lying or my MIL got that wrong. The lady said that my MIL is on a fixed price to 2009 (having been put on it in 2005) and when i spoke to my MIL she said "Oh well that must be it then"
There was no denying from this lady that my MIL should NEVER have been told that she owed the £1600+, the fact that it was added to her bill is one thing, the fact that she was told (after a year!) that she DID owe it was quite another...that shouldnt have happened.
So, it (the £1600+) has been removed, from the point of her last known reading from that meter (sometime in 2005) to the point where her new meter was fitted (july 2007) her account has been recalculated to reflect her average daily usage of 5 units and charged accordingly at the fixed-price price from 2005. She is now just under £15 in credit.
As far as compensation goes, i have decided i am not involving myself any further. My MIL is (and forgive me) utterly hopless at 'getting the story straight' (i may add i am so annoyed and yet completely unsurprised by her as its happened over and over again over teh years) and, aside from the last 2 years bills, i do not have any more documentation, so i have nothing in the way of 'hard facts'. BG seem to have far more information than i do. As it stands i am leaving well alone now it's sorted.
However, aside from my own personal feelings towards my MIL, it is still beyond words as to why BG couldn't get the story right and why some departments clearly dont have the information which other departments do.
Too many people just can't be bothered taking it any further. Your happy though so thats the main thing and at least it's sorted & your MIL isn't having to fork out any extra money.
Thanks for your reply. I am happy it is resolved, however, it is a case of being 'bothered' about taking it further, its about not knowing what one can realisticlaly expect. Several years ago (before the untimely closure of the office i worked in) i worked in customer relations for the telephone company now known as Virgin. My job was to investiagte complaints, to deal with them, and to compensate financially. The biggest problem was trying to compensate a customer who had no idea what it was they wanted.
I am not saying i dont understand why they didnt know, but equally i could never proceed without first agreeing a figure. In the case of my MIL's electrictiy bill, i only have her word as to what has gone on and once again it's been proven that at certain points she's been talking off the top of her hair-do. The fact that she only thought to mention this problem to us in December 2007 did not help matters. I could understand it if she felt upset or embarrased, but the truth is that she just didnt bother. And as usual she's waited until she's ready to explode before getting it sorted.
I do love the woman to bits (really i do!) but for a woman of her intelligence and life experience, she has little grasp on reality at times.
bringing back 'happy' memories of paying DD for three years while powergen read the meter LOADS but never applied it to the account and tried to make us pay £1970 - which they actually took as a single payment out of our current account. Despite having REFUNDED us four times on over payments. 
29th Nov. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it.
totally fickle but i was 
to them!
) the meter readers are able to come and go without disturbing her. All she knows is that all her last 4 bills were actual readings and not estimates. 
