British Gas customers, check mail carefully

[lurker]

This morning we had a one page letter from BG.
At first glace it looked like their usual spam flogging stuff I have no interest in.

But closer inspection said they were going to raise our monthly direct debit, for the leccy, from £69 to £261.24 :shock:
Now call me dim, but you would think they would have a algorithm that spat out such a large increase, for a human to check.

Anyway Her Majesty got on the phone: had a rant, gave them our current reading, which evidently suggests we are actually £200 in credit. They are going to send a revised bill :roll:

Now a cynical person might think if all BG customers have been treated like this, they could accumulate a nice interest free loan in time for the next annual statement to the stock market.

 

[transatlantic]

This whole practise of luring customers in with a reasonable contract and then hiking it up when the contract ends makes me so angry. There should be some kind of cap on how much they can increase it by.

 

[sunnybob]

I am not in the UK system, but was always bemused by the constant "change supplier save money" adverts, thinking it was just an advertising con.
Then my son in law said he had used the online system to change gas suppliers. His direct debit fixed payments to the previous supplier had resulted in him being over £200 in credit (almost 6 months paid for in advance).

Check it out.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My energy's Scottish Power, electricity only (no mains gas here) and I put a reading in on line every month or six weeks. In a few seconds it comes back whether I'm in debit or credit, if it's too far one way or the other and whether my D/D should go up or down or whether I wish to leave the same. It was the cheapest for the second year running. :shock:

* Incidentally I've never had any sort of snail mail from them.

 

[stuartpaul]

We’re BG as well although we manage our account online.

They no longer hold on to your money and have to pay back overpayment once a year (usually August). I wanted to build up some credit for the winter months and they insisted it be paid back.

 

[toolsntat]

Way too often things like this are happening and in my view, are deliberate.
Most will notice, some will not and help temporarily boost the bank balances :evil:
Cheers Andy

 

[Geoff_S]

Oh for the good old days when British Gas were the only supplier and they could charge what they liked ........ oh, hang on :?