Dodgy gas bill letter- any advice?

Just had a letter from british Gas telling me that i still owe them money, despite not being a customer of theirs for nearly 2 years. Apparently our last bill was 8.3.07 and remains unpaid. The letter is addressed to ‘The Occupier’ rather than Myself and my Wife, who were named on the account at the time. Apparently they have made several attempts (in 2 years!!) to contact us. Well, the address hasn’t changed and neither has our phone numbers!

The company it’s ‘passed on’ to is EOS solutions. I dont know if this is legit or not, as it is not addressed directly to us, and a possible scam.

Just going back through bills and bank statements as i know we were all paid up when switching provider.

Any advice?
Cheers
Pete

talk to British Gas?

i know when i switched provider the amount i owed was transferred to the new provider. your local citizens advice will be able to give you sound advise but they are also regulated (offgen??) so try them through the website. is it a lot of money they claim you owe?

good luck!

You could call BG customer services and ask them.

Just trying to get through to BG now. Online banking says all paid!

Upon reflection, having been a BG customer in the past. I would rather pay money to our George Agdgdgwngo in Nigeria than have to speak to them.

HALLLLOOO

@sslowpace

I had the same letter the other day. Ours was for a previous occupier. I rang the number on the letter (it’s EOS rather than British Gas you get through to), told them when we moved in and they said to just disregard it.

Basically they don’t know where the people that owe the money are so they’re taking a punt and sending it to ‘The Occupier’.

Sounds like an erroneous transfer. You need to get your current supplier to send/re-send your final readings to BG.

BG have never closed your account and sounds like they have continued to bill on estimated reads.

Speak to your current supplier and get them to resend the D0086 – Change of Supplier Reading.

Cheers ourkidsam. Top info.
Looks like it was the previous owner!
Checking back i kept the same supplier i had from my old house (Southern Electric) so have never been a customer of BG!

Just waiting…….waiting….waiting to get through to EOS now.

Had some problems with BG recently. Because of some mix up I started receiving a bill for gas that started "Your first gas bill. Please pay £840" WTF? Phoned them. The guy said to ignore it. Than 3mth later got a bill to The Occupier for £1200 (estimated usage on top of that 800) this time the guy checked the meter number and it was different than the one I had in my flat (and I already had gas and electricity account with BG so would have to be running 2 accounts at the same time). Thought that this sorted everything up. BUT NO. 3mth later got a final notice that they will gain access to the flat and install a prepayment meter. I phoned them and it took me 30min to get through, guy said that they will look in that matter and dont have to worry about the notice. THAN after a week I got a bill for 1400 with my name on it. Phoned them. AND this time I managed to get it sorted but the guy had to speak to his manager as it was clearly not my meter.

So. With BG everything is possible. If its for The Occupier than better phone them and get it sorted and tell them that You are with a different supplier.

Pain in the ass and a really big one. Now Im with Scottish Hydro. Will see how this goes.

British gas a a bunch of Knobbers.

About 5 years ago i apparently changed suppliers to british gas for a period of 28days. For which i owed them the princely sum of £28 odd.

Even after contacting they wouldn’t believe i didnt owe them money for these 28days, i believde that a dodgy door to door ‘change your supplier’ salesman that had come to the door had been doing the old switch and see if you like it and if you dont switch back in 30 days routine without our permission to get the commission. When i challenged this they refused to send me copies of any paperwork.

After supplying them with copies of the bills covering the period from my actual supplier they admitted that there had been an error.

About 6months later and then every 6month approx i received letters from a debt collection agency saying they were going to take me to court over this. Obviously they were not interested in quote " your pathetic excuses we hear every day" and that i would have to take it up with BG either before or while in court…

British gas apparently had ‘no power to call them off now the debt had be passed on’. The fact no debt had ever existed didnt seem to matter.

I finally solved the problem by having them served with papers to say i was going to take them (debt collection agency) to court for harassment, and BG with illegally selling on a non-legit debt (not sure of exact clauses – a fine solicitor friend of mine owned them for me).

Needless to say ive never heard anything since…

Well, a delightfully uninterested young lady by the name of ‘Hayley’ is referring it back to British gas as it was for the previous owner. Apparently that is it sorted and ‘I dont need to worry about nuffink’.

So, I’ll keep the letter and see what turns up in 6 months.
Now, off for a ride..

Cheers all,
Pete

British Gas are unbelievably useless, no-one there knows what anyone else does or what is going on in general. Ignore all letters. Any attempt to contact them will be met with total frustration on your part and (if by some miracle you actually get to talk to someone there) total disinterest and no action on their part.

I learnt my lesson from the last house I was in when I changed from BG to npower and I know keep a record of all my meter readings as well as the meter number and the bills. Pain in the arse but it’s the only way to be sure that next time there’s a "computer error in their favour" you have all the evidence to disprove it.