Gas Bills - Robbing me?

[Slyjoe]

Gents and ladies - Got a new gas bill yesterday - pay monthly with with Npower - We were paying 75 a month they now want 128 a month!!! we're not in arrears, 4 hours heating and hot water a day, half an hour on the gas oven.
Its a 4 bed detatched with cavity wall insulation, good loft insulation, double glazing.
I mean we could not use it less.
How does this compare? or are they taking me for a ride?
I'm going call and compare later, but would like to throw this one out to find out if its really now that expensive.

[Jasandjules]

Why not get them to take a reading rather than an estimate to see if you are paying enough at the moment, and if so, tell them to get fecked.

I bet they make a fortune sitting on customer money for months with the interest rolling in, then they just repay you the capital.

[lizardking]

Mine went up by £40 for gas and £65 for electricity over 6mths, thats for a 5yrs old 3 bed semi. Prices from Southern Electric. I would change your supplier if I was you.

[lizardking]

Jasandjules said:

Why not get them to take a reading rather than an estimate to see if you are paying enough at the moment, and if so, tell them to get fecked.

I bet they make a fortune sitting on customer money for months with the interest rolling in, then they just repay you the capital.

VERY GOOD POINT!

[Adrian W]

They've stopped giving credit anymore, they adjust your payment so your always ahead, the idea of monthly DD was to even out the payments between summer and winter but they have changed it without telling anyone.

You might as well go back to quarterly billing and keep your money in your bank account.

[nogginthenog]

there was an article in the Guardian Money on Saturday about utility company's doing this :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/nov/29/energy...

[Adrian W]

nogginthenog said:

there was an article in the Guardian Money on Saturday about utility company's doing this :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/nov/29/energy...

Yep, thats what BG did to me, I was in credit but it went from £70 to £210 per month, woman on phone admitted it and said it was based on my winter usage last year, so I went back tp quartally billing.

[GT03ROB]

Slyjoe said:

Gents and ladies - Got a new gas bill yesterday - pay monthly with with Npower - We were paying 75 a month they now want 128 a month!!! we're not in arrears, 4 hours heating and hot water a day, half an hour on the gas oven.
Its a 4 bed detatched with cavity wall insulation, good loft insulation, double glazing.
I mean we could not use it less.
How does this compare? or are they taking me for a ride?
I'm going call and compare later, but would like to throw this one out to find out if its really now that expensive.

Your description sounds very similar to my place. Only difference is I have an electric oven, but BG just changed my DD to £70 based on actual readings. Sounds like you is being taken for a ride.

[trumpet600]

Same thing - I'm with Eon

pay £69 direct debit, £180 in credit and I get a letter saying they are increasing it to £92.

I spent 20 mins on hold last night in an attempt to tell them to take a flying feck, but surprisingly all operators were busy due to popular demand! I wonder why.

[village idiot]

I am with Eon for gas and electricity... since moving into the property in the summer, I have been paying £50 per month DD for each supply.

I checked my bank statement for last month (November) to see that they had increased the DD for electricty to £193!!!!!!!!

I called them up to ask about why they had done this... it turns out I am already £363 in credit on my electricty and £82 in credit on my gas... and they still had the cheek to say that they would advise increasing the DD!!!!....

I told them to feck off and have changed the billing to quarterly bills with no monthly DD... I will give them a meter reading and keep the money in my bank rather than theirs.

Good scam though.... If you have say 1 million customers on DD, each of which could be on average £200 in credit, you could have £200,000,000 in additional revenue to invest/trade with.

Barstewards

[Republik]

Word of warning. Don't pay by direct debit. Yes they may say its cheaper but I do not trust them as far as I can throw them to estimate my readings, to go from £45-£60 a month regularly then suddenly have a bill for over £300 when estimated, they are robbings fks and need to be regulated.

[5pen]

We probably use a bit more gas than you in a similar sounding house and my bills average out at around £140 per quarter from memory. This is with EDF.

I tend not to use DD for bills that can vary from month to month and I'm glad having read some of the stories in this thread.

If you can, it sounds like you should go back to quarterly billing from an actual meter reading and simply pay for what you've used.

[RedImps]

Republik said:

Word of warning. Don't pay by direct debit. Yes they may say its cheaper but I do not trust them as far as I can throw them to estimate my readings, to go from £45-£60 a month regularly then suddenly have a bill for over £300 when estimated, they are robbings fks and need to be regulated.

They are - www.ofgem.gov.uk/

[Neil_H]

Jasandjules said:

Why not get them to take a reading rather than an estimate to see if you are paying enough at the moment, and if so, tell them to get fecked.

I bet they make a fortune sitting on customer money for months with the interest rolling in, then they just repay you the capital.

This is exactly why I give them a reading every month. The estimated bills are always higher than the actual use and they are not having more money off me than they are due. Cheeky feckers.

To the OP: make sure that they are billing you in the correct units. My company were billing me in Imperial units while my meter was in Metric so all my bills were wrong. The meter had been there long before I moved in so god knows how long that had been going on. I ended up with a refund.

[andye30m3]

EDF put my bill up from around £40 to £150 one month, i stopped the DD and they now get paid as and when I can be bothered to walk to the post office.

They called up a coupe of times to ask for a card payment and I simply informed them that they couldn't be trusted with my bank details so could wait.

[JRM]

Another one here, I was paying £75 pm for gas, then they changed it to £90 and now £130! And there is no debt on the account either. I tried the compare webstites but they seem rubbish, so I think I'll take the advice and change to quarterly billing instead.

[Mr Whippy]

Adrian W said:

They've stopped giving credit anymore, they adjust your payment so your always ahead, the idea of monthly DD was to even out the payments between summer and winter but they have changed it without telling anyone.

You might as well go back to quarterly billing and keep your money in your bank account.

Thats what I did years ago when they started taking the piss with 13 month averages, or averages based on estimates that were clearly bollarks, year on year.

It's all a ripoff. Best to do it quarterly, direct debit for the saving, but as SOON as you get the bill through do a reading and get a new one through that is accurate!

Oooor, hedge your bets, and under-read a bit in winter, and pay it off next summer HOPING it gets cheaper

Dave

[OJ]

Republik said:

Word of warning. Don't pay by direct debit. Yes they may say its cheaper but I do not trust them as far as I can throw them to estimate my readings, to go from £45-£60 a month regularly then suddenly have a bill for over £300 when estimated, they are robbings fks and need to be regulated.

Rule number one in my book.

[Mrs Trackside]

trumpet600 said:

Same thing - I'm with Eon

pay £69 direct debit, £180 in credit and I get a letter saying they are increasing it to £92.

I spent 20 mins on hold last night in an attempt to tell them to take a flying feck, but surprisingly all operators were busy due to popular demand! I wonder why.

Had the same experience with BG. When I asked the monkey on the phone why it was being increased by so much, it said it's because they had estimated my useage for the year. I told them I'd adjust it later in the year when I had to because I had a £200 credit. Monkey boy said I couldn't do that, I had the pay the same amount for 12 months, so I asked for the credit to be credited back to my bank; they couldn't do that either, it had to be sent by cheque which would take two weeks.

I felt really sorry for Monkey Boy having to listen to me rant and rave at him for the next ten minutes, just to vent my frustration.

[Jasandjules]

Mrs Trackside said:

Monkey boy said I couldn't do that, I had the pay the same amount for 12 months, so I asked for the credit to be credited back to my bank; they couldn't do that either, it had to be sent by cheque which would take two weeks.

Then tell Monkey Boy that you will be charging them the court approved rate of interest from today until the cheque clears - 8%. It's amazing how many companies can get money back into your account when they hear you say this, despite being adamant not 2 minutes before that they never do it.....