I haven’t paid for any gas for 3 years. How to get out of it?

[Gastheif]

I know I have been unreasonable, looking for advice.
had a smart meter fitted 3 years ago since then and despite the company sending out meter readers all bills I have received for gas say £0 usage.
I want to get out of this situation, ideally without having to pay it back and before the price hikes mean that I may have a debt I can’t even afford, also before government help starts.
if I switch supplier, do you think this will fix itself?
WWYD?

Tbh I'd just start putting aside as much as I can afford that would be likely to be the gas bill, and just saving it in case they realise. If they do then you can pay the 12 months back pay, or at least some of it (and agree a payment plan for the rest), and if they don't you've got some nice savings.

I was going to post this. The charges can only be backdated a year and you'll be billed at whatever the prevailing at the time was. There will be a set way of calculating what you are deemed to have used in a year.

If the meter hasn't been registering any usage, and it sounds as if that's the case as you say you've had a meter reader, I don't see that they can backcharge you because they won't know how much you've used.

Really, the onus should be on them to notice that your meter readings are not changing, but presumably no human ever looks at the difference between the meter readings (and of course sometimes a house is unoccupied and 0 would be expected).

I would tell them about the zero usage, and make sure I had some sort of record of doing so. It sounds as if it might take a while before they fix things anyway.

Us too- even had UK Power Networks come to look at the meter, have phoned, written, but so far, nothing!

Multiple phone calls, engineer appointments booked where no engineer has attended, manager callbacks booked where no manager has then called me, complaint calls booked where no one from the complaint team has call me, meter readings sent manually including photographs of the meter over the space of several months showing the same reading every single time as its not counting on, multiple contacts via the live chat system, letters sent.... and they've done nothing. All I ever get is "an engineer will call you in the next five days to book an appointment" but if they do call (which they often don't) they never get as far as actually attending the bloody appointments.

I'd probably put the money aside to make sure I had it to pay the 12 months worth if / when they notice. You can't change supplier anyway.

Laughing at 'they can only bill you for a year'.. how the hell would you even know how much that is?
I (eventually) got a bill from npower for electric for nearly £13,000, after continally querying it. A fuel charity helped me out with an agreed lesser sum, supposedly for a year's worth of electric, phoned to speak to npower one day & a young lad there innocently told me I'd been billed for two years worth of power...I was so pleased to move house & get away from the idiots who called themselves npower..
Oh, btw - when replacing meters, the one I was meant to get had gone to an empty cottage further down the lane, hence my non-billing, just in case anyone tries to blame me! THEIR fault!!

I would have fucking zero moral obligation towards a gas company 😂 especially at the moment

no good advice OP, but I genuinely hope you get away with it, the money is almost certainly better off in your pocket than theirs.

Put £200 aside each month into your savings. They can only claim for 12 months and would have to agree a payment plan anyway.

Got to laugh at those saying it’s morally wrong. Out of all the companies to take from I’d say power companies are the ones I’d least give any fucks about- in fact I read this and think ‘good’. They don’t care about stealing from the elderly or disabled it seems so why should we care about them.

*I would have fucking zero moral obligation towards a gas company 😂 especially at the moment

no good advice OP, but I genuinely hope you get away with it, the money is almost certainly better off in your pocket than theirs.*

This with knobs on.

F*ck them. All these people not getting charged by incompetent immoral bottom feeders. You've cheered me up.

Just make sure you have 12 months worth of payments. In my case (I'm at home all day) a year's worth of gas before the hikes was almost £2,000 so if it was me I'd have to have up to £4,000 set aside now just for 12 months, which you find month to month but it's a huge chunk all at once and even then you're getting off very lightly.

Hahah true! I’ve had gas company drama that was the equivalent of having a small freelance project on the go and recently had a dpd issue that was actually impossible to resolve.

I didn’t notify them because I’m unreasonable, I thought it would sort itself out

Are you having a laugh? You'll have to pay (and so you should, when you've been using gas and paying nothing, you knew it was wrong). You'll be put on some type of payment plan.

Also they won't be able to force it all at once. They will set up a payment plan so don't panic over the whole 12 months thing to much its just for your peace of mind.

we noticed this recently - thought we were doing ok as we still had a little credit on the account. Turns out they have't been billing for gas since march, and electric lost contact with the meter in June.

Lovely bill for £400 added to my balance so now I'm £350 in arrears as Winter approaches..

They still can't 'see' my gas meter but I'll do manual readings every month for now

But how can OP pay if she has (as I have) told / written them there is a problem (numerous times).
Then been told and in writing that there is NO problem when they investigated our complaint.

That's incredible...
What a stroke of luck..Meanwhile others are almost suicidal at the fear of price rises.
Are these ''Smart'' meters, or key meters?
The companies are making record profits, so clearly don't care about some people getting power for free. :(

Like others say I wouldn't change supplier, I would just make sure I took photos and had evidence I wasn't misleading them, and keep a year's worth of payments somewhere safe. I've heard of this happening quite a bit too.

Do you live in a flat? I would say count your lucky stars and leave it. We are now going to face the worst few winters ever and getting your gas for free is a bliss. I would not contatc them any more.

Keep quiet and plead ignorance. Fuck em!

This reminds me of the “Gasman” episode of Bottom.

I had a similar problem about 10 years ago with N Power. I kept setting up a direct debit, they kept cancelling it and not taking any money. I submitted reading every month, they didn't bill me. I did this every month, emailed them, rang them and tried to resolve it for 2 years. In the end I changed supplier and N Power didn't bill me.

I did continuously chase them though to either bill me or take a direct debit but due to their massive system issues they could do neither.

I think they can bill you for the last 12 months.

I agree.
An ''Electric trader'' known to a friend is a multi millionaire, under 40, is saying he's never had it so good.
Massive profits.

It's obscene .
Don't know how anyone ''Deals'' in electricity, bit it is highly lucrative.
Wish I understood about how to do it, I'd try and deal in it myself!

This happened to dd when she moved into a house share. They had no gas or electric bills for months despite signing up fo them. I sorted it out in the end as I didn’t want her suddenly to face a large bill which she could not afford to pay and would look to me to help her.

Sorry, I have no sympathy. You've willingly fleeced the system for three years due to an admin error. You know you should have advised them. If you have to pay it back plus a penalty, it's all on you.