to lie to british gas?

[snowedinwithJjandtheBean]

i am getting seriously pissed off now,

DP is in the building trade so work for the past year has been all over the place, anyway we couldn't afford a quarterly bill so i rang and asked for advice, lovely lady on the phone offers us a prepayment meter and we have £4 a week removed from our 'top up' brilliant i think, we can manage that, anyway since then the debt was cleared dp worked for several months and we were back on our feet and saving like crazy people for the next redundancy hed have slapped on him, all the while asking BG if we could please come of PP meter and go back to quarterly bills, each call we were told to wait for a letter confirming, that letter never came.

Then in November dp joined the masses and had to sign on again as his hours were slashed to 10 a week, we decided maybe it was best to stay PP after all and ignored the fact wed never received a letter.

Anyway, now we top up £15 a week to get us through, just, we cant afford more than that. And in the past few weeks over and over weve had bizarre amounts taken from our credit, ie, top up £20, only left with £3.20? top up £10 left with £7, then we top up £15 left with 70p.
British gas are being no help claiming we still owe them despite a letter 2mnths ago saying its done, we keep making calls and writing letters and we simply cant keep throwing money away like that, and it is far far to cold for no gas as dcs are both under 2. ALL bills except rent and sky are in dps name.

SO AIBU to ring British gas and say DP has left me and i need BG turned over to me and to sort the debt with him?

Yes, because you could be done for fraud.

Call your local councillor, email your MP, ring the local press, make as much song and dance as you possibly can because BG are a shower of shites, but don't lie about it. It will come back to haunt you.

No yanbu, needs must! its too cold to be left without any heating.

YANBU! Although, frankly, I'd threaten to report them to Industry Watchdog (can't remember what it's called) if they don't get their act together asap. It's outrageous that they can just take your money.

Although, Hassled does make a good point. Fraud - not good.

what in gods name are any of those people going to do hassled ffs!!

TBH how will putting the debt to him sort it out if you are actually still together? I don't think you should lie. Go to the Citizens Advice Bureau and ask their advice.

A better bet would be:

Consumer Direct on: 0845 404 0506. (Who deal with pre-payment cock ups errors).

Good luck.

he can leave you...for one night,its not fraud then is it?

YANBU to want to do this, but it would be very silly. If you get caught out it could be an awful lot of hassle (or worse). Do as Belle suggested, call them, threatedn industry watchdog if they don't sort it out. Beforehand, check through and know what's what with the account so you can tell them what the outcome needs to be.

hadnt thought of fraud, ah shit!

fed up of wearing so many layers it makes typing difficult dd cant crawl in so many, thank god for lovely parents and grandparents!

Also another Question!

We move in 5weeks (so i was only gonna fib for that long) into the in laws house as they now live in the pub they run, is it ok for FIL to leave BG bill in his name and we pay him?

we really cannot afford the amount BG seem to expect from us, over £50 went in last week and we only got about £11 in credit!

OFGEN
contact them tomorrow. And tell BG you have contacted them. BG might mysteriously pull their fingers out when you mention them. Don't lie though, it's not worth the fall out.

I would not lie - you are perfectly entitled to complain but if you lie you undermine your position for the future. Phone them, demand to be put through to their complaints department - don't be fobbed off and when you get through tell them that you have written a letter to Ofcom that you are about to post but would like to give them one final chance to rectify the situation. Good luck.

Oops Ofgem. Have a look at the link below for complaints procedure.
www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk/links/3-31-complaining_to_the_ombudsman.php

thanks for all the advice

You can change your supplier, Eon will change the meter for you so you can set up a direct debit, then you can pay off what you owe BG, they should accept installments.

I have a meter that does this, at one point it was charging me for using the emergency credit . It normally takes out the bit for the bill repayment on a Wednesday, if I top it up on Tuesdays, then again on Thursday it takes out 2 lots of repayment, sometimes it takes out £2, other times it's £7, it never takes more then this though (NPower). NPower also send out vouchers towards the cost of gas and electricity to people who earn less then 13.5k and have a child/disabled. It's called spreading the warmth and you can get details from their web site.

we tried changing and BG kicked up a stink and said we owe them and cant change while we owe them. i think i hate BG, and i dont use the word hate much!

Thanks for that info fluffy, im now off to find out more.

Good old MN an answer for everything

You can change, I swapped electricity to Eon, I owe them a little (about 50), they moaned and kicked up a stink, it went through OK. Just tell them to send you a last bill when you change suppliers, tell them you'll contact Ofgem if they don't allow you to change suppliers.

thanks fluffy, dp is ringing eon in the morning!

I am so grateful for all the tips, and hopefully now we can end the money disappearing act and the cold!!

more nectar points

Don't take any shite from BG, remember to threaten them with Ofgem if they give you shite.

((Fluffy wonders if she gets free points for converting people. Hmmm))

"ALL bills except rent and sky are in dps name." Two kids under 2 and you are choosing to pay sky rather than heating their house???? Now that's unreasonable.

oh god not Eon - they are absolute f*ckers............

ermm takeresponsbility -if BG weren't taking money that the OP doesn't own then presumably the Sky payment wouldn't be an issue.

Why should they cancel sky just to pay money to a company that they don't owe???????

They are all absolute f*ckers Awayysailing. All of them. They don't give a shite as long as they screw you for your money.

no - EON are AWFUL, honestly - I can't wait to pay of this quarters bill and change from them.

I owed BG about £500 on my final bill and changed to Eon, am paying the same amount in DD every month and am over £400 in credit!!
I am paying BG off in weekly amounts, they can't stop you changing.
BG very very often muck up accounts, complain complain and keep all your paperwok from them, they are very bad at this (I used to work as a debt collector, BG were always making A LOT of mistakes).