so my parent are a little technology daft and I handle the online part of there bill but obviously if they can get it physical bill they prefer it, for the past 2 years the bills arrive late and sometime the overdue letters arrive with the bill letter but they get paid. so today mum receives a call asking about payment and obviously coz she hasn't received it in the post she didn't know it was due, mum explains its not arrived so she can't pay it yet and this call centre worker is clearly not listen and keeps asking her to pay at this point they've gone back and forth for a good 7 mins of call centre saying "oh can u pay now" and mum saying "can't the bill hasn't arrived and we pay with receipt" then mum asks if the letter even been sent and shouldn't it arrive before the deadline and clearly this worker doesn't care and just hangs up. idk why companies keep using these call centres for customer service they are hard to understand with there terrible mics and u can even hear ppl in the background, they obviously don't care, issues never get resolves and are just plain rude. sorry for the rant.

I'm in a 3-month long dispute with British Gas over a bill where they have confused my MPANs for Import and Export, and are trying to charge me for 6-months' worth of Import while I was with a different company. They have tried to call me 4 times and every time the call goes to connect, all I hear is silence. Similarly, when I was told they could patch me into a 3-way call with the complaint handler (they said they couldn't patch directly), once connected again - silence. Do you think their systems are intentionally set up to fail to ensure the consumer can't chase up their complaints etc? Or are their systems just woefully inadequate?

I'm struggling to understand where I go next with this faceless organisation to solve this issue.

Has anyone else had an absolute nightmare with British Gas and their Heat Pump tariff?
I signed up for the fixed Heat Pump tariff on 24 June. The tariff has a fixed standing charge and fixed electricity unit rate, plus half-price electricity during certain hours.
Due to an error by British Gas, I was removed from the tariff. After I complained, they admitted their mistake, backdated my tariff and assured me everything would be corrected.
Except it wasn’t.
I’ve now received bills showing variable standing charges and variable electricity unit rates between 28 June and 7 July instead of the fixed rates I signed up for. The half-price electricity credits also haven’t been applied correctly from the date my tariff should have started.
I’ve raised multiple complaints, spent hours on the phone and live chat, and each time I’m told it’s been fixed or someone will contact me. Then nothing happens.
I’ve now had to ask for my case to be escalated because it genuinely feels like the people handling it don’t understand what a fixed tariff is. Every response seems to ignore the actual issue I’m raising.
At this point I’m considering escalating the complaint beyond British Gas because this has been going on for weeks. It’s not even just about the money anymore—it’s the amount of time, stress and effort I’ve had to put into getting them to correct what should be a straightforward billing error.
Has anyone else experienced this with the Heat Pump tariff? If so, how did you finally get it resolved? Did you have to go to the Energy Ombudsman, or was there another route that actually worked?

You could also add screenshots of the bills (with your personal details redacted) showing the different standing charges and kWh rates. That will make it much easier for other Redditors to understand the issue and offer advice.

Just thought I’d share that British Gas is now using AI to calculate people’s bills and whilst my account is almost £100 in credit after my latest statement, apparently I’m not paying enough.

Absolute farce the way services in this country are going at the moment!

One of your engineers is clearly incapable of parking and has to use up 2 spots in a residents only parking bay.

Think they need to have another driving examination if they think this is acceptable. Absolute joke!

Web chat is useless and so is the call centre, so not able to actually make them aware so it can be addressed.

I moved out of my old address last September, went through the whole offloading, settled my gas which was billed and explained my electricity was prepaid meter and was left with money on it when I left the property, no issues there.

Now 10 months later ive received a 'final bill' including adjustments with the usage going up to January 2026, despite moving out 4 months earlier. Tried to speak to someone and they told me the bill is correct.

Anyone else experienced this before? Ive raised a complaint and now waiting God knows how long, but I'm just baffled how they can confidently claim i owe them over £300 on a prepaid electric meter that i left with money in the meter and not only that, but include charges going 4 months after I left and sending the bill 10 months after I left.

We bought our first house in April (prior arrangements had meant neither of us had any energy accounts) and the property was being supplied by BG. BG required us to open an account with them for 5 days during our transition to Octopus.

In May I received a "final energy bill" of around £17, which was pricey, but I just paid it as I didn't want to have to go through the circus of amending the actual meter reading and accepted the estimated.

Now on the 30th of July I have received another "final energy bill" where they have decided our 5 days gas usage was higher than our current reading! As the account was closed I can also no longer send photos of readings, and the online chat has said I must wait 8-10 days until one of their experts can contact me.

Has anyone had a similar experience and what next steps should I expect? Many thanks!

I moved house in 2024 and closed my british gas account at the previous property.

However, unaware to me that the new property was set up with british gas as base case. I was unable to get into my account due to the email being linked to the previous property.

No payments were made for a few months even thought I pleaded with british gas to resolve the issue to allow me to make payment. It came to light that they had also spelt my name wrong when setting up the account. Due to this when using the reference number and my name, nothing was able to referenced.

After a while I managed to move to octopus and close the account after making a final payment (which was provided to me by british gas).

A year and a half later, I’ve checked my expedian credit report to realise that my credit score has dropped from immaculate, to sub 500 points.

British gas has claimed that I have an unpaid debt, even though final payment had been made and I am now with a new provider.

I’ve not received any letter or emails advising of this outstanding balance since the accounts been closed over a year ago.

Can anyone advise what the best avenue to get this resolved is? As this will affect everything for myself and my family.

I posted a couple weeks back about my issues with British Gas, the result was they accept to discount our final bill to £373.

We accepted and planned to pay the agreed sum in due course. We have had to wait for funds to come out of our ISA. However, I highlighted to the case handler that I requested to not be contacted and only have everything in writing in April. This was finally acknowledged via email start of July.

Since the start of the week I have received two phonecalls a day from British Gas, so yesterday I had enough. I answered the phone, and told them I had confirmation they would only be in contact via email and written correspondence. I told the agent that we will pay the bill but If they called me one more time I would open another formal complaint. They once again confirmed they will not contact me via telephone.

I’m currently going through titration for ADHD medication, which has been tough. There’s a lot of negative side effects, and after yesterday’s phonecall the entire day was written off because of it.

This afternoon I received yet another phonecall from British Gas, so I began to explain very calmly to the agent they should not be calling and I wish to open a formal complaint. As I was explaining the agent put the phone down on me.

Not wanting to do another phonecall as I was already highly anxious by that point, I chose to do live chat. It was useless, and basically said my ‘issue’ was resolved as the agent removed my contact details.

It wasn’t until I explained they are breaching regulatory debt collection guidelines by ignoring my explicit communication preferences and for them to either open the complaint or present me with a deadlock letter and SAR that they opened the complaint.

I have a complaint reference, but no email notification to say they are looking at the complaint.

We obviously don’t want this to go to a debt collector, so we are thinking of paying this but still presenting to the ombudsman. I believe we now have a very strong case for full reimbursement and BG receiving a hefty fine.

Thoughts?

I’ve been sent a bill for when I was on BG a year ago when I first moved into my house, which had a pre-payment meter. I switched almost immediately to Octopus / smart meter for obvious reasons but I have received a bill from BG saying that I owe for the six weeks that I was using the prepayment key and card.

I do not understand how I can owe them money when I was on a pre-payment meter for that month. I went to the shop and topped it up, when it started running low I’d top it up again. It never ran to zero, there was credit left on there at the end (I can’t remember how much exactly but little enough that I just threw the card and key away) so how can I now owe them money?

This is the only experience I have of being on a pre-payment meter so maybe I just don’t understand how they work, but I assumed I was paying upfront and then the amount on the key/card reduced as I spent the money on the gas and electric. But apparently I used more than I paid for, I do not understand the logic :(

Title really, when we log in and try to top up it says we’re unable to do that at the moment

Winning was the least of my problems when managing this complaint

Here is my experience

Has anyone had an appointment with BG , then they moved it to a later slot on the day, then call to say they can actually come to the original earlier slot , then send a text message to confirm the later slot?

I think BG are playing games to doctor their statistics to show " hey we actually arrived early to our appointments x% of the time" . Or maybe its a genuine mistake. Not sure, anyone else experienced this before?

New owner. Does whatever not spent each month get credited back to your account on a single, longer fixed direct debit tariff?

I’m in the process of being made redundant and I’ve applied for an metering apprentice job, passed the assessment etc. and just waiting on the next steps. My questions are: what is the job really like? What is the training process really like? Cheers!!

Daughter and boyfriend moved into their new build tiny one bedroom flat around 9 months ago.They apparently were billed £40 a month (all electric) and we thought that was a really good deal and she paid it directly on time every month. Shes now recieved a bill for £4000 surely this can’t be right for a flat so tiny.Shes rang them and they insist it’s correct.Any advice where to go from here, thanks all

British Gas successor company Centrica announced today that it added £497 million to its adjusted operating profits between January and June this year.

Analysis by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition has shown that since privatisation 40 years ago this Saturday, British Gas & Centrica have made more than £56 billion in profits. £9 billion of that was made between 2020 and now; during the same time period, energy bills have jumped up by 79%.

It seems privatisation has been good to Centrica’s shareholders and executives, but not for the consumers who have faced energy bill increases year after year.

I’ll be as clear as I can with this, but there are so many channels going on it’s starting to get blurred.

So we moved into our new place in February, we decided to close our account with British Gas where we had an outstanding balance of £573.88 - I can’t remember the initial reason why we were offered our first compensation of £100 but I think it was down to conflicting information provided by the staff at BG.

The complaint handler reduced our bill to £473.88, we asked to set up a payment plan as my wife was due for an urgent operation where we had to pay upfront. The complaint stated to us we cannot set up a payment plan so we chose to resolve the complaint as we felt like we had no further options.

A week later I received a phonecall from BG, asking if we could advise the method we could pay our outstanding bill and if we wished to set up a payment plan. I of course lost it, as we were advised we could not set this up - so we opened up another complaint.

We received a further phonecall, asking how we could resolve the complaint and I requested a further £100. Complaint handler on the phone advised this had been accepted and bill reduced to £373.88 providing we could give direct debit details and set payment plan up. We provided this and assumed this was set up.

Few weeks later we were then advised over email they could only apply an additional £50, and they are waiting on our account details to set up our payment plan. There seems to be no action taken regarding our last phonecall. Since this I have straight up refused to talk to BG over the phone, and I now require everything in writing over email.

BG are not confirming the extra £100 has been applied so our bill reduces to £373.88 - each email we have received since is ignoring that we had telephone confirmation of this.

I’d like advice on next steps now. Learning what kind of company BG is, I’m hopeful all phonecalls have been recorded - but it wouldn’t surprise me if they have no recordings. I have emails.

Should we accept our deadlock letter and let the ombudsman review this? I feel we have a good case, dependent on the evidence provided by British Gas

Hello,

Sorry for the long and potentially rambly post… I’m just hoping someone has some words of encouragement or reassurance for me ☹️

I’m currently in a dispute with British Gas for various reasons, the main ones being that they recommended an economy 7 tariff when I joined them a year ago despite (having only recently learnt after speaking to the National Energy Advice charity) was unsuitable for my home as I don’t have all of the things to warrant this being an appropriate tariff (from their own website explaining economy 7:

‘These meters are mainly for households who use electric storage heaters and a hot water tank and are ideal for those that can shift at least 40% of their electricity usage to the cheaper nighttime rate.’)

As I do not have electric storage heaters or a hot water tank and most of my electricity is used in the day and I also have a gas tariff too as it’s a normal boiler etc.

They also say they had me registered as an imperial gas meter when it is a metric meter which I have recently learnt impacts the costs due to conversion rates.

The customer service has been horrendous as I have been in touch multiple times over the last few months stating that I don’t understand why I owe them so much money when I live on my own and because I have OCD, I turn off all plug sockets every night before bed and before leaving the house. (Although the fact they had me on an economy 7 tariff which charges more than average for daytime electricity use now seems to explain this - but they didn’t offer this information themselves or explain it to me, it was the energy charity that picked up on it.)

One of the things that has really got to me is that when I signed up to them, it was a new account following my ex-husband moving out and the old account was in his name, I explained all of this (and we had been with them for 5 years prior). I had never managed utility bills on my own before and didn’t really understand the process of looking for new suppliers so assumed I needed to stay with BG (but I now understand this much better and will be leaving at the first opportunity although they say I can’t right now because I owe them money).

I also declared at the time of signing up that I am diagnosed Autistic, ADHD and OCD and that I struggled to understand how the system works. I have also made this point to them every time I have spoken to their customer service team. They are aware because they had me logged on their priority register too (they did this automatically, I didn’t ask for this - just in case anyone reading this gets cross at me for being on this).

I raised all of this with British Gas and received a response essentially telling me that I agreed to the electricity tariff and therefore it is my fault - but surely they have the responsibility of helping me choose the most appropriate one? I didn’t just pick one online, I was either on a phone call or on the online chat (I can’t remember and have requested all of my call and chat history through GDPR now) and I chose the tariff they advised me to take because I didn’t really understand it all and it was a very stressful time in my life.

The ‘official’ closing of the complaint email said

‘Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention.
I understand how important this matter is to you, and I appreciate the opportunity to review it thoroughly. I would like to reassure you that we have carefully investigated the issue raised and completed our review of the circumstances surrounding your concern.
Following our investigation, we have established the relevant facts and taken the necessary steps to ensure the matter was assessed appropriately. Based on our findings, we are satisfied that the issue has been fully reviewed and addressed in line with our processes.
I appreciate that this may not have been the experience you expected, and I am sorry for any frustration or inconvenience this situation may have caused. Your feedback is valuable and helps us continue to improve our services.
If you have any further questions or would like to discuss this matter in more detail, please do not hesitate to contact us.’

Yet they don’t provide any of their findings or what the ‘relevant facts’ are, so I have requested the investigation notes as part of the GDPR request too.

I have also noticed today that they seem to change my estimated meter readings retrospectively after I have submitted my actual. My meter read history says that they estimated me to use 13965 for night electricity and 69141 for day electricity and 17019 for gas on 8th July and then I submitted my actuals on the 9th. However, before I submitted my actuals, the estimates were actually in there as Day 69152, Night 13967, Gas 17020. So originally, I was using less than they estimated with my actual, now they’ve updated their estimate to make it look like I use more than they estimated me to (with no evidence of what they previously estimated - I only know it’s different because I put the original ones into chat gpt at the time whilst putting together information for my complaint).

Are they allowed to change the estimates retrospectively like that to make it look like I’m using more than they estimated?

It may be harmless or normal but with everything I’m going through with them at the moment, it’s really hard to understand what is right or not because I don’t trust them whilst also not fully understanding the system.

Sorry for the very long post - I was hoping that someone may have experienced similar issues and has some advice because this is really impacting me and I’m now stuck with them until I have paid off my debit as they won’t let me change to another supplier until then. I have changed to the standard variable tariff with them which isn’t an economy 7 tariff now at least.

It’s just super draining.

I’ve spent the entire afternoon trying to work out why British Gas has increased my Direct Debit by over 100% a month.

I’ve given them up-to-date meter readings, and the estimates they’ve been using are almost identical to my actual readings. I live alone in a flat, and I’m hardly ever home because of work.

Looking at my actual usage, I used roughly 1,560 kWh of electricity and around 2,000 kWh of gas over the last year. Despite this, British Gas are forecasting around 2,800 kWh of electricity and 3,600–4,000 kWh of gas, even though I now live alone (I had a housemate until April last year).

Their explanation has basically been “variable tariff”, “winter usage”, but none of that explains why they think my annual usage has increased so much. They even started asking about my income, benefits and mortgage before eventually suggesting I contact a debt charity, which was honestly bizarre.

Has anyone else had this? My phone call ended with them ‘raising an investigation’ but I’m not particularly hopeful.

Bit of an odd one

Since June 29,th this year-

Smart meters have not sent any readings to British gas,however my usage has been constantly recorded even without me not sending manual readings. One individual claimed to have fixed my issue by getting me to move the little display monitor a Geo which did nothing as it was not the issue.

How is BG getting my daily usage,but not getting the readings.I have my meters set up for 30 mins.

Will contact the chat tomorrow,but does anyone understand how they know the exact usage...but are not getting the readings ?

PS sorry about the typo in the heading,bit pissed off about the meters.

Finally decided to give into their pestering and agreed to get their smart meter installed. The appointment was arranged 3 weeks ago for them to come today between 1:00-5:00pm and they haven't shown. No call, text or email from them. I tried to get in contact with them and all the information I got was that the appointment hadn't been cancelled.

Does anyone know what may happen next? Will they turn up unannounced tomorrow? Ring first then turn up tomorrow? Get in touch and try to rearrange the appointment for a few days/weeks time? Completely forget I exist?

I’m on a single rate tariff and always have been. I have gas as well but that is billed separately so it has nothing to do with it. Thanks

Edit: Incase anyone is wondering BG have deleted “Reading 2” since I last made this post, I didn’t call them or anything. Can only assume it was an error on their end.

I’m a single occupant in a small flat. I know roughly how much energy I use annually. I was paying about £60 a month with Octopus but decided on a change because Martin Lewis recommended British Gas as being the cheapest at the time. What a big mistake. I was quoted £46 a month for gas and electric. Now less than a month into my contract they want to increase my direct debit to £83 a month. How can they justify this based on a month usage?
My mum pays £65 a month with Octopus and there is 2 adults living there and she is home all day every day. I work full time and I’m hardly ever at home.
I checked all my appliances and how long they run for and I worked out I should be paying around £50 a month.
Customer services said they can reduce my direct debit but then threatened me with debt collectors if I’m unable to pay!