Direct Debit - Gas firms

Post by **Mike** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:56 am

There is a news article in the paper today about Gas firms stockpiling £490 million of cash from not correctly adjusting Direct Debits when the price of gas reduces. The average hold back for direct Debit customers is

N-Power £67 per customer,
Powergen £78 per customer,
Scottish Power £67 per customer.

This makes the direct debit 'Saving' of £50 per year seem a little silly doesn't it. Personally I am glad that I don't pay them by Direct Debit!

BarcelonAl · Post by **BarcelonAl** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:53 am

I got a letter from Powergen yesterday stating that the price of my electricity will be coming down from the 30th April. However it won't be till next quarter when they can tell me if I'm paying too much (which by virtue of the prices coming down surely means I am!), and then I'll be informed what to do about changing my DD payments...cheeky little bleeders! It should be automatically credited to my account, simple as.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:36 am

All gas companies are scheisters.

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:30 pm

Weeeeell, technically your only loss is the interest you could have received on that money...about £5 in some of those cases. Is there anything to stop everyone asking for an immediate payment review, or do they only have set times they even consider altering your direct debit amount?

It was also interesting (I use that term very broadly) to note that British Gas stated their average direct debit customer actually owed them £60 or so. I'll take a guess it's due to either customer demographic, or they're not quite as ruthless as the others.

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 3:40 am

forget the details - this is corporate theft. i can't tell the inland revenue i'm rounding down my income tax so it doesn't include the pennies. unbelieveable the shit business gets away with in this country

Post by **Mike** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:48 am

Actually Inland Revenue does tell you to round your income down to the nearest pound and tax paid is rounded up to the nearest pound. I am not sure why but obviously they do not care about a couple of pence worth of tax.

Post by **Mike** » Wed May 09, 2007 2:45 pm

I saw an advert today for British Gas. They are proudly advertising that they are the only company to reduce their prices TWICE in one year. Well, this means one of two things. Either they are keen to be seen as the cheapest (which I doubt) or they are overpriced to start with.

Are we all advert optimisms or pessimists in this case? I am deffo a pessimist . . .

Post by **johnriley1uk** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:33 pm

Don't dismiss British Gas - they sent me all my overpayment back and reduced my direct debit to a much more reasonable level.

They might be keen to regain some lost business.

Post by **Mike** » Thu May 10, 2007 3:03 pm

I have heard that they have lost millions of customers due to their high prices and poor customer services recently. I am always surprised by gas / elec firms.

I wonder, is anyone else slighly bemused by their weird pricing systems? Can anyone explain why we pay two different rates per unit on gas? How can you possibly check they are right if we don't know how it is calculated. . . .

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:13 am

I thought it was just a higher rate for the first x number of units, then a lower rate for anything above that? It's always made pretty clear on our bills from British Gas (except for that time they sent us a freaky-looking bill).

Post by **Mike** » Fri May 11, 2007 12:06 pm

Yes I know that much but WHY!? It means you can not calculate how expensive or cheap one company over another is without doing a set of calculations based on your previous years consumption.

I suspect it is just to make such a calculation difficult and waste customers time.

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Fri May 11, 2007 6:39 pm

I always reasoned that it was some kind of bulk-buy discount, like buying one item then getting the second half-price. The alternative would be that they have one rate for everyone, but then then would penalise their best customers, ie the ones with huge gas bills.

John Knight · Post by **John Knight** » Fri May 11, 2007 7:20 pm

We got a an Extra £50 from the previous owners of the house stuck on our gas bill despite telling british gas when we moved in and giving them meter readings twice and giving them notice we were moving to npower.