My house is entirely electric. So why did I get a £2,534 gas bill?
I AM 85 years old and live in a small, entirely electric house I bought in September 2012. A mains gas supply goes through a meter affixed to the outside of the house, but is capped off. There is no internal pipework.
For several years, I received letters from British Gas addressed to ‘The Business Owner’. I assumed they were not for me and sent them back.
I wrote to British Gas on May 7 denying any use of gas or any business connection, but received no reply. The firm is now demanding a substantial sum — most recently £2,534.77.
On July 11, I got a final notice, which stated it had added a late-payment fee and that, in the absence of a response, it would visit ‘to start the process of disconnection’. What should I do?
A. R., Kent. Writing to me was a good choice. Much as i relished the idea of an engineer trying to disconnect a non-existent supply, i contacted British gas, which moved swiftly to resolve the problem.
it seems your property was registered as a business address by British gas in 2007, several years before you moved in.
initially, there was no charge, but then it began to apply standing charges for supply to business and residential customers. these have been accumulating despite no gas being used.
British gas has now cleared all the charges. it has also agreed to remove the meter free of charge — something you tell me you will be very happy to see happen. RECENTLY, I queried some payments into my Barclays current account that I did not recognise. The bank removed the money — £181 in total.
However, I then realised they were the income payments from my National Savings & Investments (NS&I) certificates.
I have been trying to get the money back, but each organisation blames the other for the delays. I am beginning to give up hope of ever seeing it again.
Mrs T. N., Powys. this was a simple enough issue, yet you have been batted around like a tennis ball. Why? Laziness of employees or an unwillingness to take responsibility?
so it was time to bash heads together. But i’m sorry to say the tweedledum and tweedledee approach continued.
Barclays says ns&i should have told it which account needed to be credited. Yah boo — it’s ns&i’s fault!
ns&i says that when money is returned, it does not make any further payments from that customer’s account until it has been in contact with them. this helps to prevent fraud, or money going astray.
it suggested the money would be found in a Barclays suspense account, as ns&i would only recall a payment if it had been sent to an incorrect bank account. so it’s Barclays’ fault!
no matter. Barclays has now found the money and added £25 to it. And ns&i has arranged for a £75 goodwill payment.
As you say, this all started as a result of a silly mistake by you — but the silliness of each bank has put yours in the shade. AFTER my father died, my mother chose to give me and my two sisters power of attorney. We signed the documents in separate branches of Santander, but, when the confirmation arrived, my name was missing.
I spoke to Santander and it took my details and a copy of my passport, which it seems to have lost. I was told the complaints department would contact me, but it didn’t.
I have since received a letter stating I need to provide copies of all the documentation again, but these are with my mother. Meanwhile, my mother has received a letter from the head of complaints, stamped ‘resolved’. Clearly, it is not.
It was suggested that I try to register online. Despite repeated attempts, I could not do so.
R. R., London. BAnks all too frequently adopt a slapdash approach to those registering and operating a power of attorney (POA). Poorly trained staff can expect customers to jump through hoops.
Few banks seem to have proper procedures in place, and, where they do, staff appear oblivious.
the number of us handling a POA on behalf of relatives will inevitably grow, yet banks behave as if we have nothing better to do than mop up their errors.
i have considerable personal experience of these frustrations, so can fully understand what you are going through.
the part of your letter i have published is only a glimpse of the many attempts you and your mother have made to resolve this, while santander has shown breathtaking incompetence.
santander says you visited its Walthamstow branch on April 12. On May 1, the Liverpool branch confirmed the documents were not sufficiently completed to register you.
Why not? Were the Walthamstow staff not properly trained in how to deal with this?
On June 6, you called to query why confirmation hadn’t come through to you. Why did you have to initiate contact? surely the bank should have called you when it found something wrong?
By July 3, your complaints had elicited a second written response, plus £25 to pay for a registration with anti-fraud agency, Cifas, as you were worried your documents had been lost by the bank.
santander has now paid you £200 compensation in addition to the £25 and another £75 paid earlier. And it has confirmed the POA has now been registered.