Zeros to heroes... your £20k bill horror is over
T.K. writes: I have been in business as a hairdresser for 20 years at the same address, employing two part-time staff. The agreement between the landlord and myself is that electricity is included in my rent. I have now received a letter from debt collector Arvato, saying that I owe British Gas £20,038 for electricity. I have never even received a bill before, though the meter has been read regularly. Can you help? THE letter from Arvato is scary. It says: ‘Despite several reminders, your electricity account remains unpaid. If we are unable to reach an agreeable resolution then we may pass this account to our client’s field collections team to visit your property with a view to commencing disconnection activity.’
Arvato goes on to say that if you fail to make contact, British Gas may apply for a warrant of entry entitling it to enter your premises and cut off your electricity. This will add £450 to your bill.
It warns: ‘If your supply is disconnected, reconnection can take up to two weeks and may cost up to £1,800 plus VAT, dependent on the size of your meter.’
All of this threatened to put you out of business, and your staff out of work. But there were a few puzzling questions. For a start, the letter was addressed to your hairdressing business and not to you personally. This made me wonder whether you were even a British Gas customer, so I asked Arvato to comment, but it did not reply.
British Gas was a lot more helpful. Its records show you are its customer, though they bear the name of your business, rather than your name.
Any agreement that your landlord should pay the bills is between you and him. The company insists it sent four reminders about the bill – so perhaps you simply handed these over to the landlord.
But the bottom line is that the demand for £20,038 is just plain wrong. Apparently British Gas had been using estimates for quite some time, until last November when an actual reading of your electricity meter showed significantly lower consumption than expected, taking the reading well below the earlier estimates.
As a result, British Gas assumed that the meter had gone all the way round to 99999 and had started again at zero, producing a huge bill.
A meter reader visited you and confirmed the low reading was correct. Unfortunately, British Gas failed to update its records and carried on demanding payment.
Catrin Millar, of British Gas, told me: ‘We are sorry we let Mr K down. As soon as we realised we had sent him a large bill in error, we should have put the matter right straight away.’
By the time you read this, you will have received an apology from British Gas, a hamper of goodies, and just over £350 as a gesture of goodwill. Excellent.