British Gas mixed up our energy meter – but now I’m being penalised

Residents in our new housing development are being billed for each other’s energy after the meters were mixed up.

I realised British Gas was sending bills for my energy to the developer of the estate instead of to me. I informed British Gas of my details when I moved in seven months ago.

When I finally persuaded it to put the account in my name, and tried to set up a direct debit, it sent my bank details to the developer and continued to bill it. It then began billing me for a meter with a different reference number to my own.

It turned out that my newly installed meter – and those of my neighbours – had been registered to different addresses.

British Gas offered me compensation for the data breach involving my bank details but closed my complaint about the meter mix-up.

I informed it that I was cancelling my direct debit as I was not prepared to pay someone else’s bill. British Gas merely informed me that this would result in a higher tariff.

CG, Shropshire

Your estate is still under construction, and you reckon all of the half-dozen properties that are now occupied are affected.

Given that the charges are estimates, and that the properties range from five-bedroom houses to two-bedroom social housing, some residents may be being significantly overcharged.

British Gas confirmed to me that it has so far identified that the meters of all of the homes it supplies have been mixed up.

“Energy meters for new-build properties can sometimes be registered incorrectly following construction when a plot number is assigned to the wrong address,” it said.

It told me that your meter has now been correctly assigned, and it is correcting your neighbours’ meters on the national database.

When it did get in touch with you, it was to say that your tariff had increased by a total of 19% because you had cancelled your direct debit and forfeited the associated discount. You had cancelled it so that you wouldn’t be paying for someone else’s energy.

You are reluctant to reinstate it until you have been issued with a revised bill showing your household’s actual consumption. That’s lost on British Gas, too.

Instead, it says your payment for energy that may, or may not, have been used by you, is overdue and will incur a £13 surcharge if you don’t stump up pronto.

Three months after I first contacted it, you are still getting contradictory bills that may, or may not, be yours, and you are still waiting for the promised compensation.

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