chrisc79:

Just to emphasise something. The transfer reading(s) are either taken by the gaining company or more often by the householder on or around the actual transfer date at the request of the gaining company. The gaining company sends the transfer readings to the losing company via an industry agreed process. Any readings taken by the losing company at or around transfer time have no formal role in the transfer process.

The final and initial bills must be based on the same transfer reading.

Hi Jalexa

Thanks for the advice. We don't recall BG ever coming out and taking a reading themselves at the time we switched, only Scottish Power doing so for their initial reading which we confirmed with them.

We've checked back through our bills that we still have [as after we moved we destroyed most of them] and payments made against them and it would appear that we gave a reading to BG about 3-4 weeks before the final reading was taken and looking at our average usage the amount that they claim we owe them would appear excessive anyway.

My wife has told them that any more phone calls and she will refer them to the police for harrassment and in the meantime to send out all the bills and we will look at them and get back to them. So we'll see what happens........

chrisc79:

Sorry I don't know the exact answer to your question but yes, you are right the switching process is managed by the gaining company and the losing company's final reading(s) and the gaining company's initial reading(s) must be exactly the same and on the same date, so that is the first thing to check.

Not sure that would exclude the possibility of BG scr*wing up their billing (indeed they have a reputation for so doing) and potentially back billing for other reasons. AFAIK there is no prohibition on a genuine mistake being back billed but only up to 12 months and there can never be different readings on the two bills.

An unsolicited phone call is a totally unacceptable means of contact. You should insist on a proper bill and contact by mail not phone. I would also recommend that you phone BG to agree a documentary process and timeframe, not a payment, and if BG fail to deliver on the process and timeframe complain scrupulously in accordance with the BG complaints process.

Hi all, hoping someone here may be able to help. My wife has recevied a phone call from British Gas claiming that we owe them £200 for gas and electricity supplies. This dates back to November 2008, we live in rented accommodation and we decided that we were going to change supplier and leave British Gas and move to Scottish Power which we did. Scottish Power came out and carried out meter readings and we received final bills from BG which were duly paid and subsequent bills received from SP which again were paid. 2 months ago we moved out of this property where we gave SP our final meter readings and paid those up fully. Now some nearly 6 months later BG are coming back to us saying that SP had got the meter readings wrong and we owe them circa £200, my wife has asked them to send out all the final bills and meter readings so we can check this but BG are continually phoning her chasing the money which is now causing her distress. We have told them to send the bills out so we can review their claim but I have told them that if Scottish Power got the readings wrong they should be talking to them as anything that didn't get paid to BG has since been paid to SP and we now no longer live in the property in question.

I can't see how we can owe them money when we regularly updated our meter readings online and have not had problems from Scottish Power due to incorrect meter readings. Has anyone had this problem before??