A frugal life is an easy life!

I have just received my yearly pre payment meter statement from British gas.
Littered with lies and misrepresentations, it does its level best to deceive and manipulate the customer into believing that all is well with their gas payments.

"We've tried to make it as clear and simple to understand as possible. It's just another thing we're doing to help look after your world."

Let's take a look then shall we:

* British gas estimate that we will use £914 of gas in the next 12 months, showing a bar graph with the same amount of units as last year and the year before that.
This misleads the customer into believing that the price of British gas has not increased.
If british gas really wanted to make it clear and simple, why is it not showing the actual cost to us has increased for the year to come, despite using the same amount of gas for the 3rd year running?

It is confirmation also that british gas' professional view, that our old back boiler was using too much gas and we would be better off with a spanking new condenser/combination boiler, was completely false. The gas usage remains the same regardless of old broken back boiler or new combi boiler!

I will go a step further, the total payment take for last year and the year before has been almost £200 LESS than it will be for this year coming - Now with prices going up by 9% in December 2010 and british gas confirming that gas units used in 2008 - 2009, and gas used from 2009 - 2010, is the same as projected for use in the coming year, a 9% increase in price would represent an increase of a lot less than £200 would it not?

Rough workings show clearly, that 9% of our £720 (our old yearly amount paid for gas use) SHOULD equal an increase of £65 - putting our bill for this year at around £785
The gap between what british gas will be charging us for the coming year and what we have paid for the past two years, based on british gas' own prediction and facts, is a staggering £129 IN FAVOUR of british gas!

Where has this money gone?
Why are there no indications of this on my statement?
Why is the actual increase imposed on us by british gas, closer to 20% rather than the 9% increase they told us was happening?
Remember the statement they make on their advertisements on TV and radio, reitterated at the top of our pre payment yearly statement - "We've tried to make it as clear and simple to understand as possible. It's just another thing we're doing to help look after your world."

* British gas statement dates differ from actual usage dates.
Our pre payment yearly statement dates run from 31st December to 30th December each year - yet the actual usage monitored, runs from 28th September to 27th September each year. WHY?
For the past two years, the yearly statement shows the usage measured from September.
The statement (Dated 30 December) then says, "If you continue to use energy at the same rate over the next 12 months, we forecast your cost will be £914.
Missing 3 months there British gas?
Remember what British gas say at the top of our pre payment statement - "We've tried to make it as clear and simple to understand as possible. It's just another thing we're doing to help look after your world."

* British gas say the cost for the next year is "based on tariff breakdown and estimated meter readings"
Not possible!
With a pre payment card meter, everytime the meter is topped up, that is once per month or in winter 4 times per month (as they rip us off!) the card takes and records a meter reading and this information is sent back to british gas!
That was the whole purpose of installing a brand new meter and insisting we use a brand new gas card not 9 months ago.
The meter reading bloke only comes out now to do a visual check that the meter is working, at least once every two years by law.
Unless there is a fault sending the reading (can there be a fault for a full year?) then estimated meter readings are a thing of the past.

Next we have the british gas "tariff breakdown"
Last year british gas tell us we used more than 23 thousand kWh (kilowatts per hour) of gas.
Our "unit price" is 7.4 pence for the first 2680 kWh of gas used - which means we were on the higher unit price of more than 7 pence for the entire year. (Despite customer service advisors of british gas telling me we had a very high usage which couldn't be explained)
After 2680 kWh have been used then each unit of gas is charged at a reduced rate of 3.4 pence per unit.

Now after speaking to FOUR (that's 4) customer service advisors working for british gas, not a single one of them could explain how gas pricing works for a domestic customer!

A 5th customer service advisor attempted to make it clear for me:
"We can only charge you a higher rate for gas usage, up to 5200 units, after this level has been reached, you then go down to the lower rate."
Now you'd think that by the time winter comes around, we would have used all the higher rate units up and be on the lower rate unit charge over the winter months???
Clearly not the case as our payments shoot up from mid november, despite the identical gas usage from the year before. Are british gas starting the higher charge for units from zero prior to winter months to reap maximum profits from their customers?
Instead of starting the unit count from zero on the 31st of December, half way into winter? (I haven't even considered how this works for them as regards their tax bill being from April to April???)

The 5th advisor continued... "We don't charge lower price units once a customer has used up all their higher charge rate units, it doesn't work like that. This is because people with lower gas usage would never benefit from the reduced unit price!"
I asked why other people's usage was relevant to my own, should british gas not be charging me based on my own usage?
I asked also why my meter (at the time) was showing I had used 820 units of gas, how was I supposed to be able to see the link between 820 units used showing on my meter and the price being charged?
"You can't see this from your meter!" replied the advisor, "You're gas charges are calculated by kilowatts per hour!"

As clear as mud then, customer cannot compare meter reading to units to price charged to unit cost... how crazy is that!
In my experience, whenever a business confuses the issue between pricing and it's customer, it serves one sole purpose, to extort more money from the customer!
Remember british gas' claim at the top of my pre payment yearly statement, "We've tried to make it as clear and simple to understand as possible. It's just another thing we're doing to help look after your world."

* British gas tell me via the statement, that direct debit customers pay 4.5% LESS than a pre payment meter customer - with an asterix after the word "customer"
Cool, I pay in ADVANCE and I am charged more, discrimination I think!
The asterix is important though, in the small print underneath it, it reveals that the 4.5% is arrived at by british gas, is based on annual consumption of 20,500 kWh (So It wouldn't apply to me, an average customer anyways) and this figure is a "rounded average across all regions" - even worse, they are charging people in different areas of the country, different prices based on demographics!
More money in London, charge them more for their gas, more money in north west England, charge them more money for gas than Scottish customers, etc.
More discrimination.
Remember the statement, "We've tried to make it as clear and simple to understand as possible. It's just another thing we're doing to help look after your world."

* Finally, British gas tell us, "Did you know, there are lots of things you can do to reduce your energy consumption and energy bills"
Damned right there is.... install a coal fire and cook with electricity, making british gas and it's rip off, unclear, pricing methods, completely irrelevant!