Pauline Hinton is a strong and independent 84-year-old woman who has been able to cope with the daily demands of being herself with confidence since the death of her beloved husband John four years ago. years ago.
She cared for John, to whom she had been married for more than 30 years, as he lay in her bed for the last six years of her life. Retired Pauline lives on her own, supported by a modest civil pension earned from 30 years working in London for the Treasury.
But Pauline has faced an insurmountable challenge which she says ‘hits me and scares me’ – this is the ‘intimidating’ demand for more than £6,500 from the giant British Gas, started from his mailbox in October. It was a bill that Pauline said she didn’t owe.
To add insult to injury, the electronics firm continued to send letters to her black ex-driver husband John, who died aged 89. Despite Pauline’s pleas for this to stop.
Pauline has a monthly direct debit of £300 for British Gas which covers her electricity bill. But in October, British Gas said it wanted up to £828.84 because it said it had a debt of at least £6,500, which it planned to withdraw. every month.
British Gas explained in a letter – sent to John – that it was moving to a new billing system. Pauline feared that this might be where the problems started. He was afraid. ‘This is a lock out of the blue,’ he says. ‘I was scared that this job was going to be handed down without any effort.’
He phoned British Gas several times to dispute the size of the bill – insisting that his direct debit should not increase. However the Energy giant withdrew £828.84 from its bank account in November.
Only after threatening to write off the debt entirely, British Gas agreed to reduce the debt by £300 from this month, but did not write off the remaining debt.
Pauline said British Gas’s demands to pay a huge bill she didn’t owe had caused her sleepless nights as it ‘quietly, but honestly, broke my heart’.
Pauline says: ‘The stress kept me awake and I woke up worrying about what was going to happen next. I can use the computer, but it’s better to use the phone – but the phones send me from post to post. They eased my soul.’
Pauline is not the only one suffering under the weight of sudden – and extremely high – bills from electricity companies that are not fair and cannot be fixed. Citizens Advice helped more than 52,000 people with electricity bill problems between January and October this year – the equivalent of one person every two minutes.
Electricity bill issues have been the single most dealt with by Citizens Advice staff since March this year – and almost a quarter of bill issues are related to emergency bills, to catch up bills that make households suddenly pay for the energy they used in the past. The average hunting bill last year was more than £2,500.
British Gas is one of the worst. Of the 12,568 complaints dealt with by the Energy Ombudsman between July and September this year, the majority 6,758 came from British Gas customers. Most of the loan payments.
Pauline and John moved from London to the rural village of Llanwrda in Carmarthenshire 22 years ago. The three-bedroom house sits on a three-acre lot, with a river right outside the front door. The couple kept chickens, ducks and cats over the years. Pauline’s cat now has 17-year-old Taylor for company. Her two children visit when possible but live two hours away near Cardiff.
For Pauline, £300 a month is more than enough to cover her bills. Pauline pays British Gas for her electricity, and bills are kept as she uses an Economy 7 discount.
These rates charge two different rates for electricity use, depending on the time of day. This means customers will pay half the price for electricity between midnight and 7am compared to those on the standard tariff. However, the solar charge is up to a third higher than the standard rate paid by a person who does not sign up to Economy 7. The widow uses Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) from Flogas for its hot water and heating applications, therefore. It costs around £1,300 a year.
Pauline says there have been only a few meter readings in the last four years – most bills are estimates. But this year he started taking down his own ads because he didn’t trust the electronics giant to get the information right.
Within hours of Money Mail calling British Gas, the giant called Pauline – and rejected her requests for extra cash.
British Gas explained to Money Mail that the reason for the bill increase in the autumn was that it had previously relied on ‘old promotions’ but not actual usage.
It said the bill was calculated by adding up monthly payments over several years.
However, the so-called chargeback rules enforced by industry regulator Ofgem state that you cannot be charged for electricity used more than 12 months ago if you are not on the bill. right about that in advance, you haven’t been notified of the fees and if you have a fair amount that is set to be too low to pay the fees.
When Pauline’s electricity bill was waived more than 12 months ago, her bill was left in debt. British Gas said it was refunding £944 on updated figures.
A British Gas spokesman said: ‘Mrs Hinton’s electricity bills have been high for a long time and the direct debits are not consistent with usage. We have sent him a credit card, and he has a balance in his account that we will refund. We have told him to apologize for not fixing it sooner.’
Pauline said: ‘British Gas have since apologized for sending my husband a letter saying this should not have happened.’
If you have been sent an emergency bill that you think is unfair, file a complaint with your electricity supplier. Information on how to do this should be on the provider’s website.
If you want to write or send an email you can use the citizen complaint letter template: citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/template-letters/letters/energy-letters/.
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