A customer recently reported that British Gas established an account in their name for a property where they have never resided, subsequently issuing a bill for \u00a3571. The company opted not to address this issue formally, citing the customer’s inability to provide a tenancy agreement or mortgage statement. As the customer has already settled their mortgage, they do not possess such documentation. British Gas has now escalated the matter by threatening to involve a debt collection agency.<\/p>\n
The customer\u2019s actual residence is supplied by Octopus Energy, and they have no association with the apartment in question that British Gas mistakenly linked them to.<\/p>\n
British Gas maintained that without proof of non-residency, the assumption was that the customer must live at the disputed address. The company disregarded bank statements provided as evidence and failed to question the accuracy of the tracing agent it employed to find alleged debtors.<\/p>\n
Due to the similarities in address, the tracing agents mistakenly identified the customer when there was a lack of responses to bills sent to the actual supply address.<\/p>\n
It was only after the customer intervened that British Gas took action. The company has since offered a late apology and has rectified its records by removing the customer’s name from its accounts.<\/p>\n
We appreciate receiving correspondence but are unable to respond to each letter individually. For inquiries, please email consumer.champions@theguardian.com or send mail to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Kindly include a contact number for daytime communication. All letters submitted will be subject to our terms and conditions regarding publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A customer recently reported that British Gas established an account in their name for a property where they have never resided, subsequently issuing a bill for \u00a3571. The company opted not to address this issue formally, citing the customer’s inability to provide a tenancy agreement or mortgage statement. As the customer has already settled their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[549,2133,616,162,163,553,88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-business","category-uk-centrica","category-uk-consumer-affairs","category-uk-energy-bills","category-uk-household-bills","category-uk-money","category-uk"],"yoast_head":"\n