BRITISH Gas has apologised after a Bridgwater couple were wrongly billed for quarterly electricity payments despite using a pay-as-you-go meter.
Gordon and Janet Mary Addicott received several bills over a number of months from the energy provider - including a red ‘final demand’.
The pensioners have lived in their Blossom Close bungalow for four years.
They have been with British Gas for around two of those years and have never paid for electricity quarterly, meaning the bills caused them concern and sleepless nights.
After being contacted by the Bridgwater Mercury, British Gas apologised to the Addicotts, corrected an error on their account, and “provided a gesture of goodwill”.
Mr Addicott said: “We’ve got a pay-as-you-go gas card. We’ve had bill after bill come through. I phoned them up and I explained I’m not paying it.
“It’s gone on for a couple of months now. In the last fortnight, we’ve had four more bills come in, and one of them has been red.”
They sent two letters to the British Gas complaints management team without receiving a response.
Mr Addicott also phoned the customer service desk several times, once finding himself on the phone for around 90 minutes and being passed between several workers.
He said some of them told him something was “seriously wrong”, but nobody from the company was sent to their property to resolve the problem.
“We’ve phoned them up and we keep phoning them, but we can’t make any sense of them,” said Mr Addicott.
“We said, ‘If you think we’re paying quarterly, where’s the money going from the pay-as-you-go card?
“They keep sending the bills through. My wife is tossing and turning all night because it’s in her name.
“At the moment, they have stopped sending them in her name and started putting ‘The Occupier’.
“We’ve never had quarterly bills because we couldn’t afford it. We’ve just paid as we went along.”
They top up their pay-as-you-go card at their local Post Office and have kept their receipts as evidence of their payments.
A British Gas spokesperson said: “We’ve been in touch with the Addicotts to let them know we’re sorry.
“An advisor processed a home move on their account in error, but we’ve now corrected this so the Addicotts will not receive any further bills.
“We’ve also provided a gesture of goodwill in light of what’s happened.”
British Gas serves around 12 million homes in the UK and is the country's biggest electricity supplier.
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