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Search forWedding plan blow as energy firm's cheque bounces
Tuesday, April 29, 2008, 00:00
Craig Burrell and his fiancee Charlotte Chapman, both 36, have been locked in a wrangle with the energy supplier over their electricity bills since September 2006.
They paid a total of £2,687 for electricity between then and February this year – an over-payment of £1,236 – and received a cheque for the refund amount earlier this month.
Mr Burrell and Miss Chapman, who live in Browning Drive, St Giles, Lincoln, with their daughters Casey (10), Kimberly (nine) and Leann (five), promptly spent the money on their August wedding.
But two days after cashing the cheque Mr Burrell was called by the Stock & Cheques Exchange, in Lincoln, to say that it had been “returned stopped”.
Mr Burrell told the Echo that British Gas replaced their token meter with a credit meter for quarterly electricity bills in June 2006.
But alarm bells began ringing when their first quarterly bill – a whopping £505 – arrived in September that year.
The credit meter was then replaced with a token meter but the couple were spending £50 to £60 a week on electric.
And the £505 bill became a debt on their account.
Mr Burrell said it had emerged that they had been billed on a twin tariff where the cost of electricity is slightly higher in the day but cheaper at night – more suitable for customers with electric storage heaters.
The couple, who live on benefits, have since been put on the right tariff.
British Gas spokesman Emma Powell said: “We will investigate the issue further in order to bring things to a satisfactory conclusion.”
For more on the wrangle the Lincoln couple have had with British Gas, see Tuesday's Lincolnshire Echo.
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