British Gas despatched a widow a £6,500 invoice addressed to her late husband. But it was its ‘intimidating’ subsequent transfer that is actually stunning… till we confirmed her find out how to struggle again

Pauline Hinton is a strong, independent 84 year old who has handled the day-to-day demands of living on her own valiantly since her beloved husband John died four years ago.

She devotedly looked after John, to whom she was married for more than 30 years, when he was bedridden for the last six years of his life. Retired Pauline survives well on her own, aided by a modest civil service pension earned from 30 years working in London for the Treasury.

Yet Pauline has faced one seemingly insurmountable challenge that she says ‘had beaten me down and left me scared’ – which was the ‘intimidating’ demands for more than £6,500 from utility giant British Gas, that started arriving through her letterbox in October. It was a bill that Pauline was adamant she did not owe.

Adding further insult, the energy firm also continued to send letters addressed to her former black cab driver husband John, who died aged 89. This is despite pleas by Pauline for this to stop.

Pauline had a £300 monthly direct debit set up for British Gas that covered her electricity bill. But in October, British Gas said it wanted to hike it to £828.84 because it claimed she had an outstanding debt of at least £6,500, which it planned to retrieve monthly. 

British Gas explained in a letter – sent to John – that it was moving to a new billing system. Pauline feared this may have been where the problems started. She was terrified. ’This was a bolt from the blue,’ she says. ‘I was scared that it was allowed to do this and felt powerless.’

She phoned British Gas countless times to protest the size of the bill – pleading for it not to increase her direct debit. Nonetheless the energy giant took £828.84 from her bank account in November.

Only after she threatened to cancel the direct debit altogether did British Gas agree to lower the figure back to £300 from this month, but it did not cancel the outstanding debt.

Pauline said that British Gas’s incessant demands for repayment of a huge bill she did not owe left her suffering sleepless nights as ‘they were slowly but surely breaking my spirit’

Pauline says: ‘The stress caused me sleepless nights and I lay awake worrying what British Gas might do next. I can use the computer, but still prefer to use the phone – but on calls they just passed me from pillar to post. They were slowly but surely breaking my spirit.’

Pauline is not alone in suffering under the weight of the shock – and insurmountably large – bills from energy firms that are both unfair and almost impossible to correct. Consumer charity Citizens Advice helped more than 52,000 people with energy bill problems between January and October this year – equivalent to one person every two minutes.

Energy bill issues have been the single most common issue dealt with by Citizens Advice staff since March this year – and nearly a quarter of bill issues involved a shock or catch-up bill where households are suddenly charged for energy they used some time ago. The average catch-up bill in the last year was over £2,500.

British Gas is among the worst culprits. Of the 12,568 complaints the Energy Ombudsman dealt with between July and September this year, as many as 6,758 were from British Gas customers. Most concerned billing.

Pauline and John moved from London to the rural village of Llanwrda in Carmarthenshire 22 years ago. The three-bedroom cottage sits on a three-acre plot of land and has a river just outside the front door. The couple used to keep hens, ducks and cats over the years. Pauline now only has cat Taylor, 17, for company. Her two children visit when possible but live two hours away near Cardiff.

As far as Pauline was concerned the regular £300 a month direct debit agreement was more than enough to cover her bills. Pauline pays British Gas for her electricity, with bills kept down as she uses an Economy 7 discount tariff.

These tariffs charge two different rates for electricity use, depending on the time of day. Customers typically pay half the price for electricity between midnight and 7am compared to those on a standard deal. However, the day rate can be as much as a third higher than a standard tariff rate paid by someone not signed up to Economy 7. The widow uses Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) from Flogas separately for her hot water and heating demands, for which she pays about £1,300 a year.

Pauline says British Gas has only had a couple of actual meter readings in the past four years – with the majority of bills being estimated. But this year she started taking her own readings as she did not trust the energy giant to get the readings right.

Within hours of Money Mail contacting British Gas the utility giant was on the phone to Pauline – and cancelled its demands for the extra money.

British Gas explained to Money Mail that the reason the bill shot up in the autumn was that previously it had relied on ‘historic estimates’ and not actual usage.

It said the bill was calculated by adding up monthly payments over several years.

However, so-called back bill rules enforced by the industry regulator Ofgem state that you cannot be charged for energy used more than 12 months ago if you have not had an accurate bill for it before, have not previously been informed about the charges and if you had a direct debit that was set too low to cover the charges.

As soon as it wiped Pauline’s bill for energy used more than 12 months ago, it left her bill in credit. British Gas said it was refunding her £944 based on updated calculations.

A spokesman for British Gas says: ‘Mrs Hinton’s electricity bills had been estimated for some time and the direct debit payments hadn’t been matching actual usage. We’ve applied back billing credit, and her account has a credit balance we are refunding. We’ve spoken with her to apologise for not putting this right sooner.’

Pauline says: ‘British Gas has also apologised for sending letters addressed to my husband and said this should now no longer happen.’

If you’ve been sent a shock bill that you think is incorrect, make a complaint to your energy supplier. Details of how to do this should be on the supplier’s website. 

If you wish to write or send an email you can use the Citizen Advice complaints letter template: citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/template-letters/letters/energy-letters/.