I dropped in to visit my 94-year-old neighbour two weeks ago to find her in floods of tears and at a loss as to what to do about a threatening letter she had received from British Gas. The letter said that if the company didn’t hear from her soon about her outstanding bill it would pass her details to a debt-collection agency.

My neighbour had posted a cheque to British Gas on June 13 for full payment of the amount due and received a letter back saying the date was wrong on it, so she sent another one on June 26 by post. On July 9 she received the threatening letter, which is dated July 4.

At 94, my neighbour does not use the internet and she is very deaf so cannot use the phone to explain complex situations. She was going to write another cheque on the assumption that the second cheque also had something wrong with it. I decided to try and help and phoned the British Gas number on the letter while I was with her. On getting through I had to explain everything to my neighbour in a very loud voice so she could hear me and confirm I had her authority to deal directly with British Gas on her behalf.

I quickly discovered that British Gas had indeed processed her second cheque. It received payment in full on July 2 — a full two days before it sent the threatening letter.

I explained the negative effect the letter was having on my neighbour and that I could not understand how British Gas’s systems allowed the threatening letter to be sent. The reasons I was given were anything but reassuring, so I requested that an official complaint be raised on her behalf. I was told I would receive a call on the number I was phoning from, my mobile, within three working days to discuss the case. I haven’t received a call and it’s now nearly the end of July.

Are you able to do something that will make British Gas management sit up and urgently change the company’s processes so this threatening behaviour to our non-internet-using elderly generation is stopped?

Another reader writes I’m writing to ask if you can help to resolve a long-running issue I have with British Gas.

The problem is that British Gas has the wrong serial number for the energy meter on my account. The consequence of this is that I’m being billed for someone else’s energy use, not mine. So far, this has cost me £109.74, which I have paid under threat of debt collection. I’m now in receipt of a further bill for £821.78 (with payment due by July 1, 2024) that is not mine and fully expect the threat of debt collection to be repeated.

The problem started a year ago, when I bought a newly completed barn conversion in June 2023. I knew at that time the energy supplier was British Gas. For a long time, there was no contact from British Gas until the first bill arrived in April 2024 showing the wrong serial number for the installed energy meter. I have a meter reading taken on the day I moved into the property and have taken readings at the end of each month since then.

Over several weeks, I have made repeated attempts (by phone, email and web chat) to get British Gas to correct the meter serial number on my account, all without success. I have also provided several photographs of my energy meter to British Gas but still the issue persists.

• Should I switch to a fixed energy deal?

Jill repliesI am getting a lot of complaints about British Gas and in several cases it has been quick to send threatening letters about debt collectors. In both the cases above it was clear the readers were aware of a problem and were trying to correct it — in the case of the second reader, repeatedly — so it was completely unnecessary to issue such warnings.

The first reader was lucky to have such a good friend and neighbour who could sort out this mess on her behalf. He set up a direct debit to ensure her energy bills would be paid on time in future. I contacted British Gas and asked for the customer to be put on the priority services register so any further problems could be resolved more easily and sympathetically.

British Gas said it would write to the customer to apologise for causing her distress and that it was adding a £50 goodwill credit on her account “in recognition of the above, but also that we appreciate she is a longstanding customer and we do very much value her”.

British Gas’s incompetence in sorting out the second problem has cost it a year’s worth of electricity. It told me that the reader’s problem started when the developer who converted the barn registered an incorrect meter serial number against the reader’s new-build property on the national database. British Gas then exacerbated the problem by failing to send the reader any bills for nine months. When it finally did send a bill to the property in April 2024 for £109.74, it was addressed to “the occupier”, even though British Gas admits the reader informed it he had moved in during June 2023.

It has finally arranged for the industry database of meters to be updated with the correct details. The recent bill for £821.78 has been cancelled and it has adjusted the reader’s account so that he starts being billed from June 27 this year. British Gas has wiped out a whole year’s worth of electricity bills, worth £827.

The reader thought this was generous and more than he expected, but said: “I still think British Gas could have done more sooner to resolve my complaint, so it won’t surprise you to learn that I’m considering switching my energy supplier.”

My pension shrank by £15k and Phoenix won’t tell me why

I started a pension with Britannic Assurance in approximately 1985. After various takeovers and mergers, it is now administered by Phoenix Life. As I have now retired, with advice from an independent financial adviser, I decided to move this pension into one that facilitated drawdown.

Phoenix told me on January 10, the day I requested the transfer, that the pension was valued at £185,766. Six weeks later (the transfer was expected to take two weeks) on February 23 it informed me that the value was £170,052. During this time markets and pension funds increased by about 4 per cent.

I have asked Phoenix for an explanation of why my fund had been devalued along with its calculations. It has repeatedly ignored this request. As my financial adviser said in an email to me: “I do find it incredible that Phoenix has not been able to construct a technical response to quite basic questions over the last six months.”

Phoenix has been very difficult to contact; many of the numbers it sends me are either discontinued or never answered. At no time during any communications has it complied with its stated time pledges, whether it be acknowledgment of letters, complaint responses or telephone calls.

Phoenix has sent further valuations, but these come from a different department, which gives options for receiving the pension along with the suggestion of consulting an independent adviser. This I had already done nearly a year ago, as Phoenix knows from his subsequent communications with the company and the form he completed.

As far as I know, the transfer value is still £170,052. At least that is the sum the new platform at Aviva is expecting to receive.

I am now 75 years old and have contacted the Financial Ombudsman, but it tells me that its investigations won’t commence for another two months. In the meantime, my pension pot is with Phoenix as cash. I am getting really troubled by this delay as, at my age, I need to get my financial affairs in order.

• What is an annuity and should I get one?

Jill repliesPhoenix told me you have a deferred annuity pension contract designed to provide a guaranteed minimum annuity on a set date. As such, it does not have a fund value, but because you had arranged to draw your pension many years after the original pension maturity date, the guaranteed minimum annuity had increased from £2,000 to £13,748 a year. As you wanted to transfer your pension to Aviva, Phoenix had to calculate how much the annuity — worth £13,748 a year — would have cost to provide, even though you prefer the idea of pension drawdown.

The cost of providing an annuity can be impacted by fluctuating interest rates — the higher the interest rate, the lower the fund value, and vice versa. However, the Bank of England base rate was 5.25 per cent in January and stayed at that level until last month, when it dropped by 0.25 per cent, so it clearly wasn’t fluctuating interest rates that were causing your problem.

Phoenix told me the value of £185,766 you were given in January was incorrect and inflated, for which it apologised. It had not been aware of the initial error, and it admitted that its responses to further queries were not “as timely as they should have been”.

Phoenix is still investigating how the original error happened and is awaiting information from Aviva to enable it to make good any shortfall you have suffered as a result of the delay. But it has now transferred £184,000 to Aviva on your behalf and is paying you £1,300 in compensation — not far short of the figure it told you that you were due back in January.

Can we help you?

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