Has British Gas increased your Direct Debit by 35% or more?

10.30.00am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 5th Sep 2008

I've been contacted by several local residents who have recently seen British Gas trying to put through huge increases to their gas bill direct debit - far above the 35% reported by the BBC and authorised by OFGEM back in July.

In one case, British Gas tried to increase a direct debit from £44 to £87 - a 97% increase. In another, they tried to increase a direct debit from £46 to £71 - a 54% increase. In both cases, when customers challenged British Gas, the increase was wholly or partly reversed.

Personally I find this wholly unacceptable and am contacting OFGEM and EnergyWatch to see what can be done. I'm working with Mark Oaten to see what can be done in Parliament. I'm also pretty keen to get some more cases from people who are happy to speak with the media and be presented to the regulator so that we can embarrass British Gas into reversing these unacceptable increases.

Can you help with this? Have you seen this kind of unacceptable increase (from British Gas, or any other supplier)? Would you be prepared to talk about it? All help would be much appreciated!

Related Link:

BBC report on gas prices.