British Gas sent a widow a bill for £6,500 addressed to her late husband. But it was the ‘intimidating’ next move that was truly shocking… until we showed her how to fight back

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

She devotedly cared for John, to whom she was married for more than thirty years, when he was bedridden for the last six years of his life. Retired Pauline can manage well on her own, helped by a modest civil servant pension that she earns after working for the Ministry of Finance for thirty years in London.

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

To make matters worse, the energy company also continued to send letters to her former husband John, a black cab driver, who died at the age of 89. This despite pleas from Pauline to stop this.

Pauline had set up a monthly direct debit of £300 for British Gas to cover her electricity bill. But in October British Gas said it wanted to increase the debt to £828.84, claiming it had outstanding debt of at least £6,500, which it planned to pay off monthly.

British Gas explained in a letter to John that it was moving to a new billing system. Pauline feared that this might be the start of trouble. She was terrified. “This came as a bolt from the blue,” she says. ‘I was afraid it was allowed to do this and felt powerless.’

She has called British Gas countless times to protest the size of the bill, advocating that her direct debit should not be increased. Nevertheless, the energy giant withdrew £828.84 from its bank account in November.

Only after threatening to cancel the direct debit altogether did British Gas agree to reduce the amount back to £300 from this month, but the outstanding debt was not waived.

Pauline says: ‘The stress was giving me sleepless nights and I lay awake worrying about what British Gas would do next. I can use the computer, but I still prefer the phone – but during phone calls I was just sent from pillar to post. They slowly but surely broke my spirit.”

Pauline is not alone in suffering under the weight of shocking – and insurmountably high – utility bills that are both unfair and virtually impossible to correct. Consumer support organization Citizens Advice helped more than 52,000 people with energy bill problems between January and October this year – which equates to one person every two minutes.

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

British Gas is one of the biggest culprits. Of the 12,568 complaints the Energy Ombudsman dealt with between July and September this year, no fewer than 6,758 were from British Gas customers. What concerned me most was billing.

Pauline and John moved from London to the rural village of Llanwrda in Carmarthenshire 22 years ago. The three-bedroom cottage is set in three acres of land and has a river just outside the front door. The couple kept chickens, 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 direct debit of £300 per month was more than enough to cover her bills. Pauline pays British Gas for her electricity, while her bills remain low because she uses an Economy 7 discount tariff.

These rates apply two different rates for electricity consumption depending on the time of day. Customers typically pay half the price for electricity between midnight and 7 a.m. compared to a standard subscription. However, the daily rate can be a third higher than a standard rate paid by someone who is not affiliated with Economy 7. The widow uses Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) from Flogas separately for her hot water and heating needs. she pays about £1,300 a year.

Pauline says British Gas has only had a few actual meter readings over the past four years – with the majority of bills estimated. But this year she started taking her own measurements because she didn’t trust the energy giant to make the right measurements.

Within hours of Money Mail contacting British Gas, the energy giant called Pauline – and canceled his demands for the extra money.

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

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

However, the so-called back bill rules, imposed by the sector regulator Ofgem, state that you cannot be charged for energy consumed more than twelve months ago if you have not yet received an accurate bill for it, have not been aware of the costs before informed and if you had a direct debit that was set too low to cover the costs.

Once Pauline’s bill for energy usage from more than 12 months ago was cleared, her bill remained on the bill. British Gas said it refunded her £944 based on updated calculations.

A spokesperson for British Gas said: ‘Mrs Hinton’s electricity bills had been estimated for some time and direct debits did not reflect actual consumption. We have reversed the invoice credit and there is a credit on her account that we will refund. We have spoken to her to apologize for not correcting this sooner.”

Pauline says: ‘British Gas has also apologized for sending letters to my husband and said this should not happen again.’

Have you received a shock bill that you think is incorrect? Then submit a complaint to your energy supplier. Details on how to do this can be found on the supplier’s website.

If you want to write or send an email, you can use Citizen Advice’s complaint letter template: citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/template-letters/letters/energy-letters/.