Firm sorry over £5,000 bill error (From The Argus)

Firm sorry over £5,000 bill error

3:30pm Sunday 10th March 2013 in News

A utility company has apologised to a cafe owner after incorrectly sending him bills for thousands of pounds.

Peter Renvoize, the boss at Cafe Motu in Trafalgar Street, Brighton, was told he owed British Gas £5,000 for electricity despite paying his bills by direct debit.

The puzzled proprietor said he was bombarded with bills after a mix-up over the meter in the property next door.

He posted his bills on the wall of his cafe to see if his customers could make sense of them and said the energy giant was ignoring his request for information.

The Argus contacted British Gas to demand an explanation for the bills from the phantom meter.

Now the utility company has said it will act to sort out the mess.

Mr Renvoize said: “The last bill we had was for £5,000 but we pay £260 a month through direct debit. We are constantly getting bills for a meter that doesn’t exist.

“We have been in touch with British Gas but we were banging our heads against a brick wall until The Argus got involved. Then the company started jumping up and down.

"They have asked us to give them five working days to fix it.”

A spokesman for British Gas said: “We’ve spoken to Mr Renvoize to apologise for the inconvenience that this issue has caused and reassure him that we are investigating this as a matter of urgency.

“The problem relates to incorrect data received from a third party after a meter was replaced at a neighbouring property.

“We are in the process of correcting the data so we can bill him correctly, and until this has been resolved, have ensured that he will not receive any further incorrect bills.”