British Gas Misbilling - October 2026
This week on Watchdog, Nikki revisits a story that she covered back in 2024, when we heard from viewers who were being chased by debt agencies on behalf of British Gas, for unpaid bills that weren't theirs. Two years on, we're still hearing about the same problem, but now, it's affecting people's ability to move home.
We met Imogen two years ago after she moved into a rental home in Newcastle. Soon after moving into her new home, British Gas began chasing her for a £3000 energy bill relating to dates from before she moved in. British Gas said the account would be put on hold while it investigated, but debt collectors continued contacting Imogen for 18 months, threatening CCJs and court action.
Earlier this year, the debt affected Imogen and Ryan’s first-home purchase. The Energy Ombudsman ordered British Gas to correct Imogen’s account and pay £150 compensation.
We also heard from Isma, who says a British Gas billing error caused his credit score to fall from excellent to fair, while another viewer, Helen says she’s being billed for energy at a property she lets out.
Finally, we heard from Andrew who said he had £4,000 worth of debt, including charges from before he moved in, were wrongly recorded against him. He failed a rental reference check and said he was left homeless, sofa surfing with friends.
In 2024, British Gas referred itself to the ICO after identifying inaccurate credit reporting. The ICO issued advice rather than taking formal enforcement action.
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the independent regulatory authority in the United Kingdom responsible for upholding information rights and data privacy.
When we wrote to British Gas, it said the four cases Watchdog highlighted were unrelated, but that in each of them there had been challenges relating to changes in tenancy, occupancy, or move-in, where information was incomplete, inaccurate, or missing. It said that some of this had been down to advisor error, adding that British Gas had apologised and accepted it should have put things right sooner for those individual customers.
We also put the cases to the ICO, which said it could confirm that it had received a number of complaints about British Gas, which it was currently considering. It added that it expected organisations to use people's information fairly, taking all reasonable steps to ensure the personal information they hold is accurate, and that people have the right to receive a copy of their personal information held by organisations, and the right to have inaccurate personal information corrected promptly.
It added that if a credit file is inaccurate, people can raise a complaint with the relevant credit reference agency or the organisation that supplied this information. It also said that if anyone is struggling to get an obvious inaccuracy corrected on their credit file after contacting the organisation, they can make a complaint to the ICO.
We also wrote to the three main credit reference agencies:
An Experian spokesperson said it encouraged everyone to regularly check their Experian credit report for free to ensure their information is accurate. It added that if someone is concerned about something that looks incorrect, they can contact Experian and it will help dispute it directly with the company on their behalf, and get their report corrected as quickly as possible.
Equifax said it takes data accuracy seriously and understands the impact credit report errors can have. It told us that while it relies on data providers to ensure their information is correct, it acts swiftly to investigate disputes. Equifax added that it is ready to review these cases as a priority once full details are received, and will immediately work with the data provider to correct any inaccurate information or default markers supplied to it.
TransUnion said it had investigated the cases presented and could confirm that it had not been directly contacted by the listed consumers. It said it was unable to comment on the operations of other credit reference agencies.
TransUnion added that every month it receives hundreds of millions of personal data records from numerous sources. It said it devotes considerable effort and expertise to ensure it matches all incoming data correctly, so that it gets the most complete picture possible of an individual's identity and credit history. It added that it is important to note that TransUnion, and other credit reference agencies, can only correct information once a data provider has confirmed the disputed information.
