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British Gas threatened to take a disabled pensioner to court over an incorrect £2,000 gas bill.
José Bell, 69, spent the best part of a year battling the energy company over a gas bill that vastly exceeded its own estimates for his one-bedroom flat in London.
British Gas’s own annual estimate for the property, occupied by a single person, was just £179.14. But the bill that landed on Mr Bell’s doormat in Lewisham instead totalled £2,022.41. It covered eight months, between October 2024, when he first moved into the property, and June 2025.
The row reached a high point when British Gas issued Mr Bell with a county court claim, only dropping the legal threats after The Telegraph intervened.
It has since reviewed meter readings at the heart of the dispute and backed down.
Mr Bell, a former seafarer, moved into the ground floor council flat having spent years homeless and eventually in temporary accommodation, waiting for a permanent home.
He lives with both physical and mental health conditions, making him particularly vulnerable as a customer.
“One of the greatest things about moving in was that my daughters had a lot less to worry about,” he said.
But he added that he faced “sleepless nights” after receiving the £2,000 charge.
The bill showed multiple “revised charges based on meter read” entries replacing earlier estimates, with an apparent jump in usage that Mr Bell said was never fully explained.
The resident raised a formal complaint with British Gas. Over months of correspondence, the supplier’s complaint handlers maintained that estimates had been used because no reading was logged when the account was set up.
But Mr Bell had taken photographs of the meter when he moved in, showing the reading.
He also said he had provided another meter reading in February 2025, but that it was not recorded among those later listed by British Gas.
He later provided evidence of these readings to British Gas, but it did not resolve the dispute.
Mr Bell also took the matter to the Energy Ombudsman, which said it could not proceed because it was unable to establish that he had given the supplier eight weeks to resolve the complaint. It advised him to return if the matter remained unresolved after that time.
The 69-year-old – who does not have a laptop – had to go to the library to deal with emails and print paperwork – a 25-minute walk each way.
