SUSAN Knights is today calling for electricity bills to be made clearer after weeks of trying to find out why she was more than £200 in credit.Mrs Knights, 48, of Church Lane in Eyke opened her latest electricity statement from British Gas – and found she was £219.

SUSAN Knights is today calling for electricity bills to be made clearer after weeks of trying to find out why she was more than £200 in credit.

Mrs Knights, 48, of Church Lane in Eyke opened her latest electricity statement from British Gas – and found she was £219.82 in credit.

She did not think anything of it, until she saw the case of Barry Ward in a recent edition of the Evening Star. His statement showed he was more than £200 in credit with Powergen.

Mrs Knight – a prepayment card user – decided to try and find out why her March 26 statement said she was in credit.

She made seven telephone calls and wrote two letters to British Gas in the attempt to find out whether she was owed money or not.

She said: "I opened my statement and saw that I was £219.82 in credit. As the statement went up until December, I first thought it must have been the money I've put in since then.

"But when I saw the article in the Evening Star about Mr Ward I decided to query it. I was really confused and didn't know why it showed up as credit.

"My husband kept asking how we could be in credit when we have a card meter.

After trying to ring British Gas four times she wrote a letter as she was told she would have to wait on the phone but it still took several weeks to finally sort the problem.

Wendy Sawyer, a spokeswoman for British Gas, said the mistake had been a mistake on the part of British Gas.

She said: "Mrs Knights is on a two rate meter - this means she has two readings. Unfortunately we had transposed the readings, which created a false credit on the account when we updated her record.

"We have now put this right and the account is now clear - Mrs Knights is not owed any money.

"We have written to Mrs Knights today to explain the situation and apologise for the confusion this matter has caused."

Ms Sawyer also apologised for the difficulty Mrs Knights has had in getting through.

She added: "We were concerned to hear that she had experienced difficulties getting through. Generally our customers have no difficulty in getting through. However, we do experience peak call times – especially first thing in the morning."

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