How I won £500 from British Gas

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In this column you can share your money experiences with other Mail readers.
Here, Royal Mail lorry driver Dave Crow, 52, explains how he took on the mighty British Gas and won more than £500 after being chased for a gas bill addressed to someone else.

Two years ago, I received a bill out of the blue for £825 from British Gas for an address that was unknown to me.

I contacted them and told them this, but they refused to believe me and accused me of being the landlord of the property in question. I even went to the Land Registry to get documents proving I didn't own the property, but this still didn't do the trick.

For the next 18 months, I was bombarded with countless harassment letters and threats to ruin my credit rating if I didn't pay in the next seven days.

I contacted various solicitors, but when I told them who I wanted to sue they did not have the backbone to take them on, so I constructed my own case.

Fortunately, I'd kept all the letters they sent me, so I used this as evidence.

Eventually, I took on British Gas successfully through the small claims mediation service ( part of the small claims court). They paid me £525, and wrote off my bill.

A British Gas spokeswoman says: 'Due to a database error, the wrong address information was held for Mr Crow's account. All other information was correct and Mr Crow's account was always debited with the correct amount.

'We looked into Mr Crow's case and resolved the matter amicably in February 2009 via the Court Mediation Service.'

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