I had fun and games of the not fun at all sort with BG at the start of the year.
For no reason at all, I decided to look at our account. It is virtually always in credit, often significantly, and when our last bill arrived in November, it was settled from DDMs already paid, and still left a credit balance. I guess in the interim, November > January there was a price capo increase announced, but even so there was plenty there, provided I continued to pay my DDM.
Lo and behold, when I looked at my account, they had unilaterally, and without informing me, increased my DDM by well over £100. I was a bit grumpy at that - especially as we were about to run away from winter, thereby decimating our energy usage for a period. Obviously, they had no clue about that latter part.
I went to the area saying something like "Adjust your Payment" to find I could certainly adjust my payment but on upwards. That being upwards from that which thay unilaterally decided was the amount they wanted.
Needless to say the AndBreathe grumpy face was deployed, and I got to it, like you I would pay differently if necessary.
Cutting to the chase, after a bit of discourse on their Chat system the young man sorted it out, and offered to escalate my concerns regarding the unilateral increase, without notice, or even being informed of it.
As it stands, we are further in the position that MrB received the pensioners' winter fuel payment, which we immediately transferred to an account of it's own and we add the monthly rebate each month we receive it. At this rate HM Government will have paid for one of our tickets to the sunshine.
We are living in a crazy world at the moment. I know I drone about it all the time, relating to health, but applies to all of life right now. We must be our own strongest advocates in all of this madness and keep a keen eye on what is going on around us.
Now where did I put that step ladder to get down off this soap box?