A vulnerable gran with memory issues was falsely issued a whopping £7k bill a month - an error that her son claims could have cost her life.
Her son has now slammed British Gas after his elderly mum was sent the devastating letter, revealing that another family member has previously committed suicide due to the stresses of mounting bills.
He has now also questioned why the letter, with the error, was allowed to be sent to his mum in the first place.
Sylvia Dea, a retired 78-year-old grandmother of three suffers from a number of health issues, including onset memory problems which means she requires daily support and care.
And when she received the huge nearly £7,000 bill from British Gas in December, her son was left shocked.
Jon, 50, told Teesside Live when he discovered the letter sent to his mum, he attempted to call the energy and home services provider to query what he felt was 'clearly a mistake'.
Despite being put on hold, his call was disconnected.
Now, Jon has hit out at the company, warning that the error could have had led to 'tragic circumstances' for his family, following a previous tragic death regarding bill payments.
Debt is an issue that is close to Jon's heart, after revealing that he lost a relative a few years ago to suicide.
He said that his aunt passed away after she struggled to cope with the stresses of mounting bills, and has now has been left concerned that if the gas company were to make a similar error - if left unchecked - to someone who is struggling with the cost of living error, it could have grave consequences.
The 50-year-old added that the horror of reading that Sylvia was slapped with a £7,000 monthly bill would have meant that she would need to picked out a whopping £87,000 annually.
He explained: "I had an auntie who a few years ago through the stress of debt actually killed herself, and how would I feel if my mother had committed suicide because she thought she was now laboured with £87,000 a year through this."
Fortunately, Jon said that his mum didn't understand the bill so it did not cause her too much distress.
However, he was extremely concerned and looked to the gas company for answers and feels that the company didn't deal with the error appropriately.
He added that had the situation been different, it could have led to disaster, saying: "I'm lucky that she hasn't understood it.
"She's quite vulnerable, she suffers with, well we thought it was dementia but it's actually onset memory issues. She's still functional but she gets checked in by somebody every single day."
In a time of rising costs and when debt is something on everyone's minds, British Gas admitted that the bill was an error on their part but claimed to have 'quickly corrected' the problem, despite adding that they could have resolved the issue sooner.
In actual fact, Mrs Dea's bill actually amounted to a hefty £241.08 per month, and she was already in credit for more than £2,300.
A spokesperson for British Gas said: "We’re sorry that we made a mistake when calculating Mrs Dea’s bill. This was quickly corrected and her new monthly payment is £241.08 per month. We have reached out to Mrs Dea to confirm this, and to apologise for the error.
"We had an opportunity to resolve this sooner when Mrs Dea’s son called us and are sorry for any distress this may have caused."
Jon's concerns still remain and he feels that the letter should have never been sent and questions why the huge figure was entered into a computer.
He feels that British Gas' response was not an adequate enough explanation for why this happened.
Explaining his concerns, he said: "If I hadn't discovered that letter and taken that letter away, if you think about that few hours I'm there looking after her, to the amount of hours she's there alone. If she picked that letter up in a moment of very good clarity and read through it she could have had a massive reaction and no one would have been there to deal with the consequences."
He also added that he is concerned for other customers who this could happen to and how this could affect their mental health: "I consider that personal debt is one of the greatest problems facing our society at the moment, and it doesn't matter if it's family or anybody.
"Any single person who thinks that they're in an unaffordable situation, they hide that because they don't know how to face the truth. Then it builds up and it explodes on them, they either break down and you could have tragic circumstances. It worries me not just for my mother's situation, it worries me that anyone could face this."
The Samaritans is available 24/7 if you need to talk. You can contact them for free by calling 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or head to the website to find your nearest branch. You matter.
