Imagine living in a home that is completely powered by electricity. What would you do if a gas bill arrived in the mail? Would you pay it, ignore it, or call them to try to get this issue straightened out?

In this story, one family is in this situation, and the dad chooses to ignore bill after bill after bill until he ends up in court with the gas company.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

The gas board took Dad to court

Many years ago when I was a teenager (early 90’s) we lived in a newly built house in a small UK cul-de-sac.

My Mum has this thing against gas, so we had the house built all electric and no gas supply.

A man came by to “read the meter.”

One day I’m home alone and the doorbell goes. There’s a man with a clipboard and he says he’s here to “read the meter”.

I point out its the cupboard beside him and he says, “No, that’s the electric one.”.

I tell him that’s the only one I know about and I’m on my own so he can’t come in.

So he mumbles “I’ll just estimate it then” and walks off to the next house.

They received a gas bill.

A few weeks later my Dad receives a gas bill through the post.

It’s pre-internet and the idea of paying to spend ages phoning up as your own cost to sort it out is not attractive, so he’s ignores it.

The next month the “blue” British Gas bill has been replaced by a “Red” overdue bill reminder.

Dad was always up for mischief, probably arising from years working at a bank and having to be well behaved! I start to see the mischievous plan hatch in my Dad’s mind and he ignores that one too.

They finally got a threatening letter.

Sure enough, in due course he receives a “black” final demand letter, then another Red one, until finally what he’s been waiting for – the threatening letter announcing court action.

I nearly blew the whole thing when one day, home alone again, the “customer care” lady called at the house to ask if we were having trouble paying the bill and needed financial assistance?

I told her “no, we were fine”.

She asked why we didn’t pay the bill and even made a sarcastic comment about how “Everybody else has to pay their bills and we shouldn’t get special treatment”.

He had to hold himself back from telling the lady the truth.

I very nearly said “we don’t have gas” but I thought I’d let Dad have his day. So I simply said “My Dad says he’s not going to pay your bill” and off she went.

Dad got a court summons and took a day off work. He made sure he collected receipts for petrol, copies of phone bill, wage slip, stamps as well as photographs of the kitchen and hot water cylinder just in case.

Off to the court he went and as it was school holidays I went along to watch from the gallery.

It was only county court, so relatively informal with magistrates instead of a judge.

Dad waited his turn.

The case came up, Dad was “defending himself” so had no legal representative and simply sat and waited his turn.

We heard how we’d failed to pay their bills, reminders etc and even that when offered financial assistance to pay had declined it.

My Dad was then asked what he offered as defence.

He stood up, looked at the 3 person team representing British Gas, then looked straight at the Magistrate and simply said “We don’t have gas”.

He confirmed what he said.

It all went quiet while that statement sunk in.

He was asked to confirm what he’s just said, so he repeated “We don’t have gas. I built the house 2 years ago and there is no gas supply. There is no gas meter. Therefore I’ve not paid the bill because I’m being billed for a service I don’t have and have not requested to have. Quite frankly this whole thing has been a great waste of my time and yours, all due to British Gas being too lazy to do their job properly.”

There was a bit more discussion before British Gas confirmed they would then drop the case as they’d made an error.

It gets even better!

His petty revenge; Dad then spoke up and said to the magistrate “Sir, there is the matter of my own costs and expenses I would like covered by British Gas”.

They were ordered to pay up a bit over £500 (more than the gas bill!) as Dad was already armed with every piece of evidence to substantiate his “costs”, all written with the accounting accuracy of a lifetime as a bank manager.

Even better, 2 months after the court case we then got the next gas bill for our usage over the next 6 month period!

This time he just sent it back with a reference to the court case.

That’s funny! It’s crazy that they’d try to charge the family for a service they don’t even have.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this situation.

This person’s mom doesn’t like gas either.

Another family is dealing with the same issue.

This person would’ve handled it differently.

Another person would love to do the same thing.

The gas company apparently didn’t learn their lesson!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a dog owner who is sick and tired of his neighbor complaining about every small infraction.