So far this week: British Gas have blocked my move to a new supplier but failed to tell me. The reason being, it turns out was a £28.80 debt cause by the companies inability to set up a direct debit for 28 days with me following a meter change which I was eventually told has to be OK'ed by the National grid, this is after the meter is changed. So for a month I am accruing a debt. I paid off the debt yesterday and hopefully the move is back on track. Whilst in my account on British Gas website I found buried a prediction that I was likely to be £168 in debt by the time of the this direct debit term end. But I was invited to increase my direct debit to cover this expected debt. This was on a direct debit only set up by British Gas 5 weeks ago. So either they got there sums wrong or deliberate misrepresentation. We have had a P A Y G meter for some years with British Gas so they will be aware of my average annual usage but they still managed to agree a monthly direct debit which would not cover my annual usage. Lastly I received notification from the meter change company that I was, when the meter was changed £15.34 in credit and would be transferred to my account as a credit. Except it has not and I have received two bills from British Gas where no such credit is mentioned. I phoned the company and asked how long is it before British Gas is notified that I have this credit and it turns out it is instantaneous, soon as i signed his machine for receipt of the new meter both his firm and British Gas get a copy of the details including the credit. I really dislike British Gas and I would love to take action other than issuing a complaint to them which can take weeks for them to respond to.
The very first thing that will happen if you want to take action elsewhere is that you will be asked if you followed the companies official complaints procedure, no matter how much it sucks you would just end up shooting yourself in the foot by not fighting your way through the complaints procedure at British Gas first.
The ombudsman will only step in if you have taken steps first to rectify with the supplier, only once that route has been exhausted will the assist.
Safe to assume all the major energy suppliers have a limited amount of "care" for you as a customer. There is an end, of course, but it seems it always involves pain, even being in credit can work against you.
I am aware of the ombudsman's role and the 8 weeks time limit before moving thing on. I personally think that is too long. But I seem to go from one issue to the next with British Gas and the sooner I move the better. But I am astounded that these massive companies attitude to customer care is so poor.
I switched to OVO Energy. Good support, decent prices, etc. When I moved into my latest flat the service was with British Gas. Although I switched service ASAP- they "gifted" me with a rather generous £120 exit bill... I am now paying £69 with OVO for dual-fuel. Absolutely crazy. Couldn't get in touch with anyone at BG to even try and explain why they put me on the default (and highest) tariff before closing the account. That being said- Scottish Power was not much better but at least the final bill was not nearly double my normal charge. So short answer- no, they don't care.
As I work for an energy consultancy I can tell you that BG is by far the worst energy company for, well everything, appalling customer service with none of the staff properly trained at all, terrible systems which constantly break, and did completely for 4 months, oh and their solution? Just stop answering calls, I kid you not... and this is their business section, I'd hate to think what residential is like.
BG are useless and incompetent at pretty much everything they do. You won't notice just how bad they are at doing pretty much everything, until something goes wrong. They literally don't give a flying f*** about you as a customer, overcharge you, break their own compalints guidelines, mark your credit record negatively, blame you for their errors, and in my case attempted to charge me over £1200 for 1 months electric that usually cost me around £100. Poitning out the obvious flaw results in them having no common sense whatsoever and I had to go to the ombudsmen to get it resolved. A lot of the blame goes on idiots in customer service and their complaints team, who mindlessly follow their automated meter reading/billing adjustment system like sheep, and they are also very quick to refer you to a collection agency, (try ) and charge you for the privelage of doing so, and all they try and do is push you onto a even more expensive pay as you go type of meter. Well, not this time I told them to go f*** themselves, and stood my ground. I've taken them through the ombudsman service and they upheld my complaint against them within the last 12 months, and yesterday I started looking for a new supplier, within a couple of weeks I'll be rid of BG for good. The woman who was looking after my case in the Ombudsman service also indicated they are bloody useless and generate so many issues due to more than anything else crappy customer service. They are also the biggest money gougers on the market. While looking for new suppliers I came across this little nugget of info while comparing costs. I can move to Sainsubrys for my energy (gas and electric) and save about £400 a year. Four hundred quid. That's insane. Guess where Sainsuburys get pretty much everything from - even including a lot of the admin processes, letters etc ? You got it - British Gas. In effect they are selling the exact same service to us rebadged with Sainsburys on there and are able to do so (in my case) to the tune of saving me around £400 a year. I could in effect get my gas and electric, bills, letters etc £400 cheaper through a 3rd party than direct from BG themselves. Madness.
Doesn’t make sense to band every single large corporation in the world into one does it? Is John Lewis the same as Monsanto? Is Google the same as Blackwater? Just like us ‘the consumers’ – some are good, some are bad. Some only care about their bottom line, some care about that, but also have some genuinely good values that they base their business ethics around. I think we know where British Gas lie along this spectrum.
Of course it doesn't, it can't. It has no emotional responses and is incapable of feeling compassion or guilt. The issue is that humans don't care
Just had a phone call from someone at British Gas who just refused to listen so eventually I had to hang up. Then I got an email stating that: "I have also credited your account and refunded £15.34 as a goodwill gesture." Which is in relation to this complaint: Lastly I received notification from the meter change company that I was, when the meter was changed £15.34 in credit and would be transferred to my account as a credit. Except it has not and I have received two bills from British Gas where no such credit is mentioned. I phoned the company and asked how long is it before British Gas is notified that I have this credit and it turns out it is instantaneous, soon as i signed his machine for receipt of the new meter both his firm and British Gas get a copy of the details including the credit. How can it be a goodwill gesture the money was mine in the first place.
Yes, you are indeed correct. My previous statement was rather over reaching on all corporations. Apologies. I guess when you've been rogered by so many for so long, the actions of the bad ones overshadow the good ones. Regardless, they are there to make and keep making money. Any actions to keep customers happy could easily be attributed to keeping the books in the black, rather than genuinely wanting people to be happy. Sure they want good customer service, but is that because good customer service generates good income? I remember working for a certain Spanish bank that took over a UK bank. Their customer service record was terrible. They are now one of the higher rated ones. Do I think they did it to make their customers happy? No. I thought they were doing it to avoid the bad press and attract more customers. *My opinion. Not fact. I think we can all agree though, that my statement applied to most large energy corporations .
If you've complained to BG and your not happy you can always have a chat with Citizens Consumer Helpline. I sometimes work on the energy line there but at the moment am on the General Consumer advice line dealing with stroppy people about being over charged 20p on a slice of bread. Give them a call and have a chat with my colleagues on the Energy Team, they know their stuff and can escalate your complaint to the exec complaints team at BG
Useful info, will look into this tomorrow as I cannot be bothered with British Gas' s representatives phone calls where they just do not listen and just insist the same thing over and over no matter what I say.
Just had this in an email from British Gas. This company is definitely on another planet. When we exchange a pre payment meter then any credit under £25 is lost, you would have been advised at the time we booked the exchange to run down your meter as much as possible. Ordinarily you would not have received this credit back but as a gesture of goodwill on this occasion we have applied £13.56 as a credit. So now they are saying that anything under £25 is forfeit something they did not inform me of. They did mention that they prefer not to transfer anymore than £50 and advised us to run our meter down to below that amount but now it seems below £25 is also a no no. I got the £13 quid but that is not the point it is the fact that at no time was I informed of this below £25 rule. No longer with British Gas so it is all academic but I would hate to think of others getting shafted by this woeful company.
