British Gas/Onstream meter fiasco

Matari

My son recently moved into a flat (20 October), and between us we had to take 5 half days off work to allow Onstream (the meter installers for the West Midlands area) to change his electric meter as British Gas no longer provided the tokens for the existing meter.

The five appointments were unfulfilled because according to Onstream they could not gain access to his property. This was despite giving them detailed instructions, phoning them the day before to check that the appointment was on their system (the third appointment) and giving them mobile numbers to contact if they could not gain access to the building. His lives in a inner-city council property and other callers relating to his move, such as Severn Trent and Sky TV, had no problem finding my building, going to the correct door and pressing the door-bell.

I have lost count of the number of phone calls that I made, both to Onstream and British Gas - some of the latter to call centres in South Africa and Australia - to try and sort this out. The resulting stress was unbearable, as he could not top up his meter and watched it get lower and lower. Onstream were un-cooperative to the point of lying (according to a British Gas call centre worker, they could not fit the third appointment in and simply did not turn up; in the penultimate unfulfilled call, Onstream wrongly sent out a gas engineer to another flat in the building). British Gas in Edinburgh seemed incapable of sorting the problem out, saying that Onstream were an independent company and they could not influence the process.

On the 6th appointment, after managing to speak to a manager the day before (again at my expense), the engineer arrived, found the building and gained access with no problem.

I thought I had had my worst customer experience when I had the misfortune to phone the BT call centre in India - but this one was even worse and very very inconvenient. Needless to say, now the meter has been changed, my son is in the process of getting as far away from British Gas and Onstream as possible.

Matari

SueB3382

Hi
Its awful the experience u have had, however Onstream will still be your meter operators regardless of what supplier you go to as the OWN the meter at the property .. I worked for British Gas customer services for a number of years, an suggest if you have your phone bills and highlight ALL the calls made to BG you will be reinburst any costs you have incurred.
Hope this helps a little ..

spiro

SueB3382 wrote: »

Hi
Its awful the experience u have had, however Onstream will still be your meter operators regardless of what supplier you go to as the OWN the meter at the property .. I worked for British Gas customer services for a number of years, an suggest if you have your phone bills and highlight ALL the calls made to BG you will be reinburst any costs you have incurred.
Hope this helps a little ..

Onstream will only remain the meter operator for the property as long as the supplier chooses to use them. In electricity who owns the meter has no bearing on who a supplier can appoint as the meter operator.
Have you claimed compensation for each of the missed appointments, £20 each plus another £20 if it is not paid (frequently creditted to your acount) within 7 days of the missed appointment.

BruceBridgestock

My 89 year old Mother had an appointment letter from Onstream, so cleared out the cupboard ready fror the meter to be changed and waited in. The person never came, when she called to tell Onstream they said 'well you must have gone out then'. We think the person had knocked on the door instead of reading the large note that explains my Mother is hard of hearing so please ring this doorbell (which goes off like a fire alarm with flashing lights as well and is impossible not to notice.). Next week two seperate letters arrived with different dates on for a re-appointment, I was visiting so called Onstream to sort out which was valid. The guy did then arrive on Thursday morning, he said he had to turn off any pilot lights, and went up the bathroom to see the hot water boiler. After some time he returned and explained to my Mother that he could not work out how to turn the pilot light off, so therefore he could not change the meter today, and he told my Mother she had to contact Onstream to make another appointment. A short while later my Mother realised there was no hot water in the house, and on checking could see that the pilot light on the bolier was out. She was very upset, but called Onstream, and explained the problem and asked for someone to come out to re-start the bolier. The guy in customer services said he would have to call her back. He did so a while later and told her 'this is not our responsibility, you have to sort it out yourself' My Mother was very upset, but eventually recovered enough to find the number of a local private engineer, who she called out to repair (he found the pilot light had been damaged) the boiler, and of course charge for the work. I have since called British Gas who say it is not there problem, they have no control over Onstream, and I have called Onstream and got a guy who explained 'our system is not working and there are no Managers on site' so he could not check for calls made or offer any advice or help - or even an apology. My Mother is still upset, I am FURIOUS. Needless to say we will NOT be calling Onstream to rearrange any appointmnets, and I will do all possible to ensure they never step inside my Mothers house again. I would be very interested to hear of any other cases where there is clear deriliction of duty of care by Onstream to see if a legal case can be built up against them.

Joyful

Just like Suppliers the Meter Operators have a complaints process. Anyone should contact their supplier and instigate this.