British Gas guilty of harassment by Court of Appeal for threatening letters

Casperthefriendlyghost

I had the same problem with BG five years ago when I first moved into my new flat because the girl who lived here owed them £24. It went on for over a year, and I was petrified that one day I'd come home to find all my belongings gone. My landlord eventually approached his solicitor and threatened to take them to court and still they did not stop. I had over 30 letters from them and various debt agencies and was worried about my address being blacklisted due to this, I even phoned them and gave them the girls forwarding address and mobile phone number and still it continued.

I finally wrote them a letter and told them to f o and leave me alone in huge, bright red letters on the outside of the envelope before I posted it, I never heard from them again lol.

Cheers
Casper
x x

aMIGA_dUDE

Casperthefriendlyghost wrote: »

I had over 30 letters from them and various debt agencies and was worried about my address being blacklisted due to this, I even phoned them and gave them the girls forwarding address and mobile phone number and still it continued.

Not really on this subject but :-

1) There is no legal way in UK they can blacklist an address. If they did it would be breach of Data Protection Act. As blacklisting an address would effect everyone who current and/or future occupants to that property who have nothing to do with alleged debt.

2) Pass on information about others, unless you have been authorised by other party it is breach of Data Protection Act. The only way to deal with this is to tell them it not you and has nothing to do with you. You do not have to prove who you are to anyone unless it requested by police officer.

PS "Alleged debt" is something we are going to see more of. Watch as it becomes a bigger issue.

irrelevant

We had problems with Powergen a couple of years ago. We'd never actually been a Powergen customer, but were with Amerada, but two takeovers later ended up with Powergen. Somewhere along the line they cocked up a in transferring the customer data, and we'd not had any bills off them for about two years, despite them direct debiting us each month, and meter readers coming round regularly. In the end, we transferred away, and they finally managed to raise a final bill which was (all figured approximate from memory here) about £300. This we thought was a bit high, so we queried it, and got the standard "Well that's what it says on my screen" response. It took several months, and got escalated right up to the directors' office, before they sorted it all out - we ended up paying about £79 after it was sorted out, and compensation given (which we had to ask for, and quote their own guidelines back at them, which had been a struggle to obtain in themselves, before they would admit we were entitled to it!)

These companies seem to work on the basis that they never make mistakes, and if you say they did, then you're wrong. The Computer Is Always Right. I've maintained computerised accounts systems, and I can tell you that they aren't!

Head-Out-Of-Sand

I had terrible problems with British Gas, their behaviour DEFINITELY amounted to harrassment, had me in tears ON MY BIRTHDAY as well!!

I will never ever EVER do any business with them ever again, having been strung both by their homecare and energy. Awful. It amazes me how they're not dealt with by regulators.

When I switched from them last year, gave Scottish Power (who I was switching to) my meter readings, phone BG to try to give them my reading & they said they'd get it from Scottish Power.

I then got two really high bills from BG which I was sure weren't right. I phoned up to query and they hadn't used the readings from SP, they'd estimated wildly above the actual readings. I said I wanted the bill amended.

She told me "It's not worth doing that, you'll get the difference back from Scottish Power". I explained that I had no intention of giving them money I clearly did not owe them. I instructed her to not to take the DD out of my account as I was going to query the bill, and cancelled the DD with my bank.

I contacted SP and they said they'd contact BG with the correct readings again.

I then went shopping the week before payday, knowing I had hat least £100 in my bank. Found some lovely shoes on sale for £15, and to my horror my card got refused at the till. Feeling slightly sick, I went to the cashpoint to see that I was £40 over my limit.

Went straight home and checked my online account, to find that BG had taken £140 out of my bank. I was FUMING! I phoned them up and demanded that they return that money to me as they had no right taking it when I had queried the bill and I had specificially told them not to take the DD. I told them that if I was charged I would also be billing them for that amount.

Firstly the guy on the phone was like "Yeh, it'll take at least 12 days for that to reach your account..." unfortunately for him I used to work in the accounts dept of a large organisation and am well aware of how quickly money can be tranferred. I said that their incompetence had put me in hardship and that if the money wasn't back in my account by the next day at the latest I would be considering legal action...kicking off seems to work. Got the money back from them, and contacted Natwest to explain the situation and in a rare moment of decency they did not charge me.

I then contacted BG again and asked them to send me a corrected bill. I was told that they would do this and I would not get any further bills for the wrong amount.

Then followed three months of threatening letters, phonecalls, solicitors letters, at a rate of a letter every two or three days and phonecalls every other day. I just kept reiterating that I was happy to pay what I actually owed but until they send me a correct bill, I would not be able to do that. Every time I spoke to someone I had to tell the whole story from the start, as there were NEVER any notes!! I got so sick of it, I started to dread answering the phone, even though I knew I was in the right.

I got a phonecall on my birthday from this guy who was insisting I spoke to their credit dept. I told him I was refusing to speak to anyone else until they sent me a correct bill. He kept saying that I *HAD* to speak to them and had no choice. I ended up losing it (and I consider myself to be the queen of the the calm, reasoned customer complaint, we all have our limits!) bursting into tears and saying that I was sick of being harrassed, if he puts me through to credit dept I will hang up, all I want is the correct bill and they can't do it, no one puts notes on my account and I'm considering legal action because I don't know how else to explain this to them. He then left me alone for the rest of the day.

I wish I'd spent more time on this forum at the time as I would have reported them and stood up for myself more. In the end, I just ended up paying the higher amount. I couldn't take the harrassment from them any more, I was fed up of feeling sick when the phone rang or when my post arrived.

I explained to the guy taking the payment that this was the last money BG would ever EVER get out of me and that I was completely disgusted with the way they had conducted themselves. I doubt he really cared.

I then continued to receive threatening letters from their sols for about a month afterwards. I contacted them to say I'd paid it and gave the payment references. The guy I spoke to said that I needed to phone BG and ask them to fax confirmation over to them. I told him to go get f****d (I had lost all sense of decency towards them by this point), and said go ahead try to start legal proceedings when I had paid and could provide them with evidence and reference numbers for this and see how far they got.

Hand on my heart, I will never ever do business with these thugs ever again. They are the most incompetent, poorly run, conscience-free bunch of thieving b*****ds I have ever dealt with. It's like getting your energy off the mafia. If they offered me £500 to switch to them I wouldn't even consider it, nothing is worth the hassle of dealing with them.

WELL DONE to this lady for taking them on, I only wish I'd have stood my ground, but they wore me down with the harrassment (and I'm quite feisty!!)

rickbonar

Regarding the direct debits, you can tell the bank that you have been wrongly debited and under the direct debit guarantee they have to refund you.

As for the court action threatened by BG or whoever .... let them proceed and if it does go to court ... (which it won't) show the court your evidence.

Another good case for re-nationalisation as with BT .. come to think of it not one of the privatised industries have improved ... re nationalise the lot!

midflight

Head-Out-Of-Sand wrote: »

I had terrible problems with British Gas, their behaviour DEFINITELY amounted to harrassment, had me in tears ON MY BIRTHDAY as well!!

I will never ever EVER do any business with them ever again, having been strung both by their homecare and energy. Awful. It amazes me how they're not dealt with by regulators...

Similar story here, and I have every sympathy with you.
British Farce are by far the most incompetent fools I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. I wouldn't go back to them if they offered me free gas & electric for life. Seriously. I'd sooner chargrill my own testicles...

belle_de_jour

rickbonar wrote: »

Another good case for re-nationalisation

They were just as bad before privitisation.

I bought a kitchen from BG in the early 80s, paid in full, then started getting bills for £0.00 (yep, zero, nil, zilch). This escalated to threats of taking me to court for the “debt”. I contacted the Gas Consumers Users Council (precursor of energywatch/consumer focus) but even they couldn’t stop the nonsense. Eventually I told BG to take me to court if they were going to and that GSUC would be invited along to watch them make fools of themselves (the bloke at GSUC fell about laughing when I told him this).

Eventually, and overall it took months, I got written confirmation there was no debt and therefore no action. But no apology.

icefall

I posted a few weeks ago re an article I saw about this

Sue them judge tells woman who took on the might of British Gas

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1484625

1carminestocky

(At the risk of being abused by the usual suspects for saying this again :rolleyes: ). British Gas = worst company I have ever personally dealt with. Arrogant and incredibly inefficient. They are soooo lucky they are allowed to sell a product everyone needs (and had a huge head start) or they would really struggle in the 'real world'. Best avoided IMO...and this sort of thing totally re-inforces my belief.

Mr Porter [British Gas's QC] sought to downgrade it by saying that Ms Ferguson knew the claims and threats were unjustified

For once, words fail me. :mad: :mad:

midflight

Mr Porter [British Gas's QC] sought to downgrade it by saying that Ms Ferguson knew the claims and threats were unjustified

LOL, that could possibly win an award for "most pathetic excuse ever offered in court". I wonder how much BG's legal team were paid for coming up with that gem!?

They're basically claiming you can hassle/threaten someone as much as you like, because that person is bound to assume your threats are unjustified!

:eek: