British Gas Damage - Rather Long Rant (Sorry)

C_Mababejive

MrsTine wrote: »

Have you thought about the BBC watchdog? Just a thought...

Agreed...get Phil Bentley on Watchdog.

He has some explaining to do...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/23/british-gas-strike-vote

C_Mababejive

56runner wrote: »

I would go straight to the top. Contact the Chairman and send a letter off to someone like Tony Hetherington at the Daily Mail. You can also try OFGEM. I had a dispute with them recently. Unfortunately I have now lost the will to live. The supervisors all sound like chain smoking Dot Cottons. Good luck..

OFGEM...?

ROTFL...they have nothing to do with this and anyway,,they cant even do the job that they are actually charged with !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Gas_and_Electricity_Markets
http://members.multimania.co.uk/ofgemsentinel/

Noir34

Hi, as I type British Gas are carrying out a power flush on our system...and water is dripping through our ceiling.

The engineer has advised that this is due to a weakened joint that would have gone anyway....and is replacing it.

Out of interest did you pursue BG for compensation, and how did you get on?

eprophet

Hi Noir34,
Wow - I just got an email saying there had been a reply to my thread (I had forgotton all about it...lol).

I know there is a lot to read through so just in case you haven't read this entire thread here is a quick run through of compensation events:
1. I sent a letter via Royal Mail Recorded Delivery to Scott Boose (the Managing Director for British Gas Service and Repair).
2. I followed that up with an email to Phil Bentley (the Managing Director of British Gas). Without which I am almost certain nothing would have been done.

After a lot of negotiation and compromise....

3. Our kitchen ceiling and parts of the floor upstairs were repaired.
The ceiling repair is very good.
The floor. No so much...The new floorboards are of lower quality than the original ones and are more bouncy than solid. Also they are thinner so you can see and feel the dips were they are.
By the way...without the help of the contractor that BGs insurance company sent to investigate we would still be in the same position now. The contractor said that it was the worst he had ever seen and it was only the health and saftey aspect that got the ball rolling, as BG and their insurance company were still saying no.

Anyway to (try to) cut a long story short...
4. It took almost a year, but they finally reduced the bill (as a good will gesture!) by £200 (Their condition of this was we had to agree (no matter how reluctantly) that any damage was not their fault and it all would have happened anyway (sound familiar?). They just happend to be here when it happened).
That plus the repair we settled with. Although it still feels like we paid them to leave us in a worse position than we started.
The heating is not quiet (like it used to be) and it does not warm the house as it used to...roll on summer!

Best of luck to you and I hope I have helped.

I'd be interested in finding out how you get on.