Result....From a letter that no one would read

fnc6810

I have a result from a letter that was scrutinized by a money saving expert who said no one would read because it was to long, bad spelling and grammar. Well I have my gas and electricity re-calculated back to Nov 2008 at the proper rate, I have my D/D discounts from Nov 2008, I have all Decreases in prices back to Feb 2009 and also a little something to say sorry for the inconvenience caused. I fink i'll by a dicshunry wiv that....And remember forum etiquette....Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
thanks Firefox....
Cheers
fnc6810

markharding557

well done:beer: and you are right about forum etiquette there are some on here who are a bit too quick with sarcasm.
unfortunatly with no moderation this is enevitable.:(

KimYeovil

re: difference between "in spite of..." rather than "because of..."

CharlieBilly

The letter below



British Gas
Complaints Department



Attention:
To Whom It May Concern:
Subject: Very poor customer service, absolutley useless sales representatives, no communications, False and misleading selling tactics and a slow response to enquires well worse than slow nearly at a standstill.

The subject title above is in no particular order and does not read all of my complaints but if you read through my diary of events as follows you will see I have just cause to accuse British Gas of the above subject matter and more.
Before starting although they are computer generated and personally signed your letters imply one thing to customers who receive them and that is” your in debt so give us your money now” not “what are the circumstances” or “I’m sorry you’ve received this letter but we have no honest and professional salesmen or call centre staff working for us”. So to show the sort of customer I am here are 2 years worth of credit balances prior to our deceived move from Eon.
Nov 06 £129.27 cr, Dec 06 £301.27 cr, Jan 07 £473.27 cr , Feb 07 £645.27 cr, Mar 07 £251.87 cr, Apr 07 £423.87 cr, May 07 £595.87 cr, June 07 £448.07 cr, July 07 £308.43 cr, July 07 Refund £300.00, Aug 07 £300.43 cr, Sept 07 £316.97 cr, Oct 07 £436.97 cr Nov 07 £556.97 cr, Dec 07 £649.56 cr, Jan 08 £469.56 cr, Feb 08 £589.56 cr, Mar 08 £305.08 cr, Apr 08 £425.08 cr, May 08 £ 545.08 cr, June 08 £303.72 cr, July 08 £423.72 cr, Aug 08 £543.72 cr, Sept 08 £391.94 cr, Oct 08 £511.94 cr, Nov 08 then we transferred to British Gas and look what happened.
It all started the day we got a visit from your representative John smith 000000, I am unsure if that was his last name because I cannot read it but that was defiantly his first name and his 6 Digit I. D. number as written on the Data Capture Sheet. Walk list ID/Postcode number 0000000000 if that is of interest to you. (I've changed the name and numbers for this post)
After first declining his approach he persisted and after getting fed up with saying no I finally decided to see what he had to offer. His behaviour or determination to get me to listen is not in question although as with most things you have a problem with I’ve found out is wrong. What is in question are the promises made, the parts of the deal not explained and his poor arithmetic.
Now I’m not stupid enough to think we live in a totally honest world but there are time’s when you let your guard down and time’s when you are a bit more vulnerable now in my particular circumstances I let my guard down with British Gas And my guard was also down due to fatigue and tiredness which is due to the fact that I start work at 2 am so I am up at 1 am and was a bit tired when your salesman approached me. Letting your guard down when approached by a reputable company such as yourselves I think most people would a huge business who have been in business for years and I should imagine will still be in business after I have long gone. I would imagine that this guy was interviewed by professional people within the company and I would also imagine that he would have been vetted for his position after all he was knocking on doors and would be invited into peoples houses and taking all sorts of personnel details. So I trusted British Gas to send me the sort of person who could be trusted and relied upon to be honest and a proud representative of such a big name to my front door to sell their product. Now can I use tiredness as an excuse? Well I suppose I could but I think I would have made the same choice and take up such a good offer. And that offer being better than what I was receiving at the time from Eon. This was this:
Electricity.
Primary Unit Rate. 23.83p/kWh Ex. VAT 25.022p/kWh Inc VAT Quarterly Threshold 225kWh
Secondary Unit Rate 10.15p/kWh Ex. VAT 10.658p/kWh Inc VAT
Gas
Primary Unit Rate. 6.219p/kWh Ex. VAT 6.53p/kWh Inc VAT Quarterly Threshold 670kWh
Secondary Unit Rate. 3.388p/kWh Ex. VAT 3.557p/kWh Inc VAT.
Duel Fuel Discount of 8% when paid by fixed monthly Direct Debit.
If for any reason we were not happy with any price increase that might occur and wished to change suppliers then we had 14 days to contact them and they would keep us on the old price until the transfer was complete.
Oops nearly forgot 1 Tesco clubcard point for every £1.00 spent on Energy in the home.
And I believe this to be called Eons Standard Tariff
Now the better offer from British Gas
Well it wasn’t so much a better offer but a matching offer, Swings and roundabouts so to speak. But with a reduction in out direct debit payments there would be no duel fuel discount but with a slightly cheaper kWh price and a lower quarterly threshold this would make up for it, and a reduction in the Direct Debit payments and the price would be fixed. Now this bit I am unsure about but I do recall thinking that the fixed price had been increased by a year and understood that the prices I was shown were only fixed to 2011. At the moment I am trying to find any notes or literature from the day so at the moment this date cannot be relied upon.
At the time I was looking to save money although with your deal I would not be any better or worse of I would actually see a difference in my monthly out goings. So I agreed.
You could say I should have read and understood everything which is a comfortable fallback for big companies like yourselves and big companies also seem to distance themselves in someway from the person who has been accused of any wrong doing by a customer. Well a bit repetitive but I shall say again. Should I have let my guard down to British Gas? If the same guy came knocking my door trying to sell me a stair lift I would be a bit cautious because It would be pointless and I should imagine so obvious to him that I don’t need one. But when a guy from British Gas with 20 years experience and knows more about the utility industry than me knocks the door, then you have to have trust.
The right and wrongs will be sorted out later either by yourselves or the appropriate governing body.
Carrying on, letters were arriving “It wont be long before your with British Gas” “we hope you’ll agree you’ve made the right decision to join us” and these told us the supply starting dates which were.22nd November 08 for the Gas and 18th November 08 for the Electric. Then we had the requests for meter readings. Then on December 1st 08 I registered online and had a browse through the site and I am not to sure where on the site but I noticed you do actually give a duel fuel discount. So I sent an email querying this, and sent it on the 1st December 2008.
I didn’t get any reply apart from the Acknowledgment Email 3049830. But as with Eon I was at ease anyway because with everything in place It was like nothing had happened so I could relax because with a Direct Debit You don’t have to remember to pay your bill – going through all the bother of arranging to pay by cash or cheque. And you won’t have to join the queue at the bank or post office. Instead, an agreed amount will be taken from your account each month on the date of your choice. And you’ll always know how much you’ll have to pay each month That’s why monthly Direct Debit makes it so much easier to budget for your bills – and you even get a discount on your
bill for doing it.. Ahhh the beauty of paying by Direct Debit.
So no need to worry then, carry on with my life as normal well until October 2009 anyway. 08th October an email to view my bill and the 10th October an email to view a replacement bill I think I overlooked viewing these but not to worry everybody overlooks things from time to time, due to other things taking preference, and of course nothing had changed with our Gas and Electric if anything we were more efficient than the previous year, we were using our energy saving light bulbs things were being turned of at the plug sockets instead of being left on standby and also we had no Tumble Dryer due to the fact that it had set on fire in January. So that must have been a massive saving. That’s what I thought the replacement bill was for to tell us we were using a lot less energy and this replacement bull would reflect this.
In November I found quite a large amount of money missing from my bank account so I investigated it and found it was my Direct Debit payments to British Gas my first thought was it must be a mistake so I searched through my letters and found one. Something else I overlooked and decided to open it. Now I suppose that I should have opened it when it arrived but we were decorating at the time and there is quite a lot of junk mail about like the one I received in January 2009 to tell me that Gas prices are going down in February 2009 but this doesn’t apply to you, (thanks for rubbing my nose in there) But I thought everything was in order at the time and carried on as normal. After realising what it was I started to investigate it. I looked back through previous bills and checked my emails and stumbled on my query that I had sent almost a year ago, which I had not received a reply to. So the same question was asked why did your salesman say there was no duel fuel discount when the website said different? It was starting to become clear now why the Direct Debits had been increased. And although I did not know about this increase British Gas had informed me in advance and of the amount. This was my fault for not opening the letter on time. If I had spotted this sooner I could have done something about it.
Why had my Direct Debit payments gone up? That is quite simple to work out the Direct Debits were not enough to cover the amount of energy used so how did that happen.. Well that to is quite simple the figure of previous used energy is required and an estimate given for the amount of energy expected to be used and then divided by 12 to give a figure for 12 manageable monthly payments. And if previous use figures are not available then Energy supply companies have a sum to use of average consumption for medium energy users. Which is 3300kWh of Electricity a year and 20,500kWh of Gas which is multiplied at the appropriate tariff rate and divided by 12. Your salesman had my usage figures to hand when he quoted me I showed him my last 4 bills and from these he knew – What I was paying on my D/D – What price I was paying per kWh – What my consumption was for a year – What discounts were given – And I would assume he would need all this to assess what my new situation would be with British Gas and to be as realistic and truthful with his quote as he could. Or would he just guess and tell lies to get a sale and not think of what the consequences of his actions would be to the customer. I think the evidence is pointing to the latter and looking through the figures now the total D/D of £83 only adds up to £996.00 a year., but on his data capture sheet he has written down the annual consumption of both Gas and Electric to be £1200.00 which works out to £100 a month which although short of the realistic amount is much better than his guess work. And before I mention everything else he lied about, I would like to point out that even if the D/D payment had been kept at £120.00 the price I was paying with Eon, the amount you are charging me (which I believe to be incorrect) and the consumption for this year (which is lower than the consumption for the previous year) this would still not be enough to cover both bills. This is another part of the deceit in this whole shambles of a transfer. Now what about your price increase, you’re probably thinking what the hell I am talking about, well the price increase from what I was originally offered, and the prices in the offer that matched Eon’s standard tariff we were on. Well if we just glance back at the Direct/Debit situation can you actually see your representative offering to increase the price of someone’s gas and electric to such an amount that not even the customers previous D/D payment would cover, and expect the customer to accept., or do you? And what about discounts, your representative had told me that you didn’t do Duel Fuel as he said you have 2 separate accounts and not just the 1 like with Eon. But with British Gas’s Primary threshold set 100 kWh’s lower this would make up for the loss of your duel fuel discount which is quite good this is a loss of a discount but quite a reasonable gain which made your offer a bit more attractive. Turns out this was just another lie.
Moving on to the 23 Nov 2009 like I’ve said already I had spotted the email I’d sent back in December 2008 asking about duel fuel discount no reply but I was getting impatient so I sent another email on the 27 November also briefly saying what your representative had said and why it didn’t add up. Well to my surprise you actually replied to this. Here are a few snippets of what you said and I would like to comment on them as well.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in my reply and for the increase in your
Direct debits.
This was quite a big delay nearly a year I was going to forgive you maybe 1 week of that but with the increase in my D/D such a vast amount due to your representative lying to me I am sorry I cannot accept it. The answer to my year old question was answered and you actually do a duel fuel discount. Which then brings up the question why did your representative tell me you didn’t?
Unfortunately, I am unable to reduce your monthly payments back to £50.00 based on the
above information. However, I have reduced your payments to £74.00 and this will take
affect from your December instalment. You will receive a letter by Wednesday 9 December 2009

Unfortunately, I am unable to reduce your monthly payments back to £33.00 based on the
above information. However, based on the above information used in your last four bills your
payments should be £156.00. I have kept your payments at £153.00
I’ve missed out the calculations of how you got to these figures because I think you know yourselves how you work them out. A couple of points are No.1 this was not the question I asked. .your salesman said we were paying too much for our gas and electric how we are in debt when we have used the same amount of gas and electric. And No.2 its unfortunate that your unable to reduce the D/D back to £50 gas and £33 electricity but I think if you did then I don’t think it would be enough to cover any energy used in the future.
I am sorry that our Sales Rep advised you to reduce your payments with ourselves.
Your sales rep the one chosen by British Gas, employed by British Gas, Paid by British Gas and represents British Gas set these levels by his own calculations and vast experience in the utility business. I would not use the word advised because this means he wasn’t in control of the decision. So his loyalty would not have been to yourselves and your financial security if it was advice that he gave to set it a lot lower than is required. But if he was as experienced as he said he was, and British Gas assure its customers that they are in qualified and safe hands then he set the rate ,he said he could reduce the D/D payments it was what he said when he approached me and it was part of the deal he offered.
While we are on the subject of calculations you said that my electricity D/D should be £156.00 but have kept it at £153.00 that’s nice of you for that £3.00 and you make it sound like I should be grateful. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic manor but if it is your intent to make people feel your are doing everything you can then try getting your sums right.
Debit balance included: £594.34
Usage based on last four electricity bills 18 November 2008 to 06 October 2009: £970.48(Inc
VAT)
Instalments made on current payment scheme: 1 x £33.00 = £33.00, 1 x £153.00 = £153.00. Total
payments £186.00
Remaining balance: £1,564.82
Remaining instalments: 10
New instalment amount: £156.48 (rounded to £156.00)
Yes £970.48 + £594.34 is £1,564.82 but if you take of £186.00 which I’ve already paid then I would be a little more pleased. with £18 instead of £3.
So with the facts that I had uncovered I decided to phone your customer services and to be honest I didn’t expect much sympathy, after all I was a British Gas customer and had been for a year now. And of course there was the question of money which according to you its money that I owed and when I explained how this had come about I was told were only talking pennies the difference in price. So let’s have a look at those pennies, I’ve already told you about the rates we were on with Eon so here is how it relates to usage and bill totals.
During the 12 months previous to the switch from Eon to British Gas we used:

Gas - 488 units = 24 more units 15375 kWh - which is 621.4 kWh more than with British Gas.

Electric 9372 kWh - which is 2091 kWh more than with British Gas.

This gave a total of £1480.36 before vat total cost of Gas and Electricity supplied by Eon for a year also to take of are the D/D and the Duel Fuel for 3 of the 4 quarters of £97.73 and I'll just point out that because we switched suppliers we had no discounts on the last and final bill which would have made this bill less.

No this isn’t pennies, So for 48 minutes me and your customer services kept on trying to sort this out, I don’t think for the full 48 minutes because there were time’s the line went quiet and it felt like I was talking to myself and a pause before the lady spoke again, but she wasn’t much bothered about how we had been misled just the bill. One thing I did agree with is she did say the consumption was excessive and there could be a fault somewhere, so I suggested the meter might be faulty, but apparently they never go wrong because they only have electricity going through them. I am actually in disagreement there because after all they are man made, but whether my meter is faulty would be a different matter, although I have my concerns. I asked her to explain to me how expected consumption would be worked out, which would be taken from my last 4 bills. But she couldn’t say what sum or information is used in new customers, and this suggests to me its random guesswork, because your very first bill to me was estimated, but estimated to a figure which was above what the D/D payments would cover.

This discussion seemed impossible to resolve the rights and wrongs of how this mess was caused and the lady asked me what I wanted to do, so bearing in mind that I have actually used gas and electric, and have always paid for it, I needed to carry on paying until I could gather my evidence, find out information and an agreement that both of us are happy with. But the figure you wanted of £227.00 total per month could not be maintained. I asked her to explain again the figure of expected consumption, but told me we had already gone through this so it was pointless. So I worked out a quick sum which was the total amount of the year’s bill plus VAT and divided by 12 and came up with £58.00 for Gas and £83.00 for Electric (total £141.00) per month. I suggested that my D/D payments drop to the £141.00 total per month and asked for the debt to be put on hold for a month. She said she could do that and gave me a date of 17th January 2010 to get in touch.
Well brilliant that gives me the time I need to look through everything in detail. You will probably have noticed that I am not a very happy man, I am up at 1am for work and do not return home until midday, I do not require this sort of problem to replace my required sleeping time. But yet again you have not listened. Was the temporary deal that we struck over as soon as I put the phone down? It must have been because the letters you sent me telling me you had cancelled my payment scheme as requested are dated 10th December 2009 the same date I phoned customer services. Yet again British Gas seems to have a problem with carrying out what has been agreed with the customer. I think now is the time to end this letter with a summary of what has gone wrong and what you can’t get right.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=28253245&postcount=4

Premier_2

CharlieBilly wrote: »

The letter below ...

That's only the half of it :eek:

It actually carries on here:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=28253329&postcount=5

fnc6810 wrote: »

Heres the rest of it...

1. When your representative approached me he persisted and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
2. When I agreed to listen to his offer he did not ask if I wanted considerably more expensive gas and electricity which I have ended up with.
3. The prices he showed us are not the prices you are charging by now. They matched with Eon.
4. He said you did not do a duel fuel discount but your primary kWh rate is lower than Eon’s and that’s where we would have made up our loss.
5. He said he could lower our D/D payments which was another plus in the deal. It turns out he never even calculated a direct debit amount just guesswork.
6. He had all the figures he needed to calculate our usage, the costs and discounts. Even if he did not lower the D/D payments and kept it at £120 total, then this amount would not even be enough to pay for what we have used at the prices you are charging.
7. When I registered on your website I noticed you do a duel fuel discount, I submitted the question why your representative said you didn’t and did not receive a reply until November which was a year later.
8. Your reply was that we were receiving the duel fuel discount and also an apology for the advice of the representative to lower the D/D payment. It wasn’t advice, if it was advice then why didn’t you advise us to raise the D/D instead of telling us it will raise.
9. You set the D/D level and then explained how it’s worked out, which was pointless when you didn’t work it out correctly.
10. Why do you always agree one thing and do another? We agreed to raise the D/D level to £141 total and give me until January 17th to work on the debt. This you agreed for less than 24 hours.
11. why did you cancel my D/D payments
12. Why have you gone back on your word and demanding the debt payment now.
13. Why lie to get customers and treat them the way you do?
I hope that you can resolve this matter and not give me you nonsense answers quoted from your “give the customer bulls**t answers to keep them quiet” hand book “

Thanks for reading
Just one after thought Bulshit Gas would be more of an appropriate name to trade as, and at first glance it still looks like British Gas
Cheers fnc6810

MrsTinks

OMG I gave up after 3 lines when I saw the length of it! :eek:

Kudos to whoever read that at your providers end - I guess you beat them into a mental submission and being totally mentally exhausted they just gave in...

JennyR68

fnc6810 wrote: »

I have a result from a letter that was scrutinized by a money saving expert who said no one would read because it was to long, bad spelling and grammar. Well I have my gas and electricity re-calculated back to Nov 2008 at the proper rate, I have my D/D discounts from Nov 2008, I have all Decreases in prices back to Feb 2009 and also a little something to say sorry for the inconvenience caused. I fink i'll by a dicshunry wiv that....And remember forum etiquette....Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
thanks Firefox....
Cheers
fnc6810

Glad to see you got a result, I too have just recieved a little something in way of an apology for a messing about with British Gas. It's a good feeling when you finally win the battle. :beer:

markharding557

Maybe the length of the letter is what did it,perhaps they thought that somone who is willing to take the time to write such huge letter must mean business.

fnc6810

MrsTine wrote: »

OMG I gave up after 3 lines when I saw the length of it! :eek:

Kudos to whoever read that at your providers end - I guess you beat them into a mental submission and being totally mentally exhausted they just gave in...

That I think is a big problem because most of us give up after a few lines in most terms and conditions of any contracts we enter into. But when we have a problem we decide to read them all the way through, and there is the bit we should have read. So I decided to reverse this situation and fill my letter with as much dribble as possible but still explaining the facts........Well if they read it well done the person that did....If they submited after a few lines they couldn't deny that i had told them everything because it was in there......Either way I got what i wanted.....One last thing I think I'll write a nice long letter to my old IP who still owes me money. Thanks for reminding me about IVA's
Cheers fnc6810

Fire_Fox

fnc6810 wrote: »

And remember forum etiquette....Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
thanks Firefox....
Cheers
fnc6810

I cannot believe you remembered my username after all this time. Why send me a PM if you didn't want me to post on your thread? :rotfl:

Congratulations on getting a result.

ClareEmily

OMG glad you got the result you wanted, but my goodness that letter is LONG, and well done for them taking the time to read it and also to make sense of it.