Free gas from British gas Dodgy meter PLEASE READ!

Anna_firecracker

Hi everyone,

Please bear with me and make a brew its a long one! (sorry)

About 5 months ago after being made redundant I was getting behind with my utility bills so decided to get pre-paid meters.

This was September I made appointments and as usual the engineers did not turn up countless times. So an appointment was made for both electric and gas 23rd November (remember this date)

So again no show on both counts! meanwhile british gas are sending me moody letters telling me I owe them money, they want me to have pre pay meters and if I dont agree to this they will get a lock smith to come and gain access and charge me about £200 per meter!!!

So at this point I have lost my sense of humour spoke to some idiot and said its you that have not turned up!! It was agreed that both meters would be installed at the same time on 7th Jan.

The electric meter man did turn up! But the gas man did not. So made 3 more appointments again waited and waited no show!

Moody letters are getting worse and they send me a solicitor letter saying they are now collecting the debt!

So I finally spoke to someone with a brain cell at british gas who found out that the job from 23rd November was still active/open and therefore any new jobs were cancelled by the system so two engineers did not turn up!! Not a happy bunny!

So FINALLY 27th Feb Gas man came and put in new meter HURRRAYYY!

I decided to put £10 credit on my top up card put in machine and pressed go. It accepted the credit and then the balance THIS IS TRUE I PROMISE

displays credit of £42,593.67

Yep credit!

So as I am an honest person and didnt want to be eventually slapped with a huge bill I called British Gas who basically want me to wait in for an engineer to come and remove dodgy machine!

I want compensation for all the nonsense and time spent waiting in, phone calls, moody letters etc. He offered me 10% of my debt balancewhich is not a lot to be honest.

Also I have since found out from a forum that I should have been given £20 compensation everytime they failed to turn up to an appointment, not too sure if this is true though

Please can anyone help me with British gas to get some decent compensation - at the moment I think I have the upper hand with my dodgy machine! Any help would be fantastic

Thanks x

kjsmith7

£20 compensation per missed appointment is correct, telephone up and advise them of this. Sadly, the meter is not the responsibility of the supplier, it is the meter operator (the ones who missed your appointments) that need to sort the meter.

BargainGalore

As said £20 is the limit

Standards of Performance" here.

Anna_firecracker

Thanks for your help so far but I want a bit more for my co-operation. I am yet to have an apology out of these

4$£&*(£$&*(!

Two things you need to know.

1. BG are notoriously difficult to get significant compensation from going on experience of friends and others on this forum, you may end up in court fighting a battle before you get the sums you are probably thinking about and the contracts you are bound to will not be in your favour.

2. BG do have to pay the standards of performance payment but remember this - you do not have £42,593.67 bargaining power as your post seems to suggest to me. Rather you have a clearly faulty meter that if you did not co-operate in having a replacement they could force entry to your house. I personally would not want this.

Your situation is not right by any means, and I would be firing off a letter to the executive office at this point. You may get a little more compensation but you must remember you had started to accrue a debt that has eventually resulted in you being at this stage (admittedly the problems appear to be no fault of your own), so you have to be realistic.

spiro

In terms of misses appointments you have 2 on 23/11 (1 per fuel), 1 on 7/1 (gas) and "3 more appointments again waited and waited no show" giving a total of 6 @ £20 PLUS if they dont make the payment to you within 10 working days of the appointment they have to pay an additional £20. Potentially if they have made no payments then you are due 6 @ £20 = £120 for missing appointments plus 6 @ £20 = £120 for failing to pay the compensation giving you £240.

Just quote "Electricity (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2005" and "Gas (Standards of Performance) Regulations 2005" to your supplier.

Anna_firecracker

CitySlicker wrote: »

Two things you need to know.

1. BG are notoriously difficult to get significant compensation from going on experience of friends and others on this forum, you may end up in court fighting a battle before you get the sums you are probably thinking about and the contracts you are bound to will not be in your favour.

2. BG do have to pay the standards of performance payment but remember this - you do not have £42,593.67 bargaining power as your post seems to suggest to me. Rather you have a clearly faulty meter that if you did not co-operate in having a replacement they could force entry to your house. I personally would not want this.

Your situation is not right by any means, and I would be firing off a letter to the executive office at this point. You may get a little more compensation but you must remember you had started to accrue a debt that has eventually resulted in you being at this stage (admittedly the problems appear to be no fault of your own), so you have to be realistic.

Thanks for your advise, its just that they want me to wait in again!! I work full time i am a single parent and I far more important things to do with my saturday mornings (banks bills etc). I bet they turn up on time for this appointment.

Im not holding my meter hostage and I know I dont own £42,000

But I am really frustrated with BG and their poor customer service. I know its a freak one off faulty meter but I feel like they dont care and I want compensation for the many calls etc its now taking to sort out this problem. I am an honest perdon I rang immediatly when i realised the fault, Im sure there are many who would have kept their mouth shut and hoped for the best

C_Mababejive

Please can we have a pic of the meter showing the £42k credit on the display..??

Anna_firecracker

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Please can we have a pic of the meter showing the £42k credit on the display..??

I would love to but new to this and no idea how to put a pic up !?


Also what do you think about me writing to the Manchester Evening News with this story?

spiro

Given that you want to claim for missed appointments and that you can point out to them 'despite you messing me about I have told you about the £42k' then I would not involve the press. You also need to keep making the point to them that you voluntarily decided to have a ppm in to 'protect them' from you building up a bill you couldn't pay due to no work.

Once they have sorted it out today, if you have not received any payments for missed appointments etc I would write a bullet pointed letter to the Complaints department primarily pointing out the number of missed appointments and their failure to make the legally required payment automatically and also that having finally got the meter installed you have had to have yet another appointment because of a problem with their equipment/installation which you think you should also be compenated for. As per my previous post you should be looking for £240 plus compensation for having to spend Saturday morning waiting for them.

clayre6173

I understand the compensation business but they have a freephone number now so I doubt you'll get anything for calls