BG threatening court action

melbury

I switched to Ebico for gas in mid-July from BG. Ebico stated that I could either phone in my meter reading or send it on a postcard they had provided. Stupidly I phoned it in (as I thought it would be quicker) and since then have received bills and letters from BG saying that I still owe them money.

For some reason that I cannot fathom the reading I phoned in didn't get transmitted to BG. Instead they came up with a reading that was 73 units higher than the actual reading, and I would stress that even two months on from then I am still nowhere near this estimated reading.

Anyway I phoned BG (on hold for simply ages) and got put through to their billing department,explained everything and said I would like a final bill which reflects the actual reading at date of switch which I gave to them. The lady agreed and a couple of weeks later the bill arrived and I sent off a cheque the same day thinking all was well.

Since then I have received two bills and letters demanding payment of the difference - about £63. I am not going to pay this because I simply have not used this gas. Spoke to BG again who categorically deny ever receiving the correct reading (another long wait) and the man there said I should pay it because it will all come right in the end with the meter reading and just means I am paying them rather than my new supplier. I don't want to pay them though because their price is significantly higher, which is why I changed in the first place.

Having spoken to Ebico (or Southern who handle their affairs) I was assured that the correct reading was forwarded to BG in mid-August, but they are still sending me threatening letters.

Spoke to Southern again this week and they say they cannot re-send the correct reading a second time until next week when six weeks have elapsed from sending the first one. Trouble is it seems to take BG ages to actually put the new readings through their system and I am a bit worried about the threatened court action.

Why did BG actually bother to send me the bill with the correct reading on it if they were going to dispute it later?

Has anybody else experienced a problem like this?

masonic

I have always been amazed at the difference writing a letter makes.

It sounds like classic BG 'left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing' incompetence to me and nothing to worry about. Better that you get written confirmation that your reading has been accepted and no payment is due, though.

melbury

masonic wrote:

I have always been amazed at the difference writing a letter makes.

It sounds like classic BG 'left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing' incompetence to me and nothing to worry about. Better that you get written confirmation that your reading has been accepted and no payment is due, though.

Thanks for that. Must admit though the woman at BG billing only sent me the correct bill because I insisted on being sent a bill with that reading on. However, I assumed that if they went to the trouble of issuing the bill, they must believe that I am telling the truth. Seems that they are not able to accept my word on the reading, it has to come from the new supplier.

melbury

masonic wrote:

I have always been amazed at the difference writing a letter makes.

It sounds like classic BG 'left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing' incompetence to me and nothing to worry about. Better that you get written confirmation that your reading has been accepted and no payment is due, though.

I did sit down and write a long letter to BG setting out all of the facts - sent a copy to their Head of Debt also. Hadn't heard anything, so anticipating yet another threatening letter when lo and behold a nice lady from BG telephoned and spoke to my son (as I was at work) saying that they are sorting out my problem, apologies for the delay in responding and if I get anymore threatening letters to just ignore them - RESULT! Well hopefully anyway, I am due my first quarterly bill with Ebico this month.

So it just goes to show, it is worth writing a letter and it is a lot less stressful than being on hold on the telehone for ages.

sammyjammy

If this continues then don't speak to BG about it anymore, go to the energy watchdog/ombudsmen people they will sort it out for you, I hear they are very good.

Sam

BritishGasWorker

Hi there..Southern are being really stupid in the matter...it is under 100 units they should not be sending disputes back to BG....most likley BG has sent it back saying no action needed.. <both companys get charged for disputed reads> however inturn BG should have blocked your accounts whilst this was going thru, and advised you to talk to southern.....The rule of thumb is, if the readings are less than 100 units out then the new company needs to apply the credit to your new account and u pay the old provider..and vice versa..i know they do this as I dealt with a similar case recently.
As for saying they are cheaper,,,i would defintaly suggest you look into this since they are having another price rise! and if u are paying direct debit with them and cash with us, you have been given the wrong info.....Bg offer big discounts for direct debit.. adn not so much for cash and cheq..any probs send me a PM

Hope this helps

andy

tomstickland

I wish that all the people at the call centres knew that. I spent around 5 hours making 15 calls to BG and Npower over a period of weeks before someone finally explained that the dispute couldn't proceed because it was less than the threshold unit level (250 for electricity I think?).

melbury

BritishGasWorker wrote:

Hi there..Southern are being really stupid in the matter...it is under 100 units they should not be sending disputes back to BG....most likley BG has sent it back saying no action needed.. <both companys get charged for disputed reads> however inturn BG should have blocked your accounts whilst this was going thru, and advised you to talk to southern.....The rule of thumb is, if the readings are less than 100 units out then the new company needs to apply the credit to your new account and u pay the old provider..and vice versa..i know they do this as I dealt with a similar case recently.
As for saying they are cheaper,,,i would defintaly suggest you look into this since they are having another price rise! and if u are paying direct debit with them and cash with us, you have been given the wrong info.....Bg offer big discounts for direct debit.. adn not so much for cash and cheq..any probs send me a PM

Hope this helps

andy

I hear what you are trying to say, but I am not prepared to pay the British Gas price for the extra units of gas - it does actually amount to quite a number of pounds!!! As for price, although I had to contact Southern about this matter, I am actually with Ebico and, as you may be aware, they only put their prices up on 1st September, which is why the saving is significant.

Also I would like to say that even three months on, I am still not up to the reading that they are trying to make me pay for, so why should I pay BG for gas that they didn't provide? They have cost me quite a bit in phone calls, plus lots of stress!!

MZie_2

Hi everyone, have just quit working at BG as a temp cust services advisor.

Basically, some time ago it was leaked to the newspapers that BG didn't have enough staff and that they had one of the worst call waiting times. As a consequence BG have employed hundreds and hundreds of new temp staff (no previous exp. necessary) and put them through 2 weeks of training, in order for them to absorb the vast volume of phonecalls to take their response time down significantly. If you have my experience of what working in a BG call centre entails, you will realise that 2 weeks training is hardly enough. The advisors only have limited authority/resources to do anything more complicated than recording meter readings (that aren't final/initial), sending out revised bills for ammended meter readings, reassessing direct debits or sending out simple and small refunds. Anything else has to be put in a que for someone more experienced to do, the official timescale that the company states for these tasks to be done is incredibly optimistic as the list of tasks gets longer faster than the staff are able to work through them.


I think the bottom line is that BG simply haven't got enough trained/experienced staff for the no of customers that they have. I think the last count I heard was 18million custs. To top it off they have recently changed to a new system that is having a tremendous amount of teething problems - this system is responsible for estimating meter readings and calculating Direct Debit reassesssments. In some instances the system had increased peoples direct debits up by 100%+ and in some cases the system hadn't generated a letter to notify custs of this before it was taken out of their bank account.


Whilst I was working there I was speaking to custs who had been waiting months for a refund that should have taken no longer than two weeks amongst catalogues of other problems. I felt completely helpless as I was never able to get through to a manager (even after waiting 1/2 hour) and I knew that if I followed through the correct proceedure it would just mean that the task would be put in another never ending que.

I really do hope things have got better since I've left...

BritishGasWorker

Well based on what you are saying and stating waitin half and hour to get thru to a manager i can see why you left...not following guide lines aye...30 second rules u know!!! You must have been agency staff or been given the boot????

Just clear clear for non BG customers, the new systems we have introduced are very basic for the new staff, mainly cus you only have to press or enter a key stroke...Chimps can do the same u know...If the front line staff followed the guide lines which are laid down in plain simple text there would not be a dam problems..I can see by what you are saying with the 2 weeks training that you were agency staff and only employed as a basic deployment and to raise a task if u cant do it.

When I first started for the company I received 12 weeks classroom and then a futher 12 weeks in graduation, now along time later I work for the complaints dept, and I have to admit the most complaint we receive is about agency staff!...honest thos BG are emplying more intellegent people

masonic

I think it's pretty low to slate someone and cast aspersion over their intelligence just because they haven't received adequate training to do their job. It is British Gas that put poor MZie in this impossible position. Perhaps it should be those in more senior positions in that organisation that should be criticised, not the hapless temps that get sent out to the front line to try and deal with their mess.