Tired of British Gas incompetence... the latest!

eyesy

Blimey. I thought it was just me! I've had similar problems to everyone here. Briefly:

- Moved to BG on 17th October. Supplied meter reads for both utilities that day.
- nPower (old supplier) give me bills based on estimated reads a few weeks later, because BG haven't supplied reads. I refuse to pay them as they are wildly too high from the actual reads.
- Contact BG, they say that accounts are fine, they have sent details to nPower, waiting for they to sort it out.
- Nothing happens for weeks. nPower agree to put account on hold until BG sort this out.
- December. BG now claim I never submitted meter reads to them for gas (despite previously claiming to have already provided the figured to nPower).
- Promised three callbacks from the "Front Line Support" team, within 48 hours, 2 days, and then 14 days. Needless to say, never hear back.
- I get fed up and provide them with a reading myself for what I think it was on 17th October. They apparently do nothing with it.
- I send a letter of complaint to BG, signed delivery. Never head back from them.
- January. nPower finally lose patience. Despite my contacting them two days before the account is due go to "off" hold again and them assuring me that they will put it on hold again, they pass my details to a debt collection agency anyway.
- I phone them the next day and sort it out. A manager then calls me to try to resolve it.
- I phone BG to try to speak to a manage. 4 days in a row I phone and am promised callbacks by a manager and never receive them.
- Today I finally get a call back from one, and they start to chase up the problem. Manager tells me that the notes on the system say that my letter was read, but because all the issues in it were resolved there was no need to reply to the letter!

Cowboys. Avoid them at all costs - I only wish that I had done that.

tripled

The front line support team at BG is an absolute mess at the moment, there are cases which have been outstanding since June last year!

anitap

Its unbelievable but sorry to sound sick it is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one !!!!! Well to update further I checked my bank account this morning and guess what ..........there was a dd payment to bgas for £53.00 - thats right the same amount I received the letter about and was told to ignore as "clever monkey" had cancelled it aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I was struggling to force myself to ring them and see if they indeed needed another meter reading but you can bet your bottom dollar when I saw the new DD i had no hesitation in phoning her again - her reply, "I can only apologise because I def cancelled it, it is showing on the screen in front of me as cancelled" (check it out there are now phantoms in my account because she had cancelled it !!!!)

Luckily Barclays agreed to cancel and return the money as it was on the same day so thank the lord that I don't have to add a £53.00 claim to my fight with BG.

I asked her about the meter reading request and she said "oh no ignore that" I told her that she said that about the dd but she assured me that I don't need to take another one and they are just waiting for the old supplier to receive the old meter reading and then everything is sorted - yeah right !!!!!!!

Watch this space !!!!!!!

mlattimer

I was with BG and my electrcitity meter broker and had to be replaced.
Needless to say it took several months and at least 20 calls to get my billing sorted. Everytime I called I was promised somone would call me back, they never ever did until the last time but by then I had switched.
They were terrible, never ever again will i go near british gas.

dc

PS I'm still waiting for my cheque, first "posted" to me on the 14thNov. having been re-issued a further two times, lastly a fortnight ago!! I cannot possibly believe that three postmen are avid "B Ghastly" cheque collectors ( t-leaves).
I am beginning to think there is a BGastapo accountant in the supply chain who says "ere ere you can't post that we need the money to man the switchboards"

BTW seeing as the following quarter bill is overdue, which they seem to want me to pay.
My reaction was to say "well seeing as the cheques have not been cashed, why not put the money back into the BG account and therefore theoutstanding bill will be settled?"
BG reply ............."We cannot do that!"!!

What a shower. :rolleyes2:rolleyes2:rolleyes2:rolleyes2

eyesy

I got a phonecall from Front Line Support (FLS) two weeks ago! They said that they had started the ball rolling. Asked questions as to why callbacks were ignored, why it took so long etc. etc. - no answer, just mumbling and repeating the stock phrase of "don't know, but we are dealing with it now" etc. etc.

But, check it - they gave me a direct phone number to FLS and was promised a call back within 2 weeks to update me on what was going on. I asked why the other departments claim that there is "no number" for FLS when they have just given me one - he simply said "well we don't give it out unless it is urgent" etc. - so I asked why BG staff lied to me - he just denied that it's a lie... timewasters.

Two weeks later (today) - no callback with update. So I tried ringing them with the number that he supplied to me (0845 955 703) - invalid!!! Couldn't make it up.

The adviser refused to give me his full name for my records but I got his first name at least...

tripled

The number you have is a digit short. Most BG depts with the 'new' allocation of numbers are triple-5 so try 08459 555 703

ie billing is 08459 555 200
homemovers 08459 555 800

Also if that number hasn't been given to general callcentre staff, they wouldn't know of its existence so wouldn't be lying.

eyesy

tripled wrote:

The number you have is a digit short. Most BG depts with the 'new' allocation of numbers are triple-5 so try 08459 555 703

ie billing is 08459 555 200
homemovers 08459 555 800

Also if that number hasn't been given to general callcentre staff, they wouldn't know of its existence so wouldn't be lying.

Brilliant, that worked (08459 555 703). As for the number and the callcentre staff, I've been told conflicting things from people. Some have admitted that they do know the number but can't give it out - others have said that they don't know it. Oh well...

Thanks anyway