Help required: mystery of British Gas and a £3 million Giveaway

PhylPho

Hi all, and apologies for the length of this post.

I’m trying to get to the bottom of a Government-backed initiative to provide every UK household with £300sworth of energy-saving equipment, subject to at least one member of that household being aged over 60.

The initiative must in theory have seriously dented the public purse – if only 10,000 households nationwide received this benefit, then a notional £3 million funding would have been required.

The initiative closed on August 31st. As to its precise launch date, I don’t know – surprising, one might think, considering that a £3 million nationwide energy saving campaign should surely have been the subject of massive publicity.

Yet of any such publicity, I can find not a trace. About the only reference to appear are in the form of posts on MSE (none of them from Martin or the MSE team):

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2570493

and:


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607915

My interest in this oddly unpublicised £multi-million campaign has been piqued because my wife and I are today the beneficiaries of the scheme. . . Or rather, we were to be. But not now. Here’s the position:

We have a central heating HomeCare policy with British Gas. On a visit to our property last month, a BG engineer handed us a leaflet from the UK-based company Spirotech. The leaflet publicised Spirotech’s MagnaBooster 2, a magnetic filter claimed to improve the efficiency and reliability of central heating systems by trapping dirt within the system.

The BG engineer told us that the cost of the MagnaBooster 2 is £300 per household. It was not made clear if this was the unit cost alone, or unit cost plus installation, but I am assuming it’s the latter because of this link below:

http://www.cranefords.com/s1b903menu903- System Filters

where it will be seen that the Magnabooster 2 is on sale at £75.

British Gas engineers have on earlier visits sought to persuade us to have ‘Magnaflush’ at a cost quoted around £650. We have always declined. We therefore declined to fork out £300 for the Spirotech Magnabooster 2. But:

‘Oh no,’ the engineer said, ‘you won’t pay a penny. It’s free to any household with someone aged over 60.’

The leaflet contained an inked-in telephone number: 0800 000 999 Option 2. We rang and spoke to an individual who asked us to confirm the presence of someone aged over 60 in the household. We confirmed that. We were then asked if the individual or individuals were in receipt of any benefits. We said no.

‘Well that’s all right,’ we were told, ‘because if you’re already getting benefits, then you can’t have this equipment. It's for Over 60s only who don't get benefits.'

Curious about this initiative, we asked who was running it. Answer:

‘It’s funded by a Government grant. British Gas has won the contract to do all the installations.’

The individual then confirmed that we did indeed qualify for this £300sworth of Government grant aid, and that British Gas would arrive at our home on Thursday, September 16th between 1pm and 6pm to undertake the installation. That’s today. In advance of installation, we were told, a form would be sent to us to sign.

In order to be here for the installation, we have cut our holiday short and at personal inconvenience have returned home, expecting to find the appropriate paperwork / form requiring signature. But nothing has been received.

When we spoke originally to the individual on 0800 000 999, we were given another number to ring in the event of any query. That number was 0800 294 9650. We rang this morning to say we still have no paperwork, even though installation is taking place this afternoon.


The individual we spoke to said he would check the record. He did so. He told us: ‘This installation has been cancelled.’

No, he did not know why it had been cancelled. No, he did not know why no-one had ever been in touch with us by phone or letter (the house has been permanently occupied during our absence, so any call made to us or message left would have been acknowledged.) He would have to get someone to ring us back later today.

Obviously, we are furious about British Gas’s behaviour. But this post isn’t so much about British Gas, who we will deal with later, as about this entire – and, to us at any rate – mysterious ‘Government initiative’.

The agency most likely to have handed out a £multi-million installation contract as part of the 'Government grant' initiative is Warm Front. But even using Google cache, we can find no trace of any such Warm Front initiative. As Warm Front has no email contact facility, we are writing today to its Newcastle upon Tyne administrative headquarters for further information.

We have also looked (using Google cache) at the records for Spirotech UK, seeing as how the company must be overjoyed that many thousands of its Magnabooster 2 units have, in effect, been bought by the public purse, ready to be installed by British Gas, the appointed contractor.

We have therefore emailed Spirotech seeking details of its partnership in this £multi-million initiative. We await its response.

Pending further information from Warm Front and Spirotech, we would appreciate any information which any MSE member can provide now relating to the ‘Over 60s Magnabooster 2 offer’ – and, especially, information from any MSEr who has had the equipment provided and installed free of charge in their own household.

(We have pm'd those MSErs who have already posted about how good the offer is / how reputable Warm Front is etc etc and look forward to hearing from them.)

As to why we are seeking clarification, the answer’s simple:

* if British Gas has not been the chosen sub-contractor to an official Government-backed energy efficiency scheme involving £300-per-qualifying-household funding, then the claim it made to us is untrue;

* if neither Warm Front nor any other agency funded from the public purse has been party to a nationwide energy efficiency initiative that ended on August 31st last, then British Gas's explanation to us is a fiction.

If that is the case, then the question is: why?

Something's wrong. Somewhere. And we'd really like to establish what that might be.

Thanks.

penrhyn

Is there a NuLiebor MP on the board of Spirotec then?
Sounds as if the benefits of these devices are probably marginal at best?
Nothing like a good conspiracy theory.

PhylPho

Thanks for the thought, penrhyn. Whatever the explanation, I doubt it resides with the equipment manufacturer.

The unresolved issue is who launched this 'campaign' and who funded it. So far we seem to have only British Gas's word that it is acting as contractor to a Government grant-aid programme.

As we still have no word from British Gas, despite its promise that a representative would call us, we still do not know who cancelled the installation or why.

I'll now wait to hear from MSErs I've contacted off-board re their experience of this energy saving initiative. Meantime, we have writen to Warm Front seeking clarification.

notbritishgas

If the cost of installing a Magnabooster is £300 that confirms it is Britishgas doing the work.
I have just had one fitted to an existing system by a local heating firm for £150 plus VAT.

PhylPho

Thanks notbritishgas for the info -- yes, the £300 quote does seem a BG plucked-from-the-air figure, considering that £75 ex VAT is the going rate for this unit.

We're still none the wiser as to the workings of this scheme but have made some progress: though British Gas did not, predictably, ring back as promised, we've rung BG and managed to get a reappointment for the installation.

However, no-one knows why the original installation was cancelled / who did so / when, nor why we were never told about it. The call handlers are apologetic but it was (presumably) never their fault anyway, so it's yet another example of BG front-line staff having to carry the can for morons elsewhere in the organisation.

We've also heard now from other MSErs by pm so our thanks to them for their insights.

notbritishgas

As you say in the OP this initiative was kept very quiet, I certainly did not know about it.
Otherwise I might have been tempted to let BG install mine for nothing rather than £150+.

PhylPho

notbritishgas wrote: »

As you say in the OP this initiative was kept very quiet, I certainly did not know about it.
Otherwise I might have been tempted to let BG install mine for nothing rather than £150+.

You've nailed the issue as far as we're concerned: if this was a nationwide energy efficiency initiative backed by Government grant aid, then why was it so disastrously under-publicised? If it wasn't that, then why would British Gas claim it to be so?

I'm really sorry you didn't benefit from this massively obscure 'promotion'; I'm also sorry we've been seriously messed about by British Gas in cutting a holiday short because of BG's typical incompetence.

But whether or not we eventually get the promised installation, we're still puzzled as to what's gone on here, because on the face of it, British Gas was either (a) a contractor to a Government-backed national grants programme (which is what it told us) or (b) British Gas was running the promotion itself. . . at a loss.

Why would it do that?

ollski

Its the 'up to 300' pound warmfront grant for increasing efficiency and hopefully reducing energy use in the over 60's. The grant has been around on and off for about 3 years, last time it came around it was 300 pounds towards any energy efficient upgrade such as trvs, powerflush, boiler replacement etc. This time it only seems to be administered by bg for the filters and it ended today. If you used the allowance the last time it came around you won't get it again for the filter or the boiler. However if you do manage to get yourself onto some sort of benefits you will find you are entitled to a complete system free of charge this time administered directly by warmfront. You may have more luck searching for EAGA voucher.

PhylPho

Ollski: many thanks indeed for that information -- finally (!) all is explained. It was the absence of the kind of detail you've provided which bothered us when trying to figure out who was benefiting from what where this particular 'initiative' was concerned.

And, of course, the last thing we wanted to get into was the whole 'MagnaFlush' thing again, seeing as how the £650 quoted to us by BG earlier this year struck us as unacceptable (and unnecessary -- well: unnecessary at that price, anyway!)

Many thanks again for your help!

Gerrard_8_lfc

I posted this ages ago in the freebies forum.

it seems a classical case of your wrong if you do and your wrong if you dont.

I even gave the number to call to BG for these installments and in reference to BG engineers they have no information to your circumstances so if you are entitled to these then by all means they should be installed for free.


EDIT . https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607915 thread magnabooster for free to over 60s

regards

notbritishgas

Gerrard_8_lfc wrote: »

I posted this ages ago in the freebies forum.

it seems a classical case of your wrong if you do and your wrong if you dont.

I even gave the number to call to BG for these installments and in reference to BG engineers they have no information to your circumstances so if you are entitled to these then by all means they should be installed for free.


EDIT . https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607915 thread magnabooster for free to over 60s

regards

The point is why should it be down to you to advertise this promotion (must admit I missed your post in July:mad:) unless you are the government/BG spokesperson.
If so could you please put the next promotion in the Daily Express.

Edit: just to add what you did was in the true money saving spirit.