Leaving BG letter- news to me!

HomerStig

Hi,

Just received a letter form British Gas saying "I'm sorry to hear you're leaving British Gas" and asking me to ring an 0845 number to settle account deatils. I haven't been in touch with BG or any other company to change supply though. I don't particuarly want to ring the 0845 no. (I was on hold for 20mins last time I did) so I emailed them but no response yet. Any idea what's going on?

Thanks
Jim

bottlered

have you had any door-to-door sales recently? or any marketing calls?

I had a letter from BG saying sorry you're leaving-was first I'd heard of it.
It turned out that a devious sales guy had told me I was signing to confirm a "remove me from your database" request - I later found out that he had signed up loads of people in my area by lying to them. Some he told he wouldnt get paid unless he could prove he had called, others were told they were signing to be left alone in future

My FIL was asked on the phone if he wanted to take advantage of a special offer to reduce his gas bill - at no point did they say it involved changing companies, & again he knew nothing until the 'sorry' letter arrived

HomerStig

The only contact with other suppliers is a NPower rep who came to the door a couple of months ago but I didn't give him any deatils and I told him I wasn't interested. Is there any way I can find who the new supplier, if there is one, is?

JonathanA

It could be a simple mistake!! We moved from nPower to BG earlier this year - a messy move which I regret given the hassle. However, between the 2 companies, they managed to get our supply number wrong, so initially they tried to switch someone elses account, not ours. Obviously the people they tried to switch objected, so BG contacted us again, we asked them to switch us, they tried to switch the wrong people again and so it went on.

Check your meter reference number & make sure they haven't got your details mixed up with someone elses. Ours came down to an incorrect meter number and an incorrect postcode, hence the confusion, which took 4 months to resolve, and only after energywatch involvement.

Good luck in getting to the bottom of it.

browsingid

This also happened to me a few years ago - also with British (Scottish!) Gas. I was very confused as although I got the 'sorry you are leaving us' letter I never got the 'Welcome to X' from any other company which would suggest that a door-stopper had switched me without my permission.

British Gas had to set us up with a whole new account in the end, after refusing to help us until we 'cancelled' with the other supplier - which was a bit difficult as we had no idea who the other supplier was! We called Transco to find out, and they were able to tell us which supplier was claiming to supply to our meter.

It turned out that one of the other flats in my building was processing a switch and in the process Npower had used the wrong meter reference number, triggering BG to cancel our supply. It got sorted out in the end, but I must have spent 15hrs+ on the phone over about 4 months trying to figure out exactly what had happened and rectifying it. If it happened again I would take a much more laissez-faire approach and just write a letter or two, and keep my cancelled DD payments to one side for whenever the correct bill actually came!

On a separate occasion I have also been the recipient of bills to 'The Occupier' from Powergen, when my supply and payments to BG were running uninterrupted, which although addressed to my flat number, did not relate to my meter point reference. Sorting that out was especially frustrating since the foreign call centre was not adept at understanding/dealing with this kind of complicated problem.

I now have what feels like a long list of suppliers that I will never deal with based on their poor customer service even though I have never been an actual customer of theirs!

My recommendation would be to call Transco and find out whether your supply is being claimed by another supplier. Although I have just googled 'Transco' and it appears they are now called National Grid - you can get some contact details at their site: http://www.nationalgrid.com

EDIT: Sorry! Just noticed that JonathanA's post is essentially saying the same thing as mine!

HomerStig

I received another letter today. The same except for the Electricity. BG haven't replied to my email yet so I will phone them from work tomrrow and find out what's going on!

HomerStig

Just phoned BG. Turns out I have been switched to SWALEC which is news to me as I haven't been in touch with them since I moved house 4 months ago. I used to get electricity from them and gas from British Gas and now they seem to have decided to switch me back! Now I have to be with them for 28 days before I can go back to British Gas who will have to set up a new account and DD! Bloody annoying! The funny thing was, I was thinking of leaving BG and going to another supplier, possibly SWALEC. Now I won't ever go back to them.

Stompa

I had something similar happen. I had a cold-call asking if I wanted to change supplier. I said I wasn't interested in discussing over the phone but if they sent me details of their tariffs I'd take a look. Needless to say the tariff details never arrived, and I soon got a letter similar to yours indicating that a switch was underway!

kat21

this is classed as an erronus transfere and you should get a letter of appology from your registered supplier together with some possible reasons as to what happend.
kat21

tripled

If you spoke to an agent with BG they will now be rubbing their hands as they now have to extra little ticks for sales on their stats sheet. If you have been transferred incorrectly you should have been advised to contact Swalec and advise them you never signed a contract, Swalec should then send the account back. However the easiest solution for you now is probably just let it go through than have to contact BG again to cancel the contract and Swalec as well to dispute the switch.

HomerStig

this is classed as an erronus transfere and you should get a letter of appology from your registered supplier together with some possible reasons as to what happend.

If you spoke to an agent with BG they will now be rubbing their hands as they now have to extra little ticks for sales on their stats sheet. If you have been transferred incorrectly you should have been advised to contact Swalec and advise them you never signed a contract, Swalec should then send the account back. However the easiest solution for you now is probably just let it go through than have to contact BG again to cancel the contract and Swalec as well to dispute the switch.

I was told I could either do that or just switch back and open a new account with BG. The BG agaent seemed to suggest it would be easier to open the new account so I did that. As long as it gets sorted in the end I don't mind but I would like to know why I was switched! The BG agent said something along the lines of crediting my account with £65 after 3 months for switching back though. Does anyone know anything about that? I'm not sure exactly what she said now!