British Gas Reviews: Give your feedback

VictimOfBG

I can honestly say that being with British Gas has EASILY been the worst experience I have had with any company to date.



Would I recommend switching to them? NO!!!!!!!!!!

Malaflame

Im not getting this advice to go to British Gas new tariff?! i am now with Bulb and live in Torquay Devon. I pay £150 a month and for the last few years that has just right for me over a 12 months period of up and down dual fuel. i change my provider often.

Now Bulb i cannot fault on many levels. When i did the comparison price as MSE money suggest it states i would be over £600 worse off to change to Bristish gas!.. plus i despise the way they and British telecom treat their customers!..

Nope not ever going to use them!

Mala

[Deleted User]

Any idea how on earth I speak to someone in the UK?

Made four calls today, totalling 3 hours, with the last call apparently being the "Customer Services Directors dedicated team" however after waiting 30 minutes in a queue only for them to hang up on me.

glennbtn

Not confident in British Gas so far. Club sent details to BG on 17th and not heard anything from them. Eon on the other hand emailed a week ago to say we are sorry your are going and I even had a call explaining what would happen with the leaving process. Shame British Gas have not bothered to get in touch.

Glenn

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

glennbtn wrote: »

Not confident in British Gas so far. Club sent details to BG on 17th and not heard anything from them. Eon on the other hand emailed a week ago to say we are sorry your are going and I even had a call explaining what would happen with the leaving process. Shame British Gas have not bothered to get in touch.

Glenn

Sorry you're leaving Glenn and glad we're looking after things at our end.

We'll base our final bill on the meter readings BG start your account with them to. This stops the same energy from being charged twice. If you've an online account, we'll put the final bill on there and send an email to the registered address to let you know it's there.

Sorry again to lose you Glenn and if you already know this stuff.

Malc

betsybleu

Tried 3 times/3 no's with a wait of 35 - 59 mins. Unacceptable. Am querying a Late Payment Fee on an estimated bill issued at 28 days. As this is a rental property and tenants had vacated I wished to visit to take a current reading. Was issued new bill (within 3 mths) with this charge attached. Customer Services told me they can issue a bill whenever they like and if its not settled by the date shown a LPF will be incurred. Checked BG website which states unless you request monthly bills they will be issued quarterly or if paying by DD six monthly.
CS was not prepared to give me a refund so am awaiting contact from the complaints dept.
I also received a welcome pack dated 28 days after getting the property back informing me I would be put on a Temporary Tariff. The pack is dated the same day as the first bill.
Yes I know my obligations to contact BG about changing tariffs or not before the tenancy expires but my issue is with being charged a LPF after only 28 days. Can they do this?

CSJ1

I am looking to change my duel fuel as an existing British Gas customer and my boiler cover expires shortly with British Gas. Should I let my renewal lapse then register for this deal has anyone got experience?

BrownGirl

I'm just in the process of moving to BG from Eon. It was only just cheaper including the cashback but I was not happy with Eon for advising me of a cheapest tariff twice when it was no longer available (I spent quite a while trying to find it to sign up which was very frustrating) and then not seeming bothered that they had done this. Turns out BG is worse!

So far they have tried to send emails to a very very old email address which we haven't had for maybe 10+ years, presumably they have it on file from when we were last with BG as there is no way we gave it when we signed up this time (GDPR issue here maybe? ). I found this out as they sent a letter to tell me they sent me an email to the (wrong) email address but it didn't get through and how to change the email address on my account either online or by phone - neither of which worked as I'm not a customer yet so apparently it can't be done. The guy on the phone offered log a complaint - great I thought - but then he tells me he had to close it straight away, so pretty pointless really.

Finally today I get a text asking me to submit my electricity reading by text and when I went to do this my phone warned me this text will cost money. I can't believe I'm expected to pay to submit meter readings but they haven't given me any other options for how to do it.

I definitely won't be recommending that anyone moves to BG based on this experience.

amazine

Switch from OVO to British fiasco...


My OVO DUAL FUEL contract is due to end this Wednesday the 13th of February 2019, so I used this website to switch to British Gas 'Energy Plus Protection Jan 2020' and Money Saving Expert sent me this email on the 12th of January 2019 confirming the application was going ahead.


Good news! Your energy switch is now in progress!
Your application to switch your energy supply to British Gas - Energy Plus Protection Jan 2020 is now in progress. We've run the numbers and we reckon you'll be paying around £126 less per year than if you hadn't switched.

British Gas even sent me a confirmation email on the 18th of January 2019 saying...

'Hello Mr *****
Thanks for choosing us as your gas and electricity supplier. This is your contract and it contains everything you need to know...'

Unfortunately I discovered that something has gone wrong and I have a problem switching Electricity from OVO to British Gas. When I started the switch via this website BG sent me an email acknowledging my request for dual fuel with a supply start date for both Gas and Electricity as 31st January. BG then requested a GAS meter reading but not an ELECTRICITY meter reading. I supplied them with the GAS meter reading and they have confirmed that they are now my GAS supplier, but still no mention of ELECTRICITY. I used BG web chat to try and find out what the problem is and was told it was due to...



'OVO cancelling the ELECTRICITY switch. We, (BG) took the Gas over on the 31st January, but the issue lies with the Electricity account as the Acquisition request has been rejected by OVO.'



I have emailed both companies but only received acknowledgements saying they will respond within five days, which is vague and around the time my OVO contract is due to end. Neither company appears to have been aware there was a problem.



So I have today (11/2/2019) contacted OVO via Twitter and have been given the following reply... 'Hi. British Gas never requested the electric switch. The only reason an objection would ever be raised by ourselves to switch would be if you had an outstanding debit on the account. However you're in credit with us so there shouldn't be any issues with you moving suppliers. I've checked and we never actually received a switch request for your electric supply, otherwise the switch would have gone through fine. I'd recommend speaking to British Gas and giving them your MPAN (Meter Point Administration Number) which is the number that uniquely identifies your Electric supply within the UK. This number is ********************** Give them this number and ask them to make sure they're taking over the correct supply. Cheers, Tom.'



BG and OVO are blaming each other and after several more Twitter message, OVO sent me this...



'Thanks again for getting in touch. I appreciate you're being told two different things and probably don't know what to believe, but I'm looking at the national electricity database (ECOES) which shows any and all failed/blocked switches, and they definitely weren't blocked by us! I could send you screenshot but it's mostly jargon anyway. In terms of the switch I think I can see the issue - you've been set up on 'profile class 00', AKA half hourly settlement. It's a little hard to explain, but this profile class up until recently was only associated with commercial and industrial premises. OFGEM recently opened it up to include domestic properties with smart meters, and we've been trialing this change. Unfortunately a number of suppliers seems to struggle with this, as their own systems pick the supply up as 'commercial' - it's not, as this profile class is no longer unique to commercial properties, but some suppliers are still catching up with this. Even if their system doesn't block the switch (and I'm sure they'd have told you if it did) they need to apply for the switch in a very particular way - it's not something you should need to worry about, but if they haven't clocked this it would explain why their attempts are failing. If they're still having issues just let us know, and we can either talk them through it or change the class - if we do the latter it will take a week or two to go through though, and I don't want to change it just now in case they've sorted it and it the change blocks your switch! Thanks.'


BG advised me to phone their Energy Acquisitions Team on 03332029807 and after a considerable wait, finally got through. I explained (again) the problem and told they would look into it and phone back. About thirty minutes later they did phone but hung up after just two rings and did NOT phone me again. So I rang them and had to go through the whole process again with a different call handler. Once more I had to wait on hold while she tried to find out what to do. When she came back she said they are going to attempt three more times to take over the Electricity account from OVO and if that fails I will have to apply for the same tariff all over again, but I will only be able to do this on the Money Saving Expert web site. She even suggested that as the switch was arranged via this website and not BG, I should contact someone here to find out what caused the problem.

We are constantly encouraged to switch and told how easy and simple it is and to be fair I have switched twice before without a problem. I would like to know if anyone here knows what has caused the problems.






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ediesonlighthouse

My mum has her energy/gas supplied by British Gas, and also uses their homecare cover (I've tried explaining that it's probably a waste of money but since my dad died she's very anxious about having everything covered). She had her renewal quote through earlier this year and it had gone up by around £80. I rang BG, explained that my mum had been a loyal customer for 20+ years, and they dropped the quote by 20%, making it lower that what she's paid in a few years. Yes, its still more than she would pay elsewhere, but her anxiety means she won't switch supplier currently, so it still felt like a win.

The woman on the phone had to talk to her manager to approve the discount, but it didn't take much for her to be willing to ask - she said 20% was the maximum discount they offer, so might be useful for anyone in the future who is trying to haggle on homecare quotes