Collective Switch

basketcase

They should certainly compensate you! Both for the time and distress caused and a repayment of the extra money the single tariff has cost you. It's their inefficiency not anything you've done.

I thought that the same was going to happen to me and said as much in an earlier post on this thread. But it never came to that in my case. :whistle:

liviboy wrote: »

This really is all getting a bit boring now.

I signed-up on the 5th February through MSE CEC.

I received my welcome e-mail from British Gas on the 9th February which gave an estimated supply start of the 25th February.

I then heard nothing until the 24th February when they requested my meter readings. I supplied these through the form, as others have experienced this was rejected. I tried again and it was again rejected. I then tried calling the 24-hour number but was told the office was closed. So I e-mailed BG my readings. I received a reply from "Chandan Singh Shyam" on the 4th of March who stated the following:



I replied giving my gas reading again and had a reply on the 8th March from "Karishma Rokade" who stated:



So all was well until my old (still current) supplier informed me my gas was now on a single-fuel tariff with them.

I called the collective switch team and spoke to a lovely girl in Cardiff (can't remember her name). She told me there had been an issue with my gas switch and it was now set to transfer on the 30th March! At this point I asked to open a complaint because I had been given wrong information from the e-mail team and due to the general lack of communication from British Gas.

On the 31st March I received an e-mail from "Vicky Morris" in the collective switch team. She stated she was dealing with my complaint and confirmed my gas was switching on the 5th April. I replied asking her to call me.

On the 1st April, Vicky Morris called. We had a 30 minute conversation and said she was going to talk to "Andrew" in the switching technical team as it appeared my gas may have switched already. She confirmed she would call me the following Tuesday (5th April) to confirm the situation.

The 5th came and went without a call so I sent Vicky Morris an e-mail. This went unanswered all day on Wednesday.

So yesterday I decided to call up the Collective Team to be told that Vicky Morris no longer worked in that department and had, in fact, been given a new job within British Gas. My complaint had now been transferred to another handler called Nadine Morgan-Staples. However neither Vicky or Nadine were available to speak to and Nadine hadn't bothered to contact me, as agreed on my complaint notes, on Tuesday.

I eventually spoke to another manager (Mike I think his name was) in the collective switch team. He firstly informed me that my gas STILL hadn't switched over. There were no notes on the system at all to indicate why or that anyone had even looked into the situation. He agreed the service received from Vicky and Nadine was well below standard. It's not as if Vicky walked into the office on Monday to be told she no longer worked there. She was off at the weekend so there is no way on Friday when she promised she would personally manage the complaint that she didn't know what she was actually doing was telling me a load of porkie-pies! The manager I spoke to has e-mailed Vicky and her managers to that effect. He also e-mailed Nadine to ask her to contact me first thing this morning...however I'm still waiting on that call and won't hold my breath!

In the end it has been agreed that I can switch away from British Gas immediately upon my gas switching over penalty-free. They *could* reverse the transfer but said this can cause billing headaches and the easiest thing to do is let the switch happen and then go elsewhere. It has been agreed that I will be charged from the 25th February by British Gas in the form of calculating the difference in what I have paid to OVO (current supplier) to what I would have paid to BG and BG refunding the difference. There was also talk of OFGEM compensation/good will payments but in the end I have said that I'm happy to pay for what I owe...I'm just unhappy at the lack of contact from British Gas, I'd be unhappy at paying extra to OVO because of BG's incompetence at switching my gas over and that customer services in India (e-mail team) need to be retrained so that they don't tell lies to customers! However BG seem hell-bent on offering me "compensation".........

I wish I'd never switched to British Gas now. It's been such a hassle already!

Mrsmoneyspinner

My BGas collective switch is now complete, and I have received my £30 cashback too - thank you MSE for giving me access to this fantastic deal. I had tried approaching BGas direct to get the deal and it was only available through the collective switch link. Very pleased with my deal.

British_Gas_Rep_Matt

Cumbria_Collie wrote: »

I think my transfer has gone ahead as I've had emails from BG to say it happened on Mar 17th. However I've now had about 7 different bills from my old supplier, Scottish Power. Some show me in credit up to £300 or so, others show me with just £40 credit. The last one, which arrived today, shows me owing them £150 or so. These bills are all dated within a couple of days of each other. Some are electricity only, some gas only and some "energy" which I assume is elec and gas combined.
I cancelled my direct debit to Scottish Power as soon as I saw the BG one in place so we'll see what happens.

Hi Cumbria Collie, your old supplier should close your account to the same readings we've used to open your new accounts. I hope everything's now been sorted out but if you need us to look into this, please give our Collective Tariff Team a call on 08009759712 and we'll make sure the final readings have been sent over to them. Thanks, Matt

British_Gas_Rep_Matt

rockin_plumber wrote: »

I can assure you this doesn't work...


I entered my gas & electric readings on this form but received no confirmation.


Two weeks later I logged in to check progress and it appeared they had my gas reading but had 'lost' my electric reading.


It doesn't occur to such a reliable company to contact the new customer about a missing reading, and really why would a customer only enter one reading anyway???


This has obviously resulted in my old account taking more time to be closed and my refund taking longer to process, and I still have restricted access to my 1 month old British Gas account due to them losing my electric reading.


Oh the joys of changing suppliers, but this has been the worst!

Hi rockin_plumber, that's strange. It's not something we'd usually have a problem with if they're submitted correctly as opening readings. I hope everything's been sorted but if you've any questions, I'll be happy to look into what's happened. Please just pop your details on an email to talktous@britishgas.co.uk, including your MSE Username and I'll find out what's happened.

liviboy

Well here we are at 5:30pm and surprise surprise no contact whatsoever from Nadine...

And she's a complaints MANAGER! What hope do the normal staff have if even their managers don't give a fig about providing the minimum of customer service standards!!!!!

British_Gas_Rep_Jamie_Lee

martb wrote: »

Hi, I've been monitoring this thread for a while and now it's time to give details of our situation and frustrations. 'Final' meter readings for gas and electricity were provided on 22 February and there has been one email since then which isn't an issue as I'm aware it will take some weeks. However, an update from Scottish Power was received today (30 March) with a final bill for electicity which was estimated and not the final reading previously provided. We went into our Scottish Gas account which shows Electricity switched but also an estimated account and not the final reading provided. So the final readings have been ignored and four weeks later only one fuel switched. Naturally we have been in contact with Scottish gas and to our frustration were asked for gas meter details and final readings, although once it was stated that this information had been provided/confirmed previously then we were told everything was in order and there had been a glitch in switching gas. My main concern is the time I have to spend sorting this out and ensuring that we are not asked to pay more than we should be.

Hi martb, I'm sorry about the issues you've had switching to us. Please can you email your account details to talktous@britishgas.co.uk with the subject line 'MSE Forums' so I can link your contacts. Thanks, Jamie-Lee

Hotto

I applied to switch in this MSE British gas Collective on 16th February 2016 the Electric was switched within two weeks After three months, I still have not got the gas switched and no one at British Gas can tell me when. they said initially three to four weeks then another two weeks then the end of the month it just go's on and on, and I cant get anyone to tell me WHEN .. this is the fourth time I have switched suppliers, and its always been within three weeks but this MSE February collective with British Gas has been a frustrating waste of time.... I will never use British gas after this that's for sure there call centre responce is a Joke..

Oldsoldier

Well it looks as if I'm finally coming to the conclusion of my switch which started on 4 Feb - over 2 months ago! It's clear that for some of us - I'd be really interested to know how many were affected - this hasn't been a straightforward exercise - I don't believe direct criticisms of the BG staff we deal with are justified - of course there is incompetence in any organisation, but in this case they are the poor foot soldiers doing the best they can - it's clear that BG don't have a robust IT system and that has been the cause of all the issues - a pity in this day and age - I blame the (overpaid!) management - Amazon deal with millions more customers than BG, have much more complicated transactions and their IT system seems to work pretty well! Conclusions - did I save any money - don't know yet, but my calculation will be over less than 10 months rather than the 12 promised by MSE - will I switch again - certainly - because as an OAP I need the best price - will I trust MSE and BG again - unless they provide a compelling reason to do so, probably not.

British_Gas_Rep_Matt

Hotto wrote: »

I applied to switch in this MSE British gas Collective on 16th February 2016 the Electric was switched within two weeks After three months, I still have not got the gas switched and no one at British Gas can tell me when. they said initially three to four weeks then another two weeks then the end of the month it just go's on and on, and I cant get anyone to tell me WHEN .. this is the fourth time I have switched suppliers, and its always been within three weeks but this MSE February collective with British Gas has been a frustrating waste of time.... I will never use British gas after this that's for sure there call centre responce is a Joke..

Hi Hotto, we had a technical problem, which caused a delay in transferring some customers gas supplies; however if you were affected by this, you should've already heard when gas switch will be completed.

Please call our Collective Tariff Team on 0800 975 9712 and I'm sure one of the advisors in our Specialist Team will be able to get to the bottom of this for you. Alternatively if you'd prefer, you can email your details to talktous@britishgas.co.uk, including your MSE username in the subject heading. Thanks, Matt

British_Gas_Rep_Matt

nickcc wrote: »

I was also previous BG customer and switched to Npower in 2014, hadn't thought before about DD but BG must have used my old DD details without any problems when I recently switched back to BG.
Had a text from Post office credit card advising me that my DD was no longer active as the card had not been used for two years, perhaps a similar problem to yours.

Hi nickcc, if your account number's been used previously, it sounds like this may be the same issue.
If you haven't already, please call our Collective Tariff Team on 0800 975 9712 and we'll get this sorted out. Alternatively if you prefer, just pop your details on am email to talktous@britishgas.co.uk, including your MSE Username in the subject heading. Cheers, Matt