British Gas - Idiots!

biv

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet...

When you leave a property and provide your meter readings and forward address, you can ask what your balances are and settle them in full...

However, the figures they will quote you is whatever is on your account at that time. This means, it doesn't include any charges from your last bill up until the date you vacated the property!

Your new address should be added onto your account and your reads will go into the system, and a new bill will be produced later off this information and sent to you later. This bill should then be clearly labeled as final.

This basically means whatever balance was quoted to you when leaving a property... isn't the final balance you'll pay.

- Always keep a note of your meter readings. If you don't and the readings are incorrect on your final bill... well, you have nothing to go back to.

- Always keep a copy of your final bill. This is where your liability ends, and you do not have a responsibility to pay for any replacement bills after this point.

Kingmidas: Send them evidence of your charges and they should refund them if they were at fault.

Suzi.Q_3

WE've had massive problems with BG since moving into a new house in June. The house has a pre payment meter and they wouldn't set up an account in our name - there was a problem with the account. We were told to buy a new gas card and use that problem was the meter was taking debt repayments at a rate of £7 a night. We had so many frustrating conversations with BG agents and it was only resolved when I went to EnergyWatch and they referred me to a complaints team at BG. We were 'lucky' we could afford the payments to the meter. We've just had a refund of £500 (yes, that was how much we'd overpaid between 20 June and 15 September).

Cardew wrote: »

They do normally offer a goodwill payment of £50 or so as they had made an error.

We got £20 compensation for what I've described above - it barely covers the phone calls we've made to them.

Terrylw1

Hi Suzy.Q,

Sorry to hear that.

If you ever move into a PP metered property you have to get a new card anyway or your payments on the original card will go to the old customers account on the Suppliers system.

The Fixed Charged Collection (FCC) on the meter is easy to deal with. they just send out an engineer to reset it which is a standard job.

The account could easily be set up. Just sounds like they really messed you around on what is actually a really easy issue to resolve.

On the compensation issue, £20 seems to be a standard ex gratia payment. I can't remember for sure (maybe someone on the forum or on the Ofgem/Energywatch sites you can check) but there was something brought in about giving £20 per month (and every month) while the dispute is ongoing. I can't remember how far that extended but in my experience, most consumers don't have enough knowledge to push for compensation and the Suppliers often get off lightly!

In my opinion some guidance in the public domain is required over compensation because £20 never covers anything. I know Suppliers have always used that as a rule of thumb because they estimate that they only make £20 of profit on a standard domestic supply per year. Obviously thats based on lower users thsedays, but that was a rule at varous Suppliers I knew of and it was considered correct by Ofgem at the time.

Regards

SwanJon

£20 has been set by ofgem for certain areas - regulated compensation - missed meter appointments etc.
This has probably become £20 for all issues in CSAs' heads.
If you want compensation, tell them what you want compensated for. Don't just give them a number, tell them it hast cost you £x for calls, £y for bank charges etc.
Don't ask for time as that ends up just being a case of making up a number again.

surfsister

Funnily enoigh British Gas are the furst company out of 3 to sort out my query fast and sto let me know. Powergen mixed my night and day readings up anf they didn't sort anything nor did next company but one call to lovely lady at British Gas and it was sorted asap. Think all companies are aonly as good as the person you happebnt o get answer the phone. One trick is to always get their name!

Suzi.Q_3

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Hi Suzy.Q,

Sorry to hear that.

If you ever move into a PP metered property you have to get a new cad anyway or your payments on the original card will go to the old customers account on the Suppliers system.

The Fixed Charged Collection (FCC) on the meter is easy to deal with. they just send out an engineer to reset it which is a standard job.

The account could easily be set up. Just sounds like they really messed you around on what is actually a really easy issue to resolve.

What I posted above was the condensed version - I didn't want to bore anyone! I knew we needed a new card - I phoned up and requested one 3 times (and was told one would be sent out) before anyone thought to tell me that they couldn't as the system wasn't letting one. That was when I was told to go out and buy a card.

Getting the meter re-set was only mentioned to me after I'd complained to EnergyWatch, three months into the whole sorry saga.

Apparently the previous owner was in so much debt there was some sort of block on the account to prevent him moving, and this meant they couldn't set up a new account for us.

The worse thing was being told something completely different every time we phoned up - it was ridiculous. Nobody seemed to know what the problem was, or could be bothered to find out.

As I said above, we put over £500 on the meter in less than three months, and we were telling them this and they didn't seem to think it was a problem. We were 'lucky' that we could afford it (by dipping into our ISAs).

I'm just so glad it's over now - it's been awful.

Terrylw1

Suzi.Q wrote: »

Apparently the previous owner was in so much debt there was some sort of block on the account to prevent him moving, and this meant they couldn't set up a new account for us.

Glad you got it sorted. It's worse for Suppliers to send you a card, so they want everyone to use the shops so sounds liek another merry-go-round there!

As far as the so called block on his account to stop him moving, they couldn't legally enforce that anyway. They could only block his Change Of Supplier request if he signed elsewhere.

To be honest you get all these silly excuses from call centres as they have a big quota of calls to take and they just want rid of you. You tend to find if you can get to the back office depts that they have more time and are more experienced. Thats an if though as not all companies seem to like doing that!

Terrylw1

SwanJon wrote: »

£20 has been set by ofgem for certain areas - regulated compensation - missed meter appointments etc.
This has probably become £20 for all issues in CSAs' heads.
If you want compensation, tell them what you want compensated for. Don't just give them a number, tell them it hast cost you £x for calls, £y for bank charges etc.
Don't ask for time as that ends up just being a case of making up a number again.

Hi SwanJon,

There are Guaranteed Standards Of Serviced (GSOS) which form part of the Suppliers licence as enforced bt Ofgem. They were updated later 2005/early 2006.

£20 is awarded if they cannot give you a site visit within 10 days of your request. Then they have X days (think it's 10 or 20???, can't remember) to pay that or they have to pay you another £20.

The GSOS should be available for the public to read on the Ofgem site since they are a formal policy of compensation. There are quite a few different "conditions" in the GSOS.

I can't remember whether the £20 per month of the ongoing dispute is related to a specific GSOS or failure of a specific GSOS standard. I think it may be under general account maintenance issues but it would need checking. Can't remember offhand.

Suppliers often blag customers on compensation when they know they could award it. A good example of that is the missed appointments or failure to arrange a visit within the 10 days. They tend to not suggest it, so if the customer is unaware, they don't record it which means it doesn't get reported to Ofgem in the standard GSOS reports which they have to provide now (as of 2006). Some companies don't even have agreements with their Agents to visit within 10 days or a system which supports it. This makes them non complaint with the GSOS which they have agreed to. So, how in control are Ofgem then, not very...

Part of the GSOS obligation is to train all staff that can be considered customer facing. That was brought in when they made the recent updates. Like you say though, a mixture of blagging and poor memories.

SwanJon

I've not heard the one about £20/month for an ongoing dispute (which is always going to be subjective), but would gladly find out its true.

One of my gripes at work (trust me I have a few) is agents not reporting missed appointments. We pay the meter companies to do a job, they don't do it and get away with it if no one reports it.
Sometimes it is the agents fault for not doing something properly or booking for a bank holiday, in which case we should take it on the chin (arrange feedback) and compensate.

PS, think its 2 weeks to apply the £20, although this does not neccesarily mean sending it out - if you want it in yor hand, make sure you explicitly state you want it sent - or just leave it to come off your next bill. It then stops, not another £20 if the don't apply that £20 etc.

Terrylw1

Cheers SwanJon, couldn't remember that one. Of course Suppliers are sneeky so they just add it onto the bill...bit like taking something back to a shop and getting vouchers!!!

I know one Supplier did operate the £20 per month but I don't know if it;s an obligation. There is something in GSOS about serice complaints. I'll find out and post what I can back on here. It may have been a well guarded inernal policy but I know it's been applied to some customers internal or not.

I know what you mean about the failed appointments. MOP/DC's are also bound by the GSOS so they have to report where they fail to meet the standard and cough up £20 to the Supplier so they can pass it on. More often than not, they don't though. However, the Supplier has to key this in on the dataflow request to them or the visit date is actually only a guideline. Did you know that? I know that issue is one a lot of people have not come across. I think thats a pointless issue since if the Supplier has requested it, 99% of the time it will be on speaking to a customer.

Thing is though, GSOS is not very well enforced and it's left to the Suppliers & Agents to manage it. So naturally, it's going to get abused!

Regards