Question about registration (energy company worker's help needed here)

Terrylw1

Hi Far,

If you have paid everything then BGas appear to continually be making a mistake. This sounds like an incompetance issue.

Have you thought of asking BGas (maybe a manager) to put a marker on your account to stop this happening? I know Npower puts markers on such as "do not object" to stop this happening...

far

Yes we have in fact we have phoned BG up at least 3 times (twice on 10/10 after the letter arrived, again on 15/10 and yet again today) explaining that we are switching and that we want assurances we will not be blocked. Today's call was particularly interesting. They said that "as long as we want to switch, we will not block it as there is no debt outstanding on the account". This is interesting - even if we didn't want to switch, I thought incumbent energy companies couldn't block a switch?! In any case, from all Scottish Power have said so far, it does appear BG have blocked the switch once so far only. Whether that once was the 2/10 or 15/10 depends on who you ask!

Just to add another twist to this story, I checked the Application Status online and instead of being at the Registration stage (where we have been for 2 weeks or so now), the application has reverted to the Sign On stage!

olly300

far wrote: »

Yes we have in fact we have phoned BG up at least 3 times (twice on 10/10 after the letter arrived, again on 15/10 and yet again today) explaining that we are switching and that we want assurances we will not be blocked. Today's call was particularly interesting. They said that "as long as we want to switch, we will not block it as there is no debt outstanding on the account". This is interesting - even if we didn't want to switch, I thought incumbent energy companies couldn't block a switch?! In any case, from all Scottish Power have said so far, it does appear BG have blocked the switch once so far only. Whether that once was the 2/10 or 15/10 depends on who you ask!

Just to add another twist to this story, I checked the Application Status online and instead of being at the Registration stage (where we have been for 2 weeks or so now), the application has reverted to the Sign On stage!

Threaten them with energywatch. Then report them to energywatch.

Terrylw1

They can block the switch within the objection stage and then get a chance to uphold the onjection of remove it when challenged. However, they have to have a valid reason to block the switch. The reason is always debt outstanding which generally means you owe more than a quarter or haven;t paid the last quarter you were invoiced by the due date, hence you are heading into the chaser stage.

They can also attempt to block for problems that could cause you to have problems with your new Supplier e.g. cross metering, however I've never seen that done before myself.

The thing is, the longer this goes on...you will continue to get billed so you will need to pay that on time to avoid this continuing.

To be honest, I would only speak to managers on it and I would definately send it off to Energywatch anyway. As a minimum, I would want compensation to cover any loss of discounted rates with the new Supplier from BGas.

You know they blocked the 02/10 as they've admitted that. Now, the fact that you have seen the Sign On Stage will probably relate to the 15/10 reg by SP. Now, they I think only have 5 days to object so maybe this one has gone through. Suggest checking with SP to see how far things have gone.

far

Just another update on this. I got a letter today dated the 16/10 confirming that our existing supplier blocked the move for gas. We are online with them for electricity as of today. SP actually put the registration through again on the 19th since the phone call to them when we confirmed there was no reason that BG could legally block the move. We've been told to call back on Friday but so far no objections have appeared - again I'll update the thread when I get more information in case it helps anyone else.

far

The saga continues I'm afraid. British Gas blocked the switch a second time on the 19/10 stating we owe them £239.44. That was the balance of the account before we paid it off with my debit card on 30/9! We've had enough so contacted EnergyWatch who said due the high volume of complaints, they asked everyone to deal with a seperate department in British Gas. They put us through to some high up complaint department in British Gas and told us we should give them one final chance to sort things out. The apparent problem was (British Gas say) that because we asked for the Monthly Payment Plan to be cancelled it wasn't cancelled properly and so whilst our payment of £239.44 was showing on the account, it hadn't been credited. Therefore they say it won't be blocked again. Frankly I'm sceptical. Scottish Power have not received the objection though but when they inevitably will I shall ask for it to be put through once more. Looks like we'll probably lose our duel fuel tariff until the gas comes over :mad: Can we ask EnergyWatch and/or British Gas to compensate us for this? It will cost us approximately £25 for every whole month the switch is held up plus we've made countless calls to 0845 numbers at both Scottish Power and British Gas

far

ts_aly2000 wrote: »

This subject (or very similar) was on BBC's Watchdog last night. There are people out there who left BG years ago and are still getting demands. They took £2000 out of one lady's current account when she wasn't even their customer.

Yes I did watch that after being alerted to this by someone (thank goodness for iPlayer!) and think it sums up the shambles they are - the mere fact that their complaints alone are double what all other energy companies receive put together is ridiculous. nPower to their credit have been nothing but great in handling the switch. A courtesy call a week before the switch went through was made to inform us if we were aware of the switch and to ask why we were switching. We informed them that it was simply price and they even agreed their current non-online offering was not competitive. We would even contemplate switching back to nPower one day if the prices were good but there is no way ever that we would go back to British Gas - not even if prices were a lot cheaper. Surely they should realise treating customers like this actually makes people even more eager to switch....

Terrylw1

far wrote: »

Yes I did watch that after being alerted to this by someone (thank goodness for iPlayer!) and think it sums up the shambles they are - the mere fact that their complaints alone are double what all other energy companies receive put together is ridiculous. nPower to their credit have been nothing but great in handling the switch. A courtesy call a week before the switch went through was made to inform us if we were aware of the switch and to ask why we were switching. We informed them that it was simply price and they even agreed their current non-online offering was not competitive. We would even contemplate switching back to nPower one day if the prices were good but there is no way ever that we would go back to British Gas - not even if prices were a lot cheaper. Surely they should realise treating customers like this actually makes people even more eager to switch....

Very true, but before you believe Watchdog's hype you need to factor in the size of BGas's customer base. I've seen the complaints tables when I was in the sector and whilst BGas may be high up, their large customer base disguises the fact that they have smaller competitors who are just as bad. So, if that wasn't advised in the problem, that may be a bit of spin added on top.

You only have to read the threads on here to know that BGas are worth avoiding though.

far

This whole saga is now finally over thankfully. The switch for gas was put through again on the 2/11 and British Gas never objected. We are due on supply with Scottish Power on the 26/11 so all is sorted. However, the reason I've resurrected this thread is the thorny issue of compensation. To their great credit, Scottish Power kept us on the electric part of the duel fuel tarriff so all we've lost out on is a pro-rata'd part of the £16.80 annual discount (comes out at around £1.62!) plus, more importantly, the phone calls we've had to make to sort this out would, at a best guess, have cost us around £5-£10 or so. Therefore, would we be pushing our luck in asking British Gas for an ex-gratia payment of £10-£20 or would this be pushing our luck really? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Terrylw1

Nothing wrong with trying. Most tend to give £20 when such as Energywatch are involved just to shut a complaint down.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained afterall.

I think it's unfair that due to incompetance, customers suffer on phone calls.