British Gas Escalation help - faulty meter

HornetSaver

Side note and positive one before I start... I haven't been here for quite a while, but I like the new forum layout.

This is going to be very long, but really hoping someone can help me in dealing with a gas meter issue with British Gas - bolding will be explained later. I'm at my wit's end.

Very brief background - homeowner living alone in my very early thirties, on pretty average earnings. Have made a lot of sacrifices over the last five years to get myself into a position where there's finally light at the end of the tunnel in terms of living in a comfortable environment, being able to loosen the pursestrings, and being able to build myself up financially rather rather than always saving towards a point where I'm going to spend that money on something necessary. 2020 was meant to be the last year - in the spring I was going to do my bathroom, in the summer properly do the landing, and once that's done my home... and the grind to get to this point... is finished. I was going to celebrate it with an extremely rare holiday (haven't left this island in years) but taking into account current events I think I'll kick that into the long grass for one more year. I've achieved what I have to date, despite unremarkable earnings, by always treating the start of every new quarter as a time to ensure I'm keeping a tight grip on my finances, so without fail I review all my bank accounts and utility accounts on either the 1st or 2nd of January, April, July and October.

Anyway, onto the matter at hand. When I went through my British Gas account this January I discovered something frightening - my monthly gas bills had gone from £7.78 in September 2019 (electric shower, electric cooker, extremely mild month, and I work nights so generally my "I need the heating on" time of the year is shorter than for most people) to £456.69 in October, £786.97 in November and £865.71 in December. For comparison the 2018 equivalent figures were £9.55, £32.44, £56.81 and £68.74. Having an impaired sense of smell I called out the gas emergency hotline as I couldn't be sure there wasn't a leak on my end, the engineer confirmed they wasn't and identified a problem with my meter: even with the gas supply off the meter was still going up, therefore given that there was no leak, by deduction it had to be a problem with the meter itself. I pinpointed the date on which the problem manifested itself through detailed energy usage history - 10th October - and took a video to demonstrate that the meter was going up even when the gas was shut off at the mains. Well, I took a few. On average during those filmings (in January) I was "using" 0.2m3 every 4-5 minutes, this is with the boiler (my only appliance) switched off and the gas shut off before the meter, the handle in shot alongside the meter whilst filming.

Called up British Gas 2nd January and they said they'd have someone over to check it within three hours. Skeptical but delighted I waited around - when no-one showed I called back. I explained I was relaxed about the issue not being sorted out that day (but willing to stay up if staying up would get it done), but I needed to start to think about getting a few hour's sleep before my first shift of the year. He said don't worry, someone will be there between one and five. Pressed him on it, said if they weren't definitely coming let's reschedule but he was adamant it was booked in everything is fine. No-one showed, and I worked a night shift having had no sleep. Suffice to say my bosses were less than impressed with me. My irritability over the following couple of weeks also did not go unnoticed, and if it was not for me spelling out everything that had happened by way of explanation - and the fact that I had a week booked off just as I was already getting to breaking point - I might well have gotten into actual trouble on the work front.

Given that the standard approach had let me down, and more pertinently given that there was no way on earth I was allowing a £2056 DD to come out at the end of the month, I initiated a complaint - when there was radio silence for a week i.e. not even an acknowledgement of receipt I escalated to the executive office. Slightly quick? Perhaps, but the simple fact was that whatever else happened I had to ensure that direct debit was stopped in time, as my choosing to cancel it would have been unwise unless absolutely necessary. The initial response was extremely helpful - they agreed to cap my DD to a figure proportionate to my demonstrated usage from October 2018 up to September 2019 (a figure I am satisfied with, and taking into account the amount by which I was in credit previously, I doubt I'm underpaying). The email also confirmed the CEO's awareness of the issue (I had CC'd him in) which gave me reassurance that they were not going to try and pull a fast one. What I was less pleased about was the appointment date offered - 27th of March, furthermore on a day where I was working the night before and after. After some further churn I managed to secure 10th March. I wasn't thrilled, because I am planning some major expenditure this year - expenditure roughly equal in size to my savings and emergency fund, therefore my intention was to take out some 0% CC borrowing to ensure that if something happens over the next year or so, I had something in reserve. But, the annoyance of an enormous gas bill showing on my credit report in Q1 aside, I thought the issue was boxed off because it would all be sorted by the end of March and I wasn't going to start with my plans until mid-April anyway.

Fast forward to yesterday, I get a call at 8:30 in the morning "Good morning sir, I'll be there in about 30 minutes to do your electricity meter." Stopped him right there and explained it was gas that was required, he said "okay... might be 45 minutes then because I need to get the job authorization changed and can't make the phonecall while I'm driving". After about half an hour of being parked outside he knocked on my door and very apologetically explained that he couldn't do the gas meter, not because he wasn't able to, but because changing the job type would incur a new payment and his bosses couldn't do that. I asked if I could take a photo of his job screen - which he was happy to do. He couldn't have been nicer and more apologetic about it, I told him I've been in that situation myself and I got it. 

15 minutes later and after some probing questions on the phone (not least, the question of "why can't this guy who was booked in for me, is trained to do what I need, and is just down the road, come back and do the gas meter?"), I got a replacement appointment for next Tuesday 17th March. Today this has just been randomly bumped to the 2nd of April (I'm due to work the night before and after), and when I've pushed back to challenge this I'm told it absolutely cannot be changed. I therefore blanket cancelled it. I generally avoid at all costs an appointment during the daytime between two night shifts even with companies that I trust. In the case of British Gas, after my experience so far you'd have to hold a gun to my head.

What is my recourse in this situation? I'm aware I could go to the ombudsman, and I probably will, but I'm unsure what I'd be trying to get the ombudsman to do. There will be some compensation due; whether the amount satisfies me or not, that's not really the pressing issue. They could award £20, they could award £2000 (both figures plucked out of thin air), somewhere in between, below or above. But I don't really care. What I need is someone professionally competent to step in right now, ensure that this problem is sorted out right now, to make any discussion about compensation largely irrelevant.

As previously mentioned I'm in the market for credit. I'm now going to be showing a deficit to British Gas of circa £4400 come April, which taking into account I'm in the early stages of my mortgage and I do have a couple of existing credit cards (pay off in full every month - they both started as 0%ers when I was trying to build up a credit history, but no live 0% deals), my chances of taking out the amount I intended to take out at 0% are marginal at best - a £4400 unagreed utility bill deficit is a far bigger red flag to lenders than say, £4400 being progressively paid off on a loan. But what am I supposed to do, borrow at a bad rate and demand that British Gas pay the interest? Apply for 0% deals with little prospect of success, harming my credit file? Apply only to find out the credit limit is less than I need to keep my back covered (and the size I need to cover all eventualities with this nonsense going on is higher than it was before). Delay plans that I have spent years of hard work towards getting to this point (namely, sorting out the last room in my house that is currently unfit for human habitation... when I bought in December 2017 all of them fell into that category)? I'm struggling to see how the Ombudsman might assist on any of these fronts.

My employers have been understanding about the stress that this has caused me, but on top of not wanting to wear any goodwill too thin, I'm actively in the process of trying to progress within the business (as in, literally have a job interview in a few weeks for a promotion), so now is a really, REALLY, lousy time to be trying to get special favours, especially given the high probability that setting a date aside will be a waste of time. I have no unallocated holidays left, and unless British Gas are to be expected to bridge the gap between any earnings I might lose from taking the day off for another reason - both directly in terms of pay and indirectly in terms of lost future earnings should my employers choose to instead promote a candidate who doesn't mess them around, this non-negotiably needs to be sorted out on a day I'm not working. I can't switch away from British Gas (as 100% of sane people would be seeking to do in my position) because the amount I "owe" them is too high, even though they do not themselves dispute an abnormality with the meter. Despite being aware of the ramifications I'm genuinely on the fence about cancelling my direct debit - they've been extremely reasonable with the amount taken out so far, but if they're incompetent to screw up four appointments so far, what stock should I put in them not fouling up the amount they take off me at the end of this month?

I'll go full circle and say I'm at my wit's end. Advice from anyone hardy enough to have read the whole lot of that would be greatly welcomed. 

Ectophile

If you want to go to the ombudsman, you need to wait 8 weeks from when you made your formal complaint.  Or when they tell you they can't resolve your complaint, whichever comes earlier.

Once it's all sorted, claim compensation for every missed appointment.

Gerry1

• Firstly, make any further complaints much shorter, it's extremely TL;DR !
• Identify a few key issues and have one bullet point for each.  In particular, just concentrate on what needs to be fixed, not all the shenanigans en route; they can have a very brief bullet point right at the end.  Once the meter has been fixed you can give chapter and verse as part of a compo claim.
• Work in kWh derived from actual meter readings, not ££.  ££ confuse the issue because DDs may not track usage and can be based on estimated readings.
• Demand to escalate your complaint to a senior manager, get their name and email, and demand a meter inspection at a fixed time within a week, warning that if not agreed you will go immediately to the Ombudsman and send a letter to the BG CEO.  You can find his name and address at the ceoemail website (search for it).  Confirm this with an email to the senior manager.
• Persistence pays off - see https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6071198/faulty-meter
  

HornetSaver

Gerry1 said:

• Firstly, make any further complaints much shorter, it's extremely TL;DR !
• Identify a few key issues and have one bullet point for each.  In particular, just concentrate on what needs to be fixed, not all the shenanigans en route; they can have a very brief bullet point right at the end.  Once the meter has been fixed you can give chapter and verse as part of a compo claim.
• Work in kWh derived from actual meter readings, not ££.  ££ confuse the issue because DDs may not track usage and can be based on estimated readings.
• Demand to escalate your complaint to a senior manager, get their name and email, and demand a meter inspection at a fixed time within a week, warning that if not agreed you will go immediately to the Ombudsman and send a letter to the BG CEO.  You can find his name and address at the ceoemail website (search for it).  Confirm this with an email to the senior manager.
• Persistence pays off - see https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6071198/faulty-meter
  

1. Noted. I felt a compulsion to rant.  

2 and 4. I'm at that point with BG already (copied in Sarwjit Sambhi early on, as my main objective was to ensure that it would be very unwise for British Gas to try and take the money before the dispute had been resolved). 

3. Figures provided are sum total of daily usage as calculated by said defective meter and visible on my BG account, and then the monthly totals; not DD amounts. Conversion to kWh would therefore be straightforward; will definitely take that on board for taking this further though.

5. My willingness to be persistent shouldn't be an issue. The depth of British Gas's pockets if I have to, might be.

Matthaus73

No advice to give,sorry,  but interested to know what make and model meter you have ? 

HornetSaver

Matthaus73 said:

No advice to give,sorry,  but interested to know what make and model meter you have ? 

Will check tomorrow when it's light, but doing an image search it looks like:
https://www.landisgyr.eu/webfoo/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/GasLibra200.png

Gerry1

HornetSaver said:

Matthaus73 said:

No advice to give,sorry,  but interested to know what make and model meter you have ? 

Will check tomorrow when it's light, but doing an image search it looks like:
https://www.landisgyr.eu/webfoo/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/GasLibra200.png

One for the Rogue Meters thread when you have confirmed the info !

Matthaus73

Looks like a landis & gyr 310p ...same as mine which developed a 'fault' (never admitted by EDF) so ended up at ombudsman. 
If you could add your  (shortened😉) story to the thread  'rogue smart meters' started by Dogshome it could be helpful to others . 
Thanks and good luck

Matthaus73

Just for a compensation figure example i was awarded £50 from the ombudsman for poor customer service including them sending an electrician instead of a gas engineer 

dogshome

BG owe you compensation for each failed appointment - £30

Keep an eye on your bank account - If BG do take a D/Debit for a silly amount, you can ask them to recall it from BG immediately

HornetSaver

Matthaus73 said:

Just for a compensation figure example i was awarded £50 from the ombudsman for poor customer service including them sending an electrician instead of a gas engineer 

dogshome said:

BG owe you compensation for each failed appointment - £30

Keep an eye on your bank account - If BG do take a D/Debit for a silly amount, you can ask them to recall it from BG immediately

Sounds like the Ombudsman might not be the end of the line then; if I have to go into a job interview with this hanging over me, I'm confident I'm going to fail it. Even 4 appointments at those sorts of rates won't come close to cutting it.