British Gas - Smart Meters

pedderd · 18 August 2020 at 12:40PM

Hi,
I am having a torrid time with British Gas. I have already seen another thread on here about billing, of which I experienced a similar thing. Basic bullet points below of the saga so far:

Smart Meter installation the first time - very long wait till appointment. Appointment cancelled last minute due to Covid lockdown. Obviously not BG's fault, but late notice
Smart meter installation second time. Engineer turns up and says to me he doesn't have the parts for the gas meter (semi-concealed). He installs the electricity meter and connects to the monitor. All seems working for electricity
2 days later I receive a bill for £2000. Essentially the engineer had inputted 69000 as a meter reading instead of 59000. This took me 2 weeks and probably 10 calls for my bill to be corrected. I was pretty stressed about this. I knew I was using more energy in lockdown as I was working from home, but surely this wasn't right.
Appointment for second engineer to install the gas meter now. All installed, engineer reports all is good and gas should appear on the monitor in 24 hours
Gas does not appear in 24 hours, even though they are managing to get meter readings
This problem is reported, along with the fact that I cannot access 'live energy' through the app either. Third engineer booked 3 weeks later
Third engineer turns up, mooches around for half an hour, then tells me there is nothing he can do, it needs to be sorted at their end
I raise a complaint with BG. The customer service representative checks the notes. Apparently the previous engineers laptop wasn't working, hence he gave up. She apologises and said this is incorrect procedure - the engineer should have called another engineer in the area to complete the call. I have a moan at her that I am taking time off work for each visit and she give me £20 credit (Wow!). She then books in another engineer visit, with 2 weeks of waiting. She also says the live energy thing on the app is the same issue as the gas not showing as the gas isn't fully commissioned.
Fourth engineer turns up (I am at work, my wife at home). He says he has restarted the equipment and all is fine. The gas should be showing in 24 hours (sounds familiar)
Gas still does not appear ! Live energy still not working !
Call BG again and moan. The response is apologetic and elevates the complaint
5 days later, get a call from the higher level handler to say he is looking into the case and needs to check with engineers that have been to work out what has happened and will get back to me in 7 days. Says I will need an engineer to visit....surprise. I moan again about the inconvenience of being at home for half a day each time and will it definitely be fixed this time. He says it might not and really couldn't care less about the loss of time for me
7 days later, the elevated handler calls again and says "We are not going to send an engineer as we are not doing these calls currently". That is it, basically they are not going to fix it. I ask to elevate this complaint higher, and he says "it won't make any difference". Nothing I can do.
I have tried sending an email to the CEO for what it is worth. No response yet, but only 24 hours

So here I am, not knowing if there is anything I can do. I know it is only smart metering, but I would like it working and be able to use the app as it was intended.
Anyone else have similar experiences or can offer a suggestion on next steps ? Thanks.

Suffice to say, British Gas is not going to be a supplier that I will ever use again.

RelievedSheff · 18 August 2020 at 12:43PM

If you are not going to use them again then why bother getting the meter sorted out. Your meters will only turn "dumb" when you switch suppliers anyway.