Billing issues with Ebico/Robin Hood transfer to British Gas

Beckyb

I wondered if anyone else is having problems since Ebico and Robin Hood Energy transferred customers to British Gas? I had £164 credit on my bill which was transferred, then it's suddenly disappeared and my account says i now owe the £164! MANY phone calls to British Gas later they continue to blame Ebico and say there's nothing they can do, but Ebico no longer exist and my balance is showing as 0 with them. Has anyone had any luck trying to get a similar issue sorted? British Gas have no online help, no web chat and am sick of repeatedly calling to get nowhere! Any help much appreciated. 

Gerry1

Don't phone.  Send a formal letter headed COMPLAINT via snail mail and get a free Certificate of Posting.  If BG don't fix it within a reasonable time, ask for a deadlock letter and then go to the Ombudsman upon receipt, or after eight weeks if you don't receive any such letter.

MoneySavingNovice

I have a different issue with this botched transfer.....but British Gas come across as an organisation who don't have any customer service and in fact, I have evidence that they lied to me on at least four different occasions.   They failed to resolve my issue with them within the allotted time,  so I raised a complaint with the Ombudsman....  they told the Ombudsman  ".... British Gas has not had eight weeks to resolve your complaint.....”  which was not true as they had had a full 12 weeks to sort this out.  I had to provide evidence to the Ombudsman prior to them accepting the complaint.  Even so, the Ombudsman is .c. a week overdue in making its decision.

My advice is when making a complaint to British Gas,   keep evidence on when you made the complaint and the full details of all correspondence.  Don’t accept anything from them which doesn’t resolve your complaint in full, but if you do agree to something make sure that you get it before they close the complaint.  If you are not satisfied after 8 weeks raise the complaint to the ombudsman.

Good luck

Phones4Chris

I assume you had/have a copy of your final/last Ebico bill which would have shown your credit balance, so this should get resolved eventually shouldn't it?

HendyGwyn

I have the same problem with numerous energy accounts that were migrated from Ebico to British Gas. The terms of the acquisition agreement with Ofgem, the energy regulator, was that debit or credit balances at Ebico would now be administered by British Gas, however, the process only works if each account has a crystallisation point, a specific point in time for each consumer.  This is the time when the Ebico account closes and the British Gas one becomes live.

This was not achieved due to a number of failures. 

There was no crystallisation point so Ebico accounts remained active. Some customers made payment to Ebico at the same time or just prior to these same amounts became owned by British Gas. It’s evident, from the bills I received, that a number of subsequent balance transfers were made to fix this, but they also experienced timing errors. British Gas is therefore chasing payment for amounts that were actually paid to Ebico. This anomaly is further complicated if there has been estimated bills that were re-billed with actual meter readings and/or duel fuel take-ons by British Gas has a different crystallisation point for Gas and Electric.

A dogs dinner.

I am fortunate in that I have been able to calculate the exact amount of energy I have purchased from British Gas between leaving Ebico, where I paid all outstanding bills, and subsequently moving on from British Gas to a better supplier. I also have the no standing charge tariffs at all properties. I am therefore able to evidence all true liabilities I had for my tenure at British Gas, and have written to them with this statement and the payments in full that I have made. I also requested them to confirm that my balance is zero and no amounts owed and stated in my letter to British Gas that should a period of eight weeks elapse without resolution I shall be taking a complaint to Ofgem. Currently there are still phantom liabilities on my British Gas accounts.

I shall update this comment on the findings.

There will be some people who are not as fortunate as I. Those who are financially stretched or who have foolishly entered into a direct debit arrangement with British Gas or are not in a position to self calculate their energy bills or have an evidenced payment record. Should my example be a test case, then I would expect significant implications for British Gas’s ability to recover amounts from other customers for this bodged migration, and an adverse finding of the regulator.

Gerry1

HendyGwyn said:

stated in my letter to British Gas that should a period of eight weeks elapse without resolution I shall be taking a complaint to Ofgem. Currently there are still phantom liabilities on my British Gas accounts.

You would need to go to the Ombudsman, not Ofgem.

HendyGwyn

Yes, of course, the Ombudsman, it's the process is explained by Ofgem.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/complain-about-your-gas-or-electricity-bill-or-supplier
Ofgem regulates the energy supply companies and the migration from Ebico to British Gas, but the consumer resolves any dispute arrising via the Ombudsman.

HendyGwyn

UPDATE.

Wow. That was quick. Evidently someone at British Gas reads MoneySavingExpert. See my comment above. Action has been taken which must be prior to my letter of yesterday having been delivered to their complaints office.

British Gas, as of this morning, have gone through all my energy accounts and manually reversed all the phantom debits and credits they posted as a result of the botched migration from Ebico. They appear as ‘reversal’ on the entries when a customer browses online.

I find only one closed account still in error, but that’s because in conducting manual cancellations they’ve also mistakenly reversed a genuine payment I have made to them of small value for some electric they did supply me. This is obviously their manual admin error, which will no doubt be corrected when pointed out.

Let’s hope that British Gas don’t attempt another migration run on un-crystallised data. If they want to extract data from Ebico properly, they need to do so on fully closed accounts with all customer payments recorded. This would result in a posting of zero for those, like me, who had actually already paid Ebico everything owed.

Will post further updates here is the situation changes.
Hope the other customers have now been sorted.

Optimist2020

Gerry1 said:

Don't phone.  Send a formal letter headed COMPLAINT via snail mail and get a free Certificate of Posting.  If BG don't fix it within a reasonable time, ask for a deadlock letter and then go to the Ombudsman upon receipt, or after eight weeks if you don't receive any such letter.

Can confirm, complaints seem to be the only method BG is listening to. My transfer was also incorrect and after lots of back and forth, my issues were resolved when I filed a complaint. I used the Citizen's Advice Bureau energy complaint template letter. 

Inigo_Montoya

yep same problem here - suddenly found a £200+ debit added to my BG account when it should be less than £25
never received a final bill from Ebico so had absolutely no warning that my final balance was so badly wrong or any way to address it while Ebico still some customer support
Britsh Gas are basically de facto debt collectors - Im surprised its even legal that they are allowed to do it

HendyGwyn

Update2.

British Gas have finally sorted out my energy accounts that they migrated from Ebico. I achieved this by calculating my own total usage and listing my payment record, proving I owe nothing, and writing directly to 

Complaints Management Team

British Gas

PO Box 226

Rotherham

S98 1PB

Don’t bother wasting your time with their online chat box or phone number. I’m pleased to say that I’ve managed to find better energy suppliers elsewhere, those that can either bill correctly based on actual consumption or those with a more transparent billing mechanism.

Two lessons for British Gas.

1. You use outdated overnight batch processing to generate bills, processes that are unsuited to modern data inputs like Smart meters, or online reads. Dual tariffs means that you have to take the data of both Gas and Electric from a single point in time, prior to generating bills.

2. When attempting to buy in more customers by acquiring smaller energy companies, there has to be a single crystallisation point for each customers account. A specific point in time when the British Gas account goes live and the legacy suppliers account freezes.

It might be wise for Ofgem to specify this as a requirement when agreeing to acquisition energy company acquisitions or mergers.