British Gas Welcome to British Gas

brewerdave

lisyloo said:

Set up a DD.
They are quite incompetent (as you’ve seen).
at some stage you’ll probably get “you’re dd is too high” - lower it
then you’ll get “you’re dd is too low” - ignore it and stay on the lower figure
That’s if you don’t want the dd set too high but be aware it may now be too low.
personally I’d rather be on too low, but make sure you’re budgetting.

I've been thru those loops - there is a figure shown in italics "end of contract balance £xx in debit /credit" beneath Direct Debit on the Account Summary page on the website. I have no idea where this figure comes from , it seems to change on a daily basis and when I asked on Chat  the Customer Services person had no idea either of what date was the end of the contract or how the figure was calculated !
 In my ~ 3 months with BG ,the figure has been as high as £190 in credit and as low as £150 in debit! Currently they are predicting £66 in debit . I have no intention of raising my DD until the NR situation is sorted.

indebt80

Well I have received my decision from the Energy Ombudsman.  My complaint was upheld.  I initially felt victorious because I assumed that I would stay on the Welcome To British Gas tariff until end of July 2022 which was the one that I had on my contract - price guaranteed until  31 July 2022.  However, there was also another paragraph which made me realise this was not the case - it was very confusing.  So I contacted the Ombudsman for clarification before I accepted the offer.

Apparently, they were not aware that I was on the Welcome To British Gas tariff.  I don't know why, because I had made it perfectly clear that I was on that contract until 1 April - now that BG had changed the contract details.  And they had received all my documentation.  However, once I had pointed this out to them, they replied with the following wording: As this is the case, we are simply unable to stop your tariff from rising on 1 April 2021, as this is a business decision which is outside of our services terms of reference, though we have acknowledged the misinformation provided through a goodwill payment.

Therefore, I accepted a rise in the goodwill payment from BG.  Firstly, it was £30, then £50, then the Ombudsman said I should receive £100 which I accepted.  BG wrote to me, apologising (sigh!) and said that my £100 cheque was being posted and confirmed that I would stay on my present tariff until the price cap rise in April.  But I was aware of that, that was why I challenged them about the change of contract in the first place.

I feel I have done all I could under the circumstances.  The £100 I will put towards my electricity bill and I have received my credit from Neon Reef via BG.  Not the outcome I was hoping for but such is life, and the £100 is handy as I mentioned before.   Good luck to anyone else who has a different outcome.
  

Shedman

I reckon your £100 compo will cover about 1200 KwH, based on the difference in rates between current ones and the post April cap. As the tariff would have run out after 4 months then, unless you use more than 10 kWh a day/300 kWh a month on average over spring/summer, you've probably ended up breakeven or better off than if they had reinstated the fix.  So I would call that a result.

brewerdave

@indebt80 - thanks for that - off to the Ombudsman I go !!

StartledJesus

@indebt80

Congratulations on your positive outcome. However, I cannot but feel infuriated about the apparently completely arbitrary and random fashion in which British Gas ‘award’ their compensation payments. You have gone as far as the Ombudsman, but I am aware from this thread, and other similar ones, that many, many posters have complained to British Gas over the ‘fixed date’ issue to a greater or lesser degree, formally and informally. Some have been compensated without going to the Ombudsman (or have at least stated as much on here), but the vast majority have not, and have been fobbed off.

It seems to me that British Gas can not reasonably just pay ‘some’ customers. Surely they have to pay NONE or ALL, or at least those who actually complained, especially now you have set a precedent.

I pointed out to BG that someone on here had received some compensation, and I hadn’t, even though our cases were apparently identical. They then spun me a line about ‘our circumstances must have been different’ blah blah.

Unfortunately, your success has re-opened that particular wound. 

Has anyone brought this particular issue to Martin’s attention?  

I presume everyone has seen the MSE survey, which concluded that BG is the worst SoLR.

Another issue is that there is often a lack of synchronisation between the BG web interface and the BG app. The web version is flaky to say the least. 

StartledJesus

I would have done a link to yesterday’s MSE SoLR survey, as it has now disappeared from the Latest box below. However, as a newbie, the system won’t let me. 

Gerry1

StartledJesus said:

I would have done a link to yesterday’s MSE SoLR survey, as it has now disappeared from the Latest box below. However, as a newbie, the system won’t let me.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/03/bust-energy-suppliers-credit-delays-survey/

roseview

Finally had a bill and logged on to set up DDR. Had a message to say all done but one hour later I had an email to say DDR cancelled as per my request which is rubbish!

StartledJesus

See also the post by @nobby1963 on page 239 of the Neon Reef thread, on 10th March, for more inconsistency by BG and arbitrary and selective compensation payments/offers. 

roseview

Having been to and fro with BG complaints, they won't shift past £20 gesture of goodwill which is insulting. I pointed out that others had received £100 but that brought no joy either.