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indebt80

I have an update.  I wrote to the Managing Director of British Gas by post and received a quick email reply from someone in the complaints team.  Who was keen to resolve my problem.  I mentioned the tariff and this was ignored as I also asked when I would get my credit from NR back.  Anyway a long email and not a lot happened but I was offered £30 as a goodwill gesture which I declined. It is not about money, well it is, I want my original tariff reinstated.  Yes I know it said variable but the contents did not.

Then after another long email was informed at the end of it that the complaints gentleman checked with the experts and it appears that this was a typo mistake that was initially sent out and then corrected. It has also been backed up by on website and subsequent communications that the tariff is a variable tariff and not fixed. My offer was then upped to £50 which I have refused.  I have not received an update to the contract email which was sent to me - I only found out when I looked at my account very recently that the "price guaranteed until 31 July 2022" had vanished.

I asked for my original tariff to be reinstated but was told that it had never existed.  I have also been told that I might get my credit owing at the end of February but that is not guaranteed as it also involves administrators and Ofgem.  Also the tariff I am on at the moment is especially low until July 2022 but it will increase due to the change in the price cap.  But I understand all this but I would still prefer to be on the fixed priced until end July but because it was a "typo" that it was guaranteed until the end of July.

I have been given a deadlock letter to use when I contact the ombudsman.  I will do this as my complaint is only about the misrepresentation of the contract regarding my tariff sent to me by email, nothing else.  They have communicated with me very quickly which I think is good.

I hope this is of help to others.

MWT

Be clear when you make your complaint to the Ombudsman that you relied upon the accuracy of their statement both in email and online that the tariff price was guaranteed when making your decision not to seek an alternative fixed tariff in November last year.

You had no reason to doubt their statements as they made similar promises on other SoLR tariffs.

That reliance will result in actual financial damages to you if the prices are increased as the alternative fixed tariffs now available to you are considerably more expensive than they were in November last year.

indebt80

Thank you so much.  Will incorporate this as it is helpful.

Curiousgirl1

Good luck with this but I suspect all they will make BG do is give  you £50 & an apology which in essence you have already had from British Gas. If the resolution to your complaint is to be on the tariff which is fixed to July 2022 it’s never going to happen as the tariff does not exist & even OFGEM can’t invent it for you. Can’t see how you can say you you have been financially impaired as there was nothing cheaper than this tariff in November so you couldn’t have switched to a cheaper one anyway. Think it’s going to be a waste of your time for nothing more than you have already been offered 

jrawle

What does "price guaranteed" mean anyway? I took it to mean that it is guaranteed not to be higher than the Ofgem cap. After July, BG could increase their "Welcome to British Gas" tariff to be much higher than the cap if they wanted, and we'd have to request to be put in their standard tariff instead (which has to be capped).

I think most likely they will contact everyone in July saying we have to choose a new tariff, and pushing expensive fixed deals, while not advertising the fact that we can remain on their capped standard tariff otherwise.

MWT

jrawle said:

What does "price guaranteed" mean anyway? I took it to mean that it is guaranteed not to be higher than the Ofgem cap.

If that was true they would not have needed to remove it from the tariff description...

Curiousgirl1

I think someone has been a bit enthusiastic with the copy & paste. Usually when a tariff has an end date it’s because it’s fixed so has the same price guaranteed date. In this case the end date is for the name of the tariff which will help BG to know which supplier it came from. On 01 August it will then just say Standard or whatever BG uses for its SVT. It was purely a typing error on BG’s part giving a guaranteed date & Ofgem will not make them honour it. Best you’ll get is £50 & an apology 

MWT

Curiousgirl1 said:

It was purely a typing error on BG’s part giving a guaranteed date & Ofgem will not make them honour it. Best you’ll get is £50 & an apology 

Ordinarily I'd be saying something similar as in general, specific performance is not going to be the result of an Ofgem complaint when it is caused by a typo.

The problems here is that multiple tariffs were released with the same 'mistake' and remained unchanged for months, net result is that people relied on the accuracy of what they saw, and did not feel any pressure to look for a fix in the short term.

Then it is suddenly corrected without warning and when it is too late for people to avail themselves of the long gone cheaper fix options.

Customers have suffered real damage as a result of the error and the long delay in fixing it...

brewerdave

indebt80 said:

I have an update.  I wrote to the Managing Director of British Gas by post .

I have been given a deadlock letter to use when I contact the ombudsman.  I will do this as my complaint is only about the misrepresentation of the contract regarding my tariff sent to me by email, nothing else.  They have communicated with me very quickly which I think is good.

I hope this is of help to others.

I've given up with chat today and have composed a letter . Could I ask who you sent your letter to ? 

Curiousgirl1

MWT said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

It was purely a typing error on BG’s part giving a guaranteed date & Ofgem will not make them honour it. Best you’ll get is £50 & an apology 

Ordinarily I'd be saying something similar as in general, specific performance is not going to be the result of an Ofgem complaint when it is caused by a typo.

The problems here is that multiple tariffs were released with the same 'mistake' and remained unchanged for months, net result is that people relied on the accuracy of what they saw, and did not feel any pressure to look for a fix in the short term.

Then it is suddenly corrected without warning and when it is too late for people to avail themselves of the long gone cheaper fix options.

Customers have suffered real damage as a result of the error and the long delay in fixing it...

And were there any other cheaper tariffs available when Neon Reef  went bust?