British Gas Welcome to British Gas

jrawle

MWT said:

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...

They needed to remove it because it was ambiguous, and people misinterpreted it (as is clear from this thread). That doesn't mean anyone will get anywhere complaining about it.

brewerdave

Curiousgirl1 said:

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 

I would argue that the tariff with its guarantee did exist. Clearly listed in the email contract sent to me 24th November and ,until recently, listed on BG'S website.  Intend to push it as the difference for me is ~ £120 for the 4 months at the higher rates.
After all, if it goes to the Ombudsman it will cost them a lot more !!

MWT

Curiousgirl1 said:

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? 

Cheaper than the current fixed tariffs, yes, and on a par with or a little lower than the new April cap in some cases.

Even more so for those from People's Energy with a September SoLR date...

indebt80

For me, here were other cheaper tariffs at the time.  I wrote to Jana Siber, Managing Director, British Gas at Millstream their head office

Curiousgirl1

brewerdave said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

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 

I would argue that the tariff with its guarantee did exist. Clearly listed in the email contract sent to me 24th November and ,until recently, listed on BG'S website.  Intend to push it as the difference for me is ~ £120 for the 4 months at the higher rates.
After all, if it goes to the Ombudsman it will cost them a lot more !!

It also says that the tariff is variable. If the prices weren’t going to change until July 22 surely it would have said fixed? 

Shedman

Curiousgirl1 said:

brewerdave said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

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 

I would argue that the tariff with its guarantee did exist. Clearly listed in the email contract sent to me 24th November and ,until recently, listed on BG'S website.  Intend to push it as the difference for me is ~ £120 for the 4 months at the higher rates.
After all, if it goes to the Ombudsman it will cost them a lot more !!

It also says that the tariff is variable. If the prices weren’t going to change until July 22 surely it would have said fixed? 

But how would anybody outside of BG know which was the error:  putting Variable rather than Fixed on what appeared to be a tariff fixed until end July or putting a Fixed Until date on a variable tariff? Each was equally potentially wrong in the eyes of a layman.

And even one of their chat agents confirmed that the rates in that tariff would remain the same until end of July 

"Can you confirm that the rates on the Welcome to BG tariff will stay as they currently are until the end of July 22 as it currently says on the Tariff Info label ( in other words there will be no increase in April when the price cap changes and the price will only change after the end of July)?

"Yes, We made this Welcome to British Gas tariff very convenient for our customers, Your rates will be fixed till 31.07.2022, We use to charge if any cancellation of tariff before end date in fixed tariffs, However on your fixed tariff there is no cancellation charges if you wish to change."

So if their own staff don't know its allegedly a variable tariff how are we supposed to.....

movingon

Not just the Chat Agents either. I submitted a complaint about failure to get on the Oct 22 tariff and the Complaints Management Team helpfully gave me this advice:

Your current tariff has been fixed at the rates you agreed with Neon Reef and I would advise you to stick with this tariff until it ends at the end of July. 
 

Shedman

Evidence is stacking up against them then......


Not that it changes my stance on the issue (which is that it is a fixed rate until end of July) but it might have been better customer service if BG had actually admitted to what they see as an error and sent an email of apology to affected customers,   if nothing else it would have been the correct and upfront thing to do rather than trying to sneak it pass on the QT by just retrospectively changing the tariff info and hoping no-one noticed

indebt80

I have submitted my complaint on the Energy Ombudsman portal and at the moment am waiting for BG to reply!

EssexHebridean

This one could be very interesting simply because of the sheer numbers of people potentially with comeback over it. It's not like an inadvertent error made with one - or even a handful of customers - the numbers here are far higher. I do wonder if BG will end up wishing they'd simply quietly found a deal that those who've actually complained would have been happy with...