British Gas compensation??

mrsmac59

Has anyone else been affected by the price guarantee on their Welcome to British gas contract.Where as an ex neon reef orPeoples energy were lead to believe the tariff although was a variable they were on a fixed price till end of July /June   I've just read a story on Your money.com where some one has challenged BG regarding this,they did receive compensation for the short period between the price cap rise on 1st April to the end of June. Better than nothing. I am hoping someone can guide us through what to do?? 

indebt80

I was with Neon Reef and contacted British Gas about the fact that I thought I was on a fixed tariff where the price would not rise until end July 2022.  I was fobbed off so many times by them and then took my complaint to the ombudsman where they ruled in my favour, but I did not get the fixed tariff reinstated until end July 2022 - because  the ombudsman said it never existed in the first place. BG said it was a typo.  However, I accepted £100 from British Gas.  For misrepresentation.  I decided not to take it any further. 

But the money.com article is interesting and hopefully more people will pursue British Gas for compensation now.  I attach the link when I started the issues I had with this "welcome to british gas tariff".  Please read from the beginning - quite a few people were contacting BG for compensation and some were successful.  As far as I know, I was the only one on the forum who went to the ombudsman but that might have changed now.  I also haven't read of anyone receiving as much compensation as the person in the money.com article but that sounds promising.

British Gas Welcome to British Gas - Page 13 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

StartledJesus

Link to the Your Money item referred to above.

https://www.yourmoney.com/household-bills/british-gas-must-pay-compensation-over-price-guarantee-shambles/

NB ‘must’ is a suggestion or exhortation, not an agreed done deal. 
 

MWT

It is a good explanation of the problem and the possible remedies, but do read the whole article, including the legal opinions, as it is still a long way from a certainty.

The claim still relies mainly on the customer having made decisions based on the incorrect information provided and lost out as a result, rather than being able to claim that it was really a fixed price deal, as in the ombudsman decision reported above.

jobdone1

I'm at the ombudsman stage where all evidence has been submitted. I now await the decision after investigation. I was a previous neon reef customer. You need to complain, I found doing over the phone a complete waste of time, they kept closing my complaint, do it via online chat and escalate. If you are not happy with the outcome demand a deadlock letter to be able to escalate to the ombudsman.

mrsmac59

What sort of evidence so I need to provide? I am thinking of writing to their complaints dept.,and sending it signed for!! 

MWT

mrsmac59 said:

What sort of evidence so I need to provide? I am thinking of writing to their complaints dept.,and sending it signed for!! 

You really have two choices, you can just try for the generic £50-100 amounts that people have been able to get for the 'poor customer service' caused by giving incorrect information.

...or... you would need to show what you would have done differently had you known it was not fixed until June/July, and that would need to be something like stating which fixed tariff you would have switched to and what that would have saved you over the balance of the period of the fix.

It is a little more complex as you'd also have to state why you didn't just switch to a fix anyway as even with the wrong information you would have been expecting the BG tariff to change well before the end of any fix you could have got elsewhere...

What you can't do is expect to ask for it to be treated as though it really was fixed until June/July.

Mstty

And please everyone that does this don't complain about higher standing charges on gas and elec come October because Ofgem need to protect BG for their mistake but one made because they had to take on customers from a failed supplier and messed up the paperwork.

Shame all round really.

jobdone1

Mstty said:

And please everyone that does this don't complain about higher standing charges on gas and elec come October because Ofgem need to protect BG for their mistake but one made because they had to take on customers from a failed supplier and messed up the paperwork.

Shame all round really.

What a reply, so if you for example received services say insurance would you apply the same logic ? If that policy failed to meet expectations for example when you needed to claim ? 

Mstty

I stand by it, Ofgem were clear when switching to the SOLR all customers would switch to the SVT price capped rate.

It was very clear.

BG messed up the paperwork and now everyone wants £100

It all just seems a shame

jobdone1

Mstty said:

I stand by it, Ofgem were clear when switching to the SOLR all customers would switch to the SVT price capped rate.

It was very clear.

BG messed up the paperwork and now everyone wants £100

It all just seems a shame

And I stand by my statement.