British Gas refusing to send my EBSS payment and other issues.

Menotyou

Dolor said:

EssexHebridean said:

@[Deleted User] OP is on prepayment via a key/card so wouldn't have traditional bills I assume? 

Thanks - I hadn’t picked up on that: it was a rather looooooong post. The OP says that he has been aware of this issue for sometime. It that is the case, and the supplier hadn’t responded to a request to resolve it, then why no escalated complaint?

 

I did make a formal complaint, but never chased it up as it was during covid and they had emailed me a confusing email that looked as if they were saying "still looking in to this, please wait as covid means things take longer" but having looked at it again was more of a "how did we do" email which may, or may not, have closed the official complaint. Then it slipped my mind and then it was months later and...

Like I say in the long post, I wish I'd been more on the ball and chased it up at the time.

Sarahjaney

I also have not been paid by British Gas … after lengthy waits on the phone & web chats with both complaints dept & customer services, I have got nowhere.

I have been told it’s due to my local council not releasing the money .. not true.

That it’s because the DWP have not released the money.. not true.

That I will get the money in 5 to 7 days .. didn’t happen. 

Just going round in circles & in 2 days I’ll be due the next EBSS payment which I’m obviously not going to get.

I’m a single mum struggling to pay my bills & really need the EBSS payment has anybody had any success in getting the payment? Or any ideas of what to do please? 

Menotyou

Sarahjaney said:

I also have not been paid by British Gas … after lengthy waits on the phone & web chats with both complaints dept & customer services, I have got nowhere.

I have been told it’s due to my local council not releasing the money .. not true.

That it’s because the DWP have not released the money.. not true.

That I will get the money in 5 to 7 days .. didn’t happen. 

Just going round in circles & in 2 days I’ll be due the next EBSS payment which I’m obviously not going to get.

I’m a single mum struggling to pay my bills & really need the EBSS payment has anybody had any success in getting the payment? Or any ideas of what to do please? 

Yeah, I seem to now be in an endless loop of "should be with you in..." and every day I look at the empty post box and a small part of me dies.

I wish I could help you, but British Gas seem to have resorted to "say anything to get them off the phone" mode.

The latest call from British Gas (this Monday 31/10/22) was "are you sure you're looking at the correct meter?" and "have you done the kettle test to see if its your meter?"

Well gosh, I'd never have thought of actually checking I was reading the correct meter for many many years while I've been shoving money into it with a key. Now why would I have checked I was feeding the correct meter all this time... Honestly that is what I felt like screaming at the British Gas bloke. I mean, the last time I was slow to top the meter up my electricity went off and the other meter that is registered to two addresses is actually 2 floors down. But sure, please ask me the same questions just one more time before nothing gets done again.

And still no vouchers 10 working days after they said they'd issued them. Like come on.

Now they are telling me that the vouchers are sent in tranches... like come on. If they were bills you'd have sent them out so quick that the ink would still not have dried on the envelopes by the time it was shoved through the door.

Seems lots of people are having this issue as the financial journalist Paul Lewis, (not Martin of this site; actually are they related or is the name a really strange random chance?) has tweeted about others with this issue - companies failing to issue the vouchers.

It seems that a huge percentage of people have not cashed their printed vouchers that are issued for old style pre-payment meters and slowly its looking that instead of people not cashing them (due to having pre-loaded the meter prior to the latest increase) that they have not been sent them. Even the BBC is now starting to realise there might be an issue other than people holding off cashing them (as their articles are starting to change headlines to this fact).

I guess its time for yet another call; yet another "they should be with you in..." and around we go again; with the added bonus of now having to chase up this months vouchers as well... obviously after the "it might take 10 days to arrive" when its website says they will arrive by the 17th... but some how didn't get sent till the 19th... because... reasons (that change with each call).

To make it worse: these vouchers have to be used within 3 months and its looking like that 3 month clock starts on the first of the month of the issue month; not when the vouchers are printed. So with the way things are going I'm dreading the thought of the vouchers not arriving till after the 3month expiry date (if they arrive at all) and then British Gas just saying "its to late now; nothing we can do". I can't even go to ofgem till the 8 weeks is up, so that takes me after the first vouchers expiry date.

What a total farce.