British gas prepayment meter tokens

Lemonadedrinker

My partner has prepayment meter for his gas and electricity. He is yet to receive his energy vouchers. In October he received a txt saying sorry they are late. They did not arrived. He has received the same txt this month and no vouchers have received again
When he rings British Gas there is no option for not receiving these vouchers. He is needing these vouchers as he is on universal credit and cannot afford to heat his flat. 
Does anyone know how he can get in contact with the correct department of British gas and get his much needed vouchers 

[Deleted User]

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6405579/missing-energy-grants

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6404862/whos-still-waiting-for-their-october-pre-payment-voucher

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6398431/british-gas-not-sending-out-the-66-00-vouchers

chris_n

It's about time the press got hold of this, seems to be the only way to get things moving.

Inoshe

I think this is a case for Martin Lewis to get onto. I have not received the voucher for October or November. I've also found out that British gas customer service have started just not answering the phone. I've made the complaint online as you get a reply email with a reference and I'm leaving it now as I think this is going to the ombudsman. With the post office strikes coming up I don't expect anything from BG. 
The annoying thing is I've had letters and texts as well as email from BG over the last two months. They know they can send these vouchers out by text or email.

MattMattMattUK

Inoshe said:

I think this is a case for Martin Lewis to get onto. I have not received the voucher for October or November.

There are a bunch of compounded problems here and they are trying to resolve them, although fairly unsuccessfully so far. There seems to be a percentage of these that have gone missing in the postal system, anecdotal data would indicate that the loss rate is far higher than with normal postal dispatches. We also have ongoing postal strikes which have created backlogs and likely increased the loss rate.

Inoshe said:

I've also found out that British gas customer service have started just not answering the phone.

I do not think it is a case of them "started just not answering the phone", the problem they are facing is the volume of calls that they and all energy providers are receiving, most of those calls are pointless but they are unable to differentiate before calls are answered. All the people calling the energy providers with pointless calls are unfortunately clogging up the system for those that actually need to speak to their energy supplier.

Inoshe said:

I've made the complaint online as you get a reply email with a reference and I'm leaving it now as I think this is going to the ombudsman.

I am not totally sure that the vouchers scheme is covered in the way normal billing is, either way I am not sure that is going to be particularly helpful, the delays and missing vouchers are going to get dealt with eventually, but due to the circumstances it will likely take some time. 

Inoshe said:

With the post office strikes coming up I don't expect anything from BG. 

There are two days of strikes this week, another two next week and at least one a week every week before Christmas, it is likely the postal system will not fully recover until early next year even if the strikes stop.

Inoshe said:

The annoying thing is I've had letters and texts as well as email from BG over the last two months. They know they can send these vouchers out by text or email.

They can issue by SMS, email or postal letter, however once one has been issued by one means it cannot be reissued straight away by another, it would need to go through a cancellation and reissue process. It will also somewhat depend on their internal procedures, their billing and customer notification systems were never designed for this kind of scheme an they were forced by the government to implement it at very short notice. There was always going to be issues, the only surprise is that the issues have been a few as they have been. 

chris_n

Most of the cases on here are British Gas. While we all know the systems were not designed to deal with this situation they do seem to be having more than their fair share of problems. People are relying on this support and the government wouldn't have done this if they hadn't thought it necessary. It does need highlighting. 

MattMattMattUK

chris_n said:

Most of the cases on here are British Gas. While we all know the systems were not designed to deal with this situation they do seem to be having more than their fair share of problems. People are relying on this support and the government wouldn't have done this if they hadn't thought it necessary. It does need highlighting. 

British Gas are (or were, not totally sure where they sit now) largest supplier, with the highest proportion of pre-pay customers, both those factors probably explain the reason that they crop up more. It is unlikely that post sent by British Gas gets lost at a higher rate than post sent by other suppliers. 

chris_n

MattMattMattUK said:

chris_n said:

Most of the cases on here are British Gas. While we all know the systems were not designed to deal with this situation they do seem to be having more than their fair share of problems. People are relying on this support and the government wouldn't have done this if they hadn't thought it necessary. It does need highlighting. 

British Gas are (or were, not totally sure where they sit now) largest supplier, with the highest proportion of pre-pay customers, both those factors probably explain the reason that they crop up more. It is unlikely that post sent by British Gas gets lost at a higher rate than post sent by other suppliers. 

They aren't bigger than all of the others put together surely, I would say there are more complaints about them than all of the others put together on here.

EssexHebridean

I'd suggest a tweet to Martin Lewis about this issue - you could also try flagging it to him by means of comments elsewhere on his social media. I seem to recall he did say fairly recently that he was interested in keeping up to date with any suppliers still being problematic on this one. 

It might also be worth posting on thread at the top of the board on this subject as that may mean the forum team are able to get the issue in front of Martin. 

MSE_James

Just to say the MSE team is aware of this issue and has been asking questions of the relevant people, and I have also flagged this particular thread to colleagues. 

MSE_James

I would also  draw your attention to this survey that @MSE_Petar has posted about on another thread - if you're a non-smart prepayment energy customer please do fill in the survey to help us identify where the problems lie.