Help… British Gas has breached its fixed term contract with me

Alan59

Hi all, finally got a resolution,I had to go via the ombudsman as British gas didn’t respond.
after many contacts British Gas finally accepted that despite me entering into a contract with them to go onto  the Loyalty tariff jun23v1 that they changed my tariff twice… however they claimed it wasn’t a breach of contract it was simply an administrative error 🤔
 also despite being over £700 in credit they raised my direct debit twice.
the second occasion they raised it to exactly the same Amount-that the government was providing to the public as a cost of living payment 🤔
British Gas stated that this was purely a coincidence, odd that especially as it was effective from exactly the same date as we received the government payment… I’ll leave you to makeup your own mind on these explanations… 
the ombudsman found on both counts in our favour , however they accepted the reasons given by British Gas ???

 The only punishment for breaching the contract and raising the direct-debits  unfairly and raising the monthly debit to exactly the same as the government payment was to award us £75.
for all the hassle,chasing up when British Gas failed on numerous occasions to respond, and having to get the ombudsman involved I feel this is derisory.

luckily I’m in the position whereby I was savvy enough to challenge British Gas when they claimed that they were right and to prove them to have been wrong and unfair. 

I feel there are many vulnerable people out there who have potentially had the same happen to them and have just accepted the increases and tariffs changing unlawfully ,believing it is all down to the cost of living crisis and the constant media articles saying that everything is getting worse…,
I really feel that further investigation into the so called administrative errors of British Gas should be carried out.., to correctly identify the real extent of their behaviour.
but for now British-gas have got away very very lightly due to The ombudsman being a toothless tiger and rolling over and accepting the  ridiculous explanations in this case.

MorningcoffeeIV

Alan59 said:

 however they claimed it wasn’t a breach of contract it was simply an administrative error 🤔

That would certainly be the most likely explanation, as it won't have been deliberately. The risks are far too high.

Don't worry about other customers. Any other affected accounts will also now be corrected. You've done your bit in highlighting the issue.