Contacting British Gas

andytheit

Has anyone been able to contact British Gas or even get a bill from them!. I have complained to them but all I get is the same email with the usual rubbish about how sorry they are and our important I am! You can’t get any bills. We are paying £300 a month and are in credit by over £1200 and yet the chat, emails and phone don’t work. Ofgem say we can’t complain to them for anther 6 weeks! 

QrizB

andytheit said:

Has anyone been able to contact British Gas or even get a bill from them!. I have complained to them but all I get is the same email with the usual rubbish about how sorry they are and our important I am!

Have you definitely raised a formal complaint, or have you just sent emails to BG customer support?

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/complaints.html

Ofgem say we can’t complain to them for anther 6 weeks! 

I would be quite surprised if Ofgem have said anything like that to you. Ofgem don't take complaints from individual consumers.

You might mean the Energy Ombudsman?

p00hsticks

andytheit said:

We are paying £300 a month and are in credit by over £1200 

A warning in case you are not already aware - if you haven't been getting any bills, then it's very unlikely that you are actually in credit by that amount - it's just that they haven't yet offset what you've paid against what you owe. 

I last needed to get in touch with them about six months ago, so can't comment recently (like you, I hadn't had a bill in over six months and wanted to get my billing frequency increased). Then I successfully used the chat facility - I usually type something like ' I want to speak to a human' and have found that you then get put in a queue to chat with an agent. The agent updated the system so that I now get three-monthly statements.

frugalmacdugal

Hi,

BG only bill every 6 months, so though it may show a good credit balance you will have to deduct what has been used since last bill.

If you have smart meter, and log into online account, scroll down to My Energy Usage box, click Check My Usage, this will tell you usage and cost since last bill, though probably a couple of days out, so deduct that from the credit balance showing.

Do you have readings since last bill and readings today, unit rates and standing charge?

Always good idea to take regular readings and set up a wee spreadsheet to keep an eye on usage and cost.

This wee GADGET might help.

Gerry1

Why put up with BG any longer?  If you switch away to a company with better customer service then BG will have to generate a final bill within six weeks.

MikeJXE

Gerry1 said:

Why put up with BG any longer?  If you switch away to a company with better customer service then BG will have to generate a final bill within six weeks.

Totally agree, why do so many complain about only getting a bill every 6 months when there are other options like switch supplier 

I'm with Octopus and give them my readings every 1st of the month who generate a bill within hours.

No guessing what my balance is or if I am paying enough or too much direct debit 

Jyana

andytheit said:

Has anyone been able to contact British Gas or even get a bill from them!. I have complained to them but all I get is the same email with the usual rubbish about how sorry they are and our important I am! You can’t get any bills. We are paying £300 a month and are in credit by over £1200 and yet the chat, emails and phone don’t work. Ofgem say we can’t complain to them for anther 6 weeks! 

I find they usually get back fairly quickly via DM on Twitter. You can ask them to draw a current bill for you - if you don't have a smart meter you will need to give them up to date readings first. If there is any monies left on the account once the bill is paid from your credit, then they will arrange for it to be refunded to your bank, and they will reset your direct debit to allow for this at the same time. 

andytheit

So just after I posted this I got a phone call from their complaints team!. It seems they have a new computer system….. They are crediting us £1000.00 and have dropped our direct debt to £200! We will be moving once we have the £1000 back. Thanks for your advice. Now onto Virgin Media whoare upsetting my 89 year old in-laws. Both have dementia and are getting calls about upgrading and "offers" even though we have opted out of marketing calls

Annemos

Hello Andytheit  That is great you are sorted out (... once you get the money!) 

Was your account on the old classic billing system or the new one? 

Also. how long was it from when you logged the Complaint, until they contacted you? 

Also did you log the Complaint from within the account itself? 

Thanks for any extra details you can give. 

=============

I am dealing with a case on the old Classic system. (Account begins with an 8 and not an A.) 

BG in South Africa submitted an Internal Complaint which we did not know even know about on June 28th with a ten-digit reference number starting with an 8..... that has not yet been responded to. 

We put in our own Complaint, from within the actual account, with updated facts on July 4th and that had a seven-digit reference number starting with a 2.   I took a screen shot of it as we submitted it and it said "Your Complaint has been sent".   The actual e-mail acknowl.  said  " Thanks for getting in touch, we're looking into this for you."  No reply to this Complaint either. 

Chat line in India cannot see the 2nd complaint but about a week ago said he had added the info I was giving him about the 2nd complaint, to the first Complaint which he can see. 

Yesterday I tried to call (Friday afternoon), "We are only dealing with Priority Customers." Or "we are closed to calls due to staff training". 

We shall likely end up at the Energy Ombudsman in a month. 

andytheit

Hi so after British Gas promising to refund our money they still haven't after 30 days. so got back in touch them (Got a reply the next day, which was hopeful) to be told the refund hadn't been authorised. They would now get it authorised and i should have MY money (they seem to think its THEIR money) with in 7-10 days. I still want to make another complaint hoping i might get the interest back British Gas have made on MY money! If anyone knows how to do this please let me know. Oh and Annemos we were on the old system, They blamed IT! I have worked in IT for over 25 years and believe me its very rarely ITs fault. Its normally project managers not accepting advice from professionals and making the wrong decisions! 

Annemos

Unbelievable you still do not have it.

We finally had an e-mail response to our Complaint, on the old system, after 6 weeks. 

(IT errors: I have just been told it was also a "Systems Error", which caused my new passport to get stuck for 18 days at a Courier Company location. Those delinquent machines are always misbehaving! I hope I now get my passport faster than your refund!)