British Gas & missing refund cheque

MrsMossMarkOne

I called BG several months ago after noticing a large balance in my account of £550. This was due to some estimated bills before up-to-date meter readings.

I was offered a refund cheque and was told it would be sent in 5-7 working days. It never materialised. I've now waited 12 weeks and they say they have re-issued the cheque twice but nothing has been received despite numerous lengthy phone calls.

I should add that the bill is associated with an address that is not my home address. My home address is the correspondence address and I have confirmed this and made it crystal clear in each interaction with BG. My most recent interaction was confirmed in an email by the customer service agent.

What is my best next step? I am so sick of the amount of time wasted, never mind the fact I have £550 of my hard-earned money floating in the ether.

born_again

How do you pay the bills?

Brie

Credit it back to your account?

Eldi_Dos

Make a official complaint,if it is not resolved in eight weeks then make complaint to Energy Ombudsman who will take up the case.

Hopefully you will get goodwill payment at end of it.

molerat

I know this might be stating the obvious but have you checked at the billed address ?

MrsMossMarkOne

Hi - thanks for your responses.

I pay in full upon receipt of a bill. However, there was an extended period where I was unable to get meter readings so I was overpaying based on the estimated bills.

I'm not able to easily go to the billed address, plus each time I have had contact with BG I have reiterated that the cheque must be sent to the correspondence address. BG have actually confirmed that they will do this by email.

I emailed them once again, and they said they would reissue the cheque (another 5-7 working days), but I'm not holding out hope that the same process will yield different results.

I'm going to draft a complaint and sent it after 1 week.

Thanks for the suggestions and advice.

MrsMossMarkOne

Brie said:

Credit it back to your account?

Hi - thanks for your response. I have asked twice for them to credit the amount to my account and they are ignoring my request or refusing to do it. This whole episode has been so time consuming and frustrating.

MrsMossMarkOne

Update: I appear to be in hellish loop where BG send the same email repeatedly. I'm wondering if their customer service department fire off an email to 'reset' unresolved issues so it looks like they're dealing with it. They could not be more incompetent if they tried. I have spelled out the situation in multiple phonecalls, they confirm that they can see exactly what I mean, I get the representative to confirm all details verbally, they confirm by email confirmation and they *still* can't get it right.

I'm now trying to find out the complaints procedure and I am hoping that I can refer it to the ombudsman as they have had my money for months now.

Gerry1

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

https://www.energyombudsman.org/raise-dispute/british-gas