British Gas, Boiler insurance, rip off Help

Fran6876

Hello,  I wonder if someone can  help.
My  frail housebound (COPD)  mother was recently charged £60 by British Gas  because her thermostat batteries needed replacing. She's been  paying British Gas boiler insurance for years, it's quite expensive, after the recent extra £60 charge, she decided  to try and cancel the direct debit  insurance. My mother couldn't get much sense from the call centre (language barrier) so my mother had to visit the local bank in a wheel chair. She wanted to  block the British Gas direct debit, the  bank blocked the Direct Debit and my mother wrote British Gas a letter requesting an end to the contract.  She hadn't heard anything so i text British Gas today and they told me that she couldn't just cancel the direct debit and demanded £242. How can this be right or moral, i'm in hospital myself so i'm limited what i can do to  help. I'm also worried that British Gas are going to get their direct debit rejected and hand the £242 to a balif/debt collector. Anyone have any  help?

swingaloo

You really need to know what the contract says. We have an insurance for boiler cover (not British Gas) and you have to give 30 days notice to cancel that. Notice needs to be given before the direct debit is cancelled. Where does £242 come from?

TELLIT01

The £60 bill would be for attending for an item which is not covered by the insurance.  Battery replacement is something the customer does.  The charge is legal, but I would hope that given the circumstances BG would waive the cost.  Simply cancelling the DD is never a good idea for the reasons which are becoming apparent.

Brie

BG does have a bit of a reputation for this.  When my FiL died and I went through his finances I discovered they had set him up on about 5 overlapping policies.  A strong worded complaint got most of the money refunded back 3 years.  

What you/she need to do initially is ensure that she is logged on their system as a vulnerable customer.  Then the find out from them how well they have explained to her what she is getting for the money she pays.  For my FiL they said everything was perfectly clear in the renewal info they sent out and that he could have called them at any time.  Unfortunately as he was almost completely blind and quite deaf in his last few years this obviously wasn't the case.  

I expect what they are trying to say to you is that she is on a contract til X date and that she has to pay for all of that contract.  What she likely believes is that she pays monthly for a service and has no idea that it's a 1 or 2 year contract.  So that's the basis of your complaint.

If you are unable to help her perhaps there is a neighbour who can?  Or an organisation like Christians Against Poverty?  I think they would visit in her home to assist her with bills if she is struggling in your absence. 

As for what BG might do regarding the outstanding amount.....they will send some strongly worded, scary, demanding letters with a lot of "you must pay this by 1st Nov" and "if you do not pay we will seek legal action".  And that will continue for some months.  Eventually this will be logged as a defaulted debt on her credit history.  This really only matters if she intends to take out a new credit - like a credit card or mobile phone contract or similar.  After it sits there for a year BG may sell the debt on to one of the standard debt agencies who will send more scary letters.  They then may sell it on to another agency and the letters will continue.  I seriously doubt that BG will send anyone round to knock on her door.  Certainly they will not be bailiffs.  

So my point is - try not to worry too much.  See if the situation can be sorted but nothing will happen any time soon.  Meanwhile get yourself better so you can get back to looking after mom. 

Keep_pedalling

This is not the sort of thing that is covered by her boiler maintenance contract, and a £60 call out fee is not unreasonable and it is not a rip off.  

As for cancelling the DD, remember this is an annual contract with the payments spread over 12 months. Rather like paying your car insurance monthly you can’t just stop paying the monthly payments half way through the term. 

silvercar

Some of the British Gas Homecare policies have a £60 charge per call out. It’s a cheaper policy than the free call out one. 

I suspect what has happened here is that she has had a call out to fix the thermostat batteries and been charged the £60 call out. As a. Consequence of having claimed on the policy, the terms mean she can’t cancel the policy mid year and the £242 is the remainder owed for the year.

Fran6876

Thanks for the replies everyone, really appreciate it. Hopefully BG are going to be reasonable and let my mother end monthly payments with a months notice. I'm sure The British Gas lady on text said the £242 was due to repairs but there's been no repairs to  my  knowledge, just replacing batteries on the thermostat. 

Keep_pedalling

Fran6876 said:

Thanks for the replies everyone, really appreciate it. Hopefully BG are going to be reasonable and let my mother end monthly payments with a months notice. I'm sure The British Gas lady on text said the £242 was due to repairs but there's been no repairs to  my  knowledge, just replacing batteries on the thermostat. 

They might as a gesture of good will, but if they don’t she will be better off seeing the contract out as she will then at least have boiler cover over the winter.