Escalating to Energy Ombudsman for a second time, should I expect compensation?

Rosstifer25

Hi,

Last year I posted about an ongoing issue with Biritish Gas charging me for a second account that wasn't mine. After them failing multiple times to resolve the issue, I escalated it to the energy ombudsman who found in my favour and I recieved an apology and £100.

This year, I live in a different house with a different energy supplier. I was looking into a credit card for some additional spending in October and found that i was not approved for any cards. I looked into my credit score and found that it had dropped fom 980 to 420 due to missed utility payments. These are from British Gas for payments missed from August to October 2024 even though I do not have an account with them and they have confirmed that my previous account was closed. Its for the same duplicate account that I had the issues with in 2023. 

I've reached out to Biritsh Gas via email who confirmed that they've got my complaint and are working on it. Since they i've had not any correspondance and I've chased a few times and emailed the senior people who dealt with my case previously. The missed payments have stopped, but I still have 4 missed payments on my credit file (for august - november 2024) and British Gas have remained silent on what they're doing (if anything). I will be escalating this to the Ombudsman again as the required amount of time has now passed, but what should I expect as an outcome here? 

They have ruined my credit score which has made things rather difficult over the last few months, not spoken to me about this and have still yet to fix an issue with an account that they have said in the past is not linked to me and they have previously told me & the ombudsman that is resolved. Should I be expecting some compensation too?

CliveOfIndia

Your score is meaningless, so ignore that.  A missed payment marker, however, will have a detrimental affect on your credit history.  If the marker was placed in error, you need to get British Gas to issue a notice of correction to the CRAs to get the erroneous marker removed.

In terms of compensation, are you able to quantify and prove exactly what financial loss you've suffered as a result of this?  If so, then that's the amount you can claim for.  Otherwise, you may just have to accept whatever goodwill payment they may offer you.