British Gas - Ignoring Ombudsman Decision Help!

Initialr3

Good to know thank you. I'll need to do a bit more research on this. 

I'm quite a bit in credit however I'm thinking that it will not cover what will essentially be 10-12 months of electricity use. 

Username453

Initialr3 said:

On 12/06/2024 I changed my electricity tariff to British Gas Electric Driver v7 tariff. I switched as I was due to take delivery of an electric vehicle shortly after that. I took the tariff as it promised a heavily reduced rate of tariff between 12am and 5am to charge my vehicle. The tariff was successfully activated (according to the email I received), my home charger was installed by a third party company.

On 21/08/2024 I logged onto my online account as I had realised I had not had an electricity bill for a few months.

I contacted British Gas via their online chat facility. The agent advised this was a simple fix and produced me a bill there and then – which I didn’t ask for. The bill was for a dramatically huge amount compared to my usual prior three month average. When I looked at the statement the agent had created, I discovered that I had been charged from 12/06/2024 – 21/08/2024 at the peak rate. Any vehicle charging completed between 12am – 5am had been charged at the peak rate and not the off peak rate that was supposed to be part of the Electric Driver V7 tariff.

So begins the saga of me going back and forwards with British Gas advising them ‘the bill is wrong’, ‘I have been overcharged’ etc. British Gas kept advising they were going to resolve, then doing nothing and not calling back. I opened a complaint with them – that did nothing, and the complaint ran well over its response time.

On 16/10/2024 after months of nothing happening I finally got my evidence together and submitted an Energy Ombudsman complaint. On 29/10/2024 thanks to the Ombudsman, British Gas responded and offered an initial resolution consisting of five remedy actions;

• Credit energy account with a daily credit of £1.34 from xx/06/2024 to the date EV tariff will be updated on account.

• Update information on meter details and apply EV tariff. (an incorrect date was inputted during the meter register update. Instead of xx/xx/2023, xx/xx/2024 was submitted blocking the EV tariff from updating and any tariff from recording the 2 rate usages. )

• Credit energy account with £200 for inconveniences caused and shortfalls in service received.

• Bill account up to date to reflect the correct charges for the peak and off-peak periods.

• Issue a letter of apology.

I accepted – wanting the whole thing closed. Following my accept, nothing happened.

Randomly on 29/11/2024 British Gas issued (via the Ombudsman Portal) a ‘Supplier Conclusion’ document which basically detailed their response to the Ombudsman complaint.

It finally showed why this all went wrong from the start. Apparently when my house was built and the meters were commissioned in 11/2022, British Gas set the electricity meter up incorrectly on their systems as a single-phase meter.

In/around 29/11/2024 a £200.00 credit was applied to the account – further to that nothing else has been done. I contacted the Ombudsman again and they issued their final decision at the end of December.

The final decision from the Ombudsman sided with me that British Gas have not done what they promised and there has been a huge shortfall in service. The Ombudsman issued an ultimatum for them to complete the other remedies by 20/01/2025. I have tried contacting the case handler (or anyone) regarding my issue and they will refuse point blank over the phone to do anything other than ‘email the case handler to contact me’.

Which brings me to my question – again – I apologise for the length.

When 20/01/2025 comes and British Gas fail to complete the other 4 remedies they agreed to – what can I do next to get this resolved?

Can I take British Gas to a small claims court and if so, what would it be in reference to? Or do I just have to wait this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do not know where to turn to. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. 

Hi, I’m interested to know if you have a resolution. I too have an EV account with British Gas. I switched tariffs in July 2024 and basically not had an accurate bill since. It’s been sat with the ombudsman for months who had issued a date for them to sort it out by. I’m still waiting. BG says there is an error that’s affecting a number of accounts. They offered for me to go into a new tariff and rebate me the difference.l which I did but the issue of not being billed correctly remains.
I absolutely have no idea what I’m paying on electricity. I haven’t had a bill since July 2024. My account is sat in £100s of credit so I asked them to reduce it down to £10 while this is all being sorted. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I’m frustrated that in actual fact, the ombudsman has no power. I’m left questioning myself as to “now what!?”

Initialr3

Username453 said:

Initialr3 said:

On 12/06/2024 I changed my electricity tariff to British Gas Electric Driver v7 tariff. I switched as I was due to take delivery of an electric vehicle shortly after that. I took the tariff as it promised a heavily reduced rate of tariff between 12am and 5am to charge my vehicle. The tariff was successfully activated (according to the email I received), my home charger was installed by a third party company.

On 21/08/2024 I logged onto my online account as I had realised I had not had an electricity bill for a few months.

I contacted British Gas via their online chat facility. The agent advised this was a simple fix and produced me a bill there and then – which I didn’t ask for. The bill was for a dramatically huge amount compared to my usual prior three month average. When I looked at the statement the agent had created, I discovered that I had been charged from 12/06/2024 – 21/08/2024 at the peak rate. Any vehicle charging completed between 12am – 5am had been charged at the peak rate and not the off peak rate that was supposed to be part of the Electric Driver V7 tariff.

So begins the saga of me going back and forwards with British Gas advising them ‘the bill is wrong’, ‘I have been overcharged’ etc. British Gas kept advising they were going to resolve, then doing nothing and not calling back. I opened a complaint with them – that did nothing, and the complaint ran well over its response time.

On 16/10/2024 after months of nothing happening I finally got my evidence together and submitted an Energy Ombudsman complaint. On 29/10/2024 thanks to the Ombudsman, British Gas responded and offered an initial resolution consisting of five remedy actions;

• Credit energy account with a daily credit of £1.34 from xx/06/2024 to the date EV tariff will be updated on account.

• Update information on meter details and apply EV tariff. (an incorrect date was inputted during the meter register update. Instead of xx/xx/2023, xx/xx/2024 was submitted blocking the EV tariff from updating and any tariff from recording the 2 rate usages. )

• Credit energy account with £200 for inconveniences caused and shortfalls in service received.

• Bill account up to date to reflect the correct charges for the peak and off-peak periods.

• Issue a letter of apology.

I accepted – wanting the whole thing closed. Following my accept, nothing happened.

Randomly on 29/11/2024 British Gas issued (via the Ombudsman Portal) a ‘Supplier Conclusion’ document which basically detailed their response to the Ombudsman complaint.

It finally showed why this all went wrong from the start. Apparently when my house was built and the meters were commissioned in 11/2022, British Gas set the electricity meter up incorrectly on their systems as a single-phase meter.

In/around 29/11/2024 a £200.00 credit was applied to the account – further to that nothing else has been done. I contacted the Ombudsman again and they issued their final decision at the end of December.

The final decision from the Ombudsman sided with me that British Gas have not done what they promised and there has been a huge shortfall in service. The Ombudsman issued an ultimatum for them to complete the other remedies by 20/01/2025. I have tried contacting the case handler (or anyone) regarding my issue and they will refuse point blank over the phone to do anything other than ‘email the case handler to contact me’.

Which brings me to my question – again – I apologise for the length.

When 20/01/2025 comes and British Gas fail to complete the other 4 remedies they agreed to – what can I do next to get this resolved?

Can I take British Gas to a small claims court and if so, what would it be in reference to? Or do I just have to wait this out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do not know where to turn to. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. 

Hi, I’m interested to know if you have a resolution. I too have an EV account with British Gas. I switched tariffs in July 2024 and basically not had an accurate bill since. It’s been sat with the ombudsman for months who had issued a date for them to sort it out by. I’m still waiting. BG says there is an error that’s affecting a number of accounts. They offered for me to go into a new tariff and rebate me the difference.l which I did but the issue of not being billed correctly remains.
I absolutely have no idea what I’m paying on electricity. I haven’t had a bill since July 2024. My account is sat in £100s of credit so I asked them to reduce it down to £10 while this is all being sorted. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I’m frustrated that in actual fact, the ombudsman has no power. I’m left questioning myself as to “now what!?”

Hi there - unfortunately no, I haven't really had a resolution I'm happy with and ended up switching to Octopus Intelligent Go and couldn't be happier with them. 

British Gas told me the issue was that when I switched to them, they didn't 'dual providion' my account correctly and hence the billing was incorrect from the start. I'm now a year on and they still can't work it out (even though I've been with Octopus for a month).

I still get random emails from their customer service team stating they are trying to resolve which I find hilarious 😂 my account has worked flawless on Octopus so it was 100% and issue with British Gas billing system. 

Hope this helps.