British Gas, mistake what is acceptable compensation in this situation?

Zer0cool

Hello people, newbie here.

I've been a British Gas customer since 2005, I've always paid by direct debit, have a smart meter and my account has always been in good standing and I have never been in debt with them.

As such it came as a massive surprise this September while on holiday in the USA to receive an email from a debt recovery firm acting on behalf of British Gas saying I owed them nearly £1000.
I received the email on the 11th with a deadline to pay in full by the 10th of suffer more legal action, CCJs, admin costs and bailiffs.

I tried to contact British Gas but you cannot dial them international due to the free phone number, and there Live Chat said they cannot help, its too complicated for them to deal with. (I have screenshots of everything).

The legal firm emailed me almost daily demanding money.

As a result of this the above, we had to cancel a whole bunch of activities on holiday as we were now effectively out £1000, and my job would be massively effected if I received a CCJ due to the nature of it. To say this ruined out holiday is an understatement.

Soon as I got back to the UK I called British Gas, as it turns out I did not owe them £1000, it seems that when they moved my account from the old billing system to the new one, they forgot to close the old one down, so its sat clicking up debt for nearly 2 years. They never contacted me about this and as it was the old system I could not see it either to question. They went straight to the nuclear option of passing it to debt recovery.

I have logged a formal complaint with British Gas and am awaiting someone to call me with a outcome of my complaint, but I want to know what would be an acceptable resolution? While they didn't technically cost me any money. they did ruin the holiday with stress, worry and cancelled trips, the holiday itself cost nearly £5000 in total.

Looking forward to read what you all come up with.

Exodi

I expect at most you may get maybe £100, or £250 if you're very lucky as a gesture of goodwill.

I'm not clear on why you 'had to cancel a whole bunch of activities on holiday' - are you saying because of stress that you wouldn't enjoy them or because you were trying to save money to go towards this potential debt?

It'll be hard to argue that you should be refunded again for activities that you cancelled and got refunded for? Unless you lost some deposits.

I don't know what amount you had in mind, presumably much more I expect.

As you say, you're not out any money and legally that's what matters. They may issue a goodwill gesture for 'stress' & 'worry' but that would be at their discretion. Mistakes happen, unfortunately.

sheramber

How much do you want?

Zer0cool

Exodi said:

I'm not clear on why you 'had to cancel a whole bunch of activities on holiday' - are you saying because of stress that you wouldn't enjoy them or because you were trying to save money to go towards this potential debt?

We had to cancel a whole bunch of trips to ensure we had £1000 spare money to pay the debt should it have transpired we actually owed. We don't really have much spare cash and what we had was our "holiday Spending money".

Mark_d

I honestly think all you'll get is a token gesture.  You won't get anything for them ruining your holiday.

You knew that every month you direct debit payments were being taken from your bank by British Gas.  You know that you couldn't genuinely be responsible for any debt to British Gas.

Why were you checking emails daily whilst on holiday?  Any emails can wait until you return.  People will phone you if something is urgent.

Exodi

Zer0cool said:

Exodi said:

I'm not clear on why you 'had to cancel a whole bunch of activities on holiday' - are you saying because of stress that you wouldn't enjoy them or because you were trying to save money to go towards this potential debt?

We had to cancel a whole bunch of trips to ensure we had £1000 spare money to pay the debt should it have transpired we actually owed. We don't really have much spare cash and what we had was our "holiday Spending money".

So the latter - and presumably you were refunded for these activities. So you didn't do the activities, but you also didn't pay for them, so you're not out anything.

It doesn't make sense why you'd expect them to refund you again. Unless you lost some deposits, I think that would be justified to argue.

On a tangent, I'm surprised you were on a £5k holiday with £1k of activities but seemingly don't have any other money, but it's somewhat irrelevant.

How much do you want? I suspect much more than the £100-£250 I guessed you might be offered?

Don't get me wrong, you're right to feel aggrieved, I would too!

But as you say:

Zer0cool said:

they didn't technically cost me any money

Zer0cool

I honestly don't know what to expect or ask for.

I don't want to accept £10 if £500 was in order, or indeed ask for £500 and be laughed at if £10 was all i can expect.

It's why I asked.

UnsureAboutthis

10 quid is an insult so I doubt they will offer you that. My guess is about 50 quid.
Just see what they say and take it from there.

Albermarle

If I was in communication with them I would ask for a £1000 ( as a starter for 10) and lay it on thick about the distress caused. If you want to up the ante you could say you were going to contact 'Rip off Britain' or the Daily Mail or whoever.
Then see what comes back. They can only say no.

On a tangent, I'm surprised you were on a £5k holiday with £1k of activities but seemingly don't have any other money, but it's somewhat irrelevant.

That crossed my mind as well. A very good advert for always having an emergency fund easily available.

Zer0cool

Albermarle said:

If I was in communication with them I would ask for a £1000 ( as a starter for 10) and lay it on thick about the distress caused. If you want to up the ante you could say you were going to contact 'Rip off Britain' or the Daily Mail or whoever.
Then see what comes back. They can only say no.

On a tangent, I'm surprised you were on a £5k holiday with £1k of activities but seemingly don't have any other money, but it's somewhat irrelevant.

That crossed my mind as well. A very good advert for always having an emergency fund easily available.

LOL second time this has come up, we didn't only have 1k spending money on a 5k holiday. We had far more, but we elected to withhold 1k of money would had earmarked for certain activities that had to be cancelled or not attended so we could have a free 1k ready to spend just in case.

In terms of savings we saved for 3 years to be able to afford the holiday and spending money. Not ashamed to say it's all we had.

PHK

Generally speaking payments for upset as modest. 

Courts very rarely give any money for upset.

Ombudsmen generally would put something that needs one or two phone calls to resolve in the £0 to £300 bracket. 

Companies are rarely as generous as ombudsman.

As you didn't lose our financially, I would suggest , somewhere around  £50, possibly £100