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Ask for a salesman and s/he'll rush to your door. Take your deposit and make claims they cannot meet. Apparently there are known problems within the survey team but they wont tell you that. We gave a £430 deposit three weeks ago for a new boiler and radiators (total cost £4,300). We were assured a surveyor would be in touch soon. Heard nothing for 2 weeks. After initiating an appointment ourselves we got an appointment for a week hence. Took time off work. Got a call the day before asking if surveyor could come that morning as he was double-booked the next day. My husband pointed out that as we were both working (nurses) we could not accommodate that and that the problem was one he needed to resolve. He assured us the office would call. They did not. That night I spoke to a total of 7 people with promises of calls returned. No one called back. Spoke to a 'manager' at 8pm who apologised and assured someone would ring the next day. They did not. Spoke to 3 people so far this morning - none of whom are particularly apologetic. Still waiting for senior manger who promised to call and did not. Still no date for a survey. Phoned Swale Heating in Medway who can get a salesman who is also the surveyor to us tomorrow and estimate that they could install the system approx one week from that. We are going to get our deposit back from British Gas (by small claim court if need be) and give our business to Swale Heating who we have used before with no problems. The number in the British Gas glossy brochure to call for surveys is, by the way, no longer in use. Their advisers also told us to use the non-working number when fobbing us off. We are also going to change our supplier from British Gas who ironically are not interested in looking after our world. An incompetent company at best!
I have read you expience with British Gas and can understand your problems.
My problem started in November of last year when I received a invoice for 74.09 and htey took out 492.40 from my account. This put me overdrawn and when I phoned them they said the invoice was wrong and the correct amount was 492.40 but as a good will gesture they would refund me , with proof of charges, all my costs. I sent them via recorded delivery the proof and funny enough they say it never arrived and I never got my money.
This made me look at my bill and I was agast to see that i was paying more then 2 times the market rate which made me contact British Gas to cancel my account and move to a different supplier , to which they replied I could not because I had a evergreen contract and as such was tied into them until Aug 2010, my reply was I had never signed a contract and had never seen any correspodence with to a contract with them. They said that they did not have to prove they had sent any thing about a contract so I then asked for proof of this ,so called contract ,to which they replied that the contract was with another company and I should contact them for a copy . The phone number I was given did not work and I was told that until the contract was completed no other supplier would deal with me , this was confirmed via a call to EDF.
Feeling trapped I thought the only thing was to complete my prison sentence and wait to move elsewhere. After a few months my wife on seeing how much we were paying contacted renewels and with a bit of prompting as long as we agreed a payment plan they would cut the amount by nearly half, HOORAY a success at last.
This conversation was on the 13th May whrn the account balance was confirmed at 755.44 , to bring the account down we paid 400 pounds by debit card and agreed a payment of 130 pounds a month . On the second of July I recevied a bill for 619.78 and nothing in payments recived and on the 3 Aug a bill for 935.11 even though I had had a meter reading which said I had used on 17.69 including vat and satnding charges.
Again I telephoned to ask ,why even though they had received 530 pounds since 13th May and my usage was miniumal had my bill gone up from 755.44 to 935.11 to which the reply was I dont know and they would get accounts to call , to date no reply.
I have looked at the bills and taken monies out and usage and have worked out the bill to be about 477.85 not 935.11 where to they get there sums from.!
It seems to me that they run two amounts on their machines because what you are told never matches what is printed.
I am sorry if i am rambling a bit but I thought you might be intrested in my on going saga
Thanks for reading and if you want to know of any updates let me know
I have had my gas and electricity supplied by British Gas for a number of years but I recently decided to change suppliers (at a saving of over £700 per year) I have just received my final bills and have been charged a canellation fee of £70!, I have queried this with BG and this is because when my fixed price deal ran out in 2009 they transfered me to another deal without my knowledge or permission and this deal has a cancellation charge if I change to another supplier. If you decide to go ith BG be very careful of the small print and keep a close eye on what they are doing with yoru account. I won't be going back to them after this.
I heard some where that you coluld now by your electric over the internet in your own home. I have always had a pre pay meter and jumped at the chance when I heard it was now possible to do this. I was having issues with my other supplier so I made the move to British Gas who were promotting this offer in Febuary. I signed up to their pay as you go tarrif which would allow me to top up my meter key from home with the use of a box which I connect to my computer, access the internet, register and top up. Not that simple I received the meter key and was transfered over on the 2nd of March and that's been it.
On the 2nd of June it will be 3 months and still I have not received the box which will allow me to top up over the internet. I have rang them twice and both times I was told the same thing by two different people I would receive it soon, not sure when but I would receive the top up box.
Well I'm still waiiting I have emailed their customer services department I don't hold out with that. I will wait to read what excuse they have come up with as to why I have not yet been sent the box. I don't want any problems although it looks like I will be getting some if they don't stick to their side of the agreement and supply the customer me what I signed up for and is part of their pay as you go deal.
If I had known this was going to happen I would have gone else where. Only none else was offering the option to top up from home via the internet. And it now looks like British Gas are not either.
I have my electricity supply from british gas. At my previous address about 2004 british gas owed my approx £2000 as overpayments that had accrued, I asked for them to return the money which they refused, they told me to stop my direct debit and thay would take the future bills out of that £2000. I then got another bill from them for about £900, which I then asked why is it so high, they had forgot to inform me that the £2000 had been used and never told us to put a direct debit back on. I arqued about this and asked for proof of the money they owed me, they said that they could not find any evidence of this money. I then became ill with cancer and ignored letters then when I finally came round to looking through post they had court proceedings against me. I am now paying this debt off at £20 per month on direct debt, but through all of this I am have been put on bad credit. I am now receiving numerous calls from them on my mobile and home phone number from the debt collections team. I sometimes have been getting up to 6 calls a day.I rang them they apologised they can not see why I am being harrassed.
Further to my earlier posting, I would urge anyone who has had negative dealings with BG to follow this link and read the blog. If you can relate to it then please make your feelings known!!
I am hoping that if enough people comment truthfully about their experiences with this company on here, then maube, just maybe British Gas will be forced to review a number of their policies with regards to customer service. I have never been in contact with such an incredibly inept, obtuse and downright ignorant customer service department as the one in India to which British Gas are attached. The staff only have the ability to answer questions that they have covered in training, are robotic, and incapable of offering any assistance for circumstances that they are unable to understand due to their poor grasp of the English language. This serves only to frustrate and annoy the caller, fails to deal with our enquiries and costs a great deal of time, which for many of us is money. Please, if you agree with this then add your name to this website so that it can strengthen my attempts to make BG change their approach to customer service.
most unorganised company ever,
switched me over in dec 08 for no reason, appartly i entred a verbal agreement, i have asked 37 times for a copy of my conversation to be sent to me. A rude nasty lady called sarah was supposed to send me the copy in january, im still waiting, i recieved debt collecter letters for £70 electricty and £210 gas, gets better it was for business fuel, i dnt own a business and live in a 2bed appartment in sw19. paid the debt collectors so wouldnt have bad debt but will never go with them, not even energy saving and they are bad for environment, increasing their prices when eon adn edf decreased them
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Visitors to the site are reminded that the details contained within user comments are uncorroborated and as such should not be read as fact but as the opinion of the person who left the comment.
Comments:
I have read you expience with British Gas and can understand your problems.
My problem started in November of last year when I received a invoice for 74.09 and htey took out 492.40 from my account. This put me overdrawn and when I phoned them they said the invoice was wrong and the correct amount was 492.40 but as a good will gesture they would refund me , with proof of charges, all my costs. I sent them via recorded delivery the proof and funny enough they say it never arrived and I never got my money.
This made me look at my bill and I was agast to see that i was paying more then 2 times the market rate which made me contact British Gas to cancel my account and move to a different supplier , to which they replied I could not because I had a evergreen contract and as such was tied into them until Aug 2010, my reply was I had never signed a contract and had never seen any correspodence with to a contract with them. They said that they did not have to prove they had sent any thing about a contract so I then asked for proof of this ,so called contract ,to which they replied that the contract was with another company and I should contact them for a copy . The phone number I was given did not work and I was told that until the contract was completed no other supplier would deal with me , this was confirmed via a call to EDF.
Feeling trapped I thought the only thing was to complete my prison sentence and wait to move elsewhere. After a few months my wife on seeing how much we were paying contacted renewels and with a bit of prompting as long as we agreed a payment plan they would cut the amount by nearly half, HOORAY a success at last.
This conversation was on the 13th May whrn the account balance was confirmed at 755.44 , to bring the account down we paid 400 pounds by debit card and agreed a payment of 130 pounds a month . On the second of July I recevied a bill for 619.78 and nothing in payments recived and on the 3 Aug a bill for 935.11 even though I had had a meter reading which said I had used on 17.69 including vat and satnding charges.
Again I telephoned to ask ,why even though they had received 530 pounds since 13th May and my usage was miniumal had my bill gone up from 755.44 to 935.11 to which the reply was I dont know and they would get accounts to call , to date no reply.
I have looked at the bills and taken monies out and usage and have worked out the bill to be about 477.85 not 935.11 where to they get there sums from.!
It seems to me that they run two amounts on their machines because what you are told never matches what is printed.
I am sorry if i am rambling a bit but I thought you might be intrested in my on going saga
Thanks for reading and if you want to know of any updates let me know
Steve Evans
On the 2nd of June it will be 3 months and still I have not received the box which will allow me to top up over the internet. I have rang them twice and both times I was told the same thing by two different people I would receive it soon, not sure when but I would receive the top up box.
Well I'm still waiiting I have emailed their customer services department I don't hold out with that. I will wait to read what excuse they have come up with as to why I have not yet been sent the box. I don't want any problems although it looks like I will be getting some if they don't stick to their side of the agreement and supply the customer me what I signed up for and is part of their pay as you go deal.
If I had known this was going to happen I would have gone else where. Only none else was offering the option to top up from home via the internet. And it now looks like British Gas are not either.
Further to my earlier posting, I would urge anyone who has had negative dealings with BG to follow this link and read the blog. If you can relate to it then please make your feelings known!!
switched me over in dec 08 for no reason, appartly i entred a verbal agreement, i have asked 37 times for a copy of my conversation to be sent to me. A rude nasty lady called sarah was supposed to send me the copy in january, im still waiting, i recieved debt collecter letters for £70 electricty and £210 gas, gets better it was for business fuel, i dnt own a business and live in a 2bed appartment in sw19. paid the debt collectors so wouldnt have bad debt but will never go with them, not even energy saving and they are bad for environment, increasing their prices when eon adn edf decreased them
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