British Gas Reviews
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Mr
I was with British Gas for a few years.
All of a sudden they began to take £100 more per month from my bank, it wasn't until I had emails from other companies that I pay by direct debit telling me their payments were declined that I looked into it.
They had been helping themselves for a few months and put me in trouble with 3 other companies (Disgusting Right?) I eventually left British Gas and arranged to pay off an amount they said I owed. I payed of the second monthly payment, I then receive a message from a company called BPO??. British Gas had passed my details to them and I now owe this company the money I owed BG. On phoning BG, I was told that because I had payed the second payment a couple of days early, the payment due on the 19th of the month showed as missed. HOW PATHETIC. Not only had BG put me in debt with other companies by taking more money without even letting me know, but they had now sold the debt I had with them to another blood sucker.
To round it off just nice, I had a message from my credit reference agency telling me that my score has now been damaged by not paying my bill.
I am absolutely struck dumb,,,
How could a massive organisation like British Gas shaft a normal working class person like this?
I know how, they don't give a toss about their customers, just the money they can squeeze out of us.
WELL DONE BRITISH GAS, YOU HAVE BROKEN ANOTHER PERSON ON THE BREADLINE, AND STRUGGLING TO MAKE ENDS MEET. I HOPE YOU ARE REALLY HAPPY WITH YOURSELVES.Energy
Stay well away from these liars, all they care about is money, they lie, retract what they say, the worst energy company by far. When you are already going through difficulties, dealing with the loss of a parent, they come and stick a boot in further, no humanity in this company whatsoever!!!!! Then they threaten you with debt collectors too while saying they are looking into the complaint!! Never ending liars.
£3315.00
Absolutely negative!! Ordered installation to start work on the 6/5/2021 (Thursday) for a disabled person with osteoarthritis when her heating broke down, I was given a priority appointment at the time of calling. The following day I found out the appointment was cancelled as the engineer was over running on a previous job. The customer who has been with British Gas for 49 years still has no heating and had to stay in bed all day because the house was too cold. The engineer is due to start on the 7/5/2021 but will now go into the weekend. Customer service and management were extremely unhelpful in resolving the problem.
British Gas homecare
What has gone wrong with this company? The service is shockingly bad
No heating for a week, shoddy repair, boiler broke down again after repair and annual service within 5 days. Engineer booked to come out , waited a week, cancelled on the morning after booking the morning off work and this is not the first time this has happened. The staff on the phone lines when you can speak to one seem genuinely embarrassed . Who ever is the director in charge of operations and who has made the changes and ruined this company should really consider his position. I have been a customer for yearsSupply of Gas and electric
British gas are ripoff merchants!!!!!!
I have received terrible customer service. They have closed my complaint in a cold and un-empathetic manner and have have not addressed my concerns.
Avoid this company at all costs, their prices are too high and they DO NOT CARE ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS!!!...
We should be allow to rate below zero on star rating .... because they deserve NO STARS!!!Gas n leki
3 times I rang British gas ,been with thm 30years asked why I was getting charged £80.00 to leave ,as don't remember agreement contract until December 21..so they deliberately hang phone up .dirty tricks. We'll I'm out.and I'm going to advise any1 who'll listen..Mr ashmore
Homecare
Well that’s a surprise the least amount of stars I can do is two otherwise it won’t let me put the review through!! I can assure you I would have given no stars!!
Really don’t bother with British Gas Homecare complete waste of your money.
I was unfortunate to have to deal with this company had a boiler breakdown booked the service at the same time, advised to contact a neighbour (of whom lives literallynext door, information provided to BG) and they would let the engineer in the property, as the person in the property was in hospital. The engineer attended didn’t bother speaking to the neighbour, put a card through the door and left. Giving benefit of the doubt I arranged yet another visit, same thing happened again. Now bear in mind that British Gas state they will help the vulnerable wherever they can!!
So I made another appointment at this point I was appalled by the service received, but this plan has been paid for over years for an event like this!! So another apt made for the breakdown and again the supposedly free service that is included in the policy. The engineer actually contacted the neighbour this time, the engineer went in the property adjusted the thermostat and left. So apart from the hot water still not working when he left, the service wasn’t done a 50 excess had been paid for that visit on top of already paying £40+ a month. When I called BG I was told that there was no service booked in, which I know i requested.
At this point I cancelled the policy and got my own engineer to fit the part that was needed.
The appalling service didn’t end there I put a complaint in, was told this should not have happen!! And was insulted by being offered £50 which only gives the excess payment back, nothing for the appalling service, and the incompetence of staff and also the inconvenience of everything. For such a big company it is disgusting and I wouldn’t waste your money, it will be cheaper and less stress to just get you own private engineer to carry out any work, because the money you spend and the stress you get put through isn’t worth it, may as well throw the money down the drain.Boiler home service
Totally disgusted with #BritishGas Boiler broken since Friday so no heating or hot water. We have their service plan and the earliest appointment was 24 March. Phone call received today rescheduling it to 31March. They didn't want to carry out the annual service earlier in the year due to covid (ok) but promised they would be there in case of emergency. In their own words no heating or hot water is an emergency however it'll take 2 weeks to get to you! Disgusting service. This is a link to their commitment posted only yesterday. It's also worth googling how many staff they have furloughed. I am appalled
Gas electric
I had a British gas account for a property. This property is now rented out since October and the tenant is paying to British gas (they showed me the bill). British gas keep asking me to pay for the gas electric anyway even though they went out and took a meter reading the day the tenant moved in. I have tried creating an online account (refuses to recognise email), online chat (just tells me to create online account ), emailing, writing, telephoning (cuts me off after an hour wait). I have cancelled direct debit and they just keep hassling me to pay the bill that keeps going up.
Homecare policy
Tried numerous times to renew homecare policy on my late mother's boiler. Various calls taking me thru lengthy recorded messages and menus only to reach another message saying lines were closed because they're too busy. Finally spoke to someone who couldn't even complete the renewal because their systems weren't working to take payment. Asked me to call back next day but then same issue with lines closed again because they're too busy. Tried live chat with Lauren who just suggested call same number. Explained lines closed so she promised she would call me back in 5-10 minutes but never bothered. No acknowledgement or sympathy offered for my mums death and don't seem to want my business. Homecare policy supposed to help fix broken boilers but they've closed lines during worst cold spell in decades. Truly awful customer service. Avoid this company at all costs
Electric
Absolutely ridiculous how can I go from one month owing 40Pounds then using the same usage the next month to owe 275 I live in a one bed flat that’s is solely electrical and apparently now owe 900pound in debt British Gas you are robbing people blind for no reason I will be making a formal complaint and your customer service is pathetic
Annual boiler service
Booked sn annual service
Booked sn annual service , been in the diary for 3 months. Engineer , let's call him that turns up, not from British gas, third party, no prior warning that wouldn't be British gas engineer. He asks if he should take his shoes off , erm yes I think you should, goes upstairs, I can't service boiler , advised its been serviced for several years by British gas without problem. He hadn't a clue about the model . Not trained. Gone in 60 seconds, offered new date , 3 months off. I have taken the morning off work for this nonsense!Energy
Most expensive supplier in the market. Customer service is none existent. They will lie to you and Rob you blind. They also use other platforms to pay for good reviews. Still advertising a service they are not providing. Using Covid as an excuse for not providing said paid for services. They are a dinosaur that needs to be extinct.
British Gas IS SUPER USELESS!
No Gas. No Hot water. Boiler Non Functional. They will not come until 4 days . Onthe 4th day when British Gas was supposed to turn up, one super stupid idiot called for the apponitment to be rescheduled! May God Almighty rain cold and all inconviniences on you all!Gas & Electricity
Dear all, 08/01/2021
Please find below, an overview of my experience with Scottish Gas, which will appear truly unbelievable. Should any party be considering use of their services, please do not consider. Read my experience, and then judge for yourself. I am not one for anonymous malicious adverse communications, which would disallow the recipient the opportunity for recourse, so in this instance, I will disclose my customer account number, should this communication end up being reviewed by Scottish Gas personnel at any point in time (Gas account number 851012491314).
My personal background. Retired, along with my wife November 2018, and moved into a new build property in Edinburgh, 26th February 2019. Single pension, and wife with medical condition. No sympathy vote required, simply additional information which exacerbated a fundamental requirement for my wife to feel financially comfortable enough to switch the heating on. This rarely occurred, out of fear of unknown accrued bill costs.
Shortly after uptake of the property it became abundantly clear to me that Scottish Gas had the incorrect meter serial numbers etc for the property, therefore billing was stalled. This is the only element that I will give to Scottish Gas, for balance, as the serial numbers were incorrectly provided by the estate builders, initially.
However, this is where things began to take off negatively, for an intense period of six months, where I spent many, many, many, man-hours on the telephone to Scottish Gas operatives, repeatedly providing the same sets of serial numbers and readings, to absolutely no avail. Many of these calls last hours in duration, and were to separate operatives globally. Uk, South Africa etc.
Throughout this extended period, call centre operatives periodically escalated the problem to ‘Case Handlers’ and indeed a Complaints Resolution Manager’. All of these actions resulted in no further progress, despite my repeated provision of serial numbers, and ultimately actual photographs of the meter units, with the respective serial numbers clearly visible. In actual fact, a Scottish Gas engineer personally visited my property mid-way throughout this process, again to no avail.
Note a sample of personalities engaged with throughout the period:
-Crichton
- Lona Somlata
-Graeme (23rd May 1.5hrs duration)
-Tamica (30th May)
-Sarah Woodward (30th May Complaints Resolution Manager)
-Carlene (1st July. 30 mins)
- Gwyneth (9th July)
- Maria Bell (New Case handler. Transferred to her due to inaction by previous handler. 6 calls to this individual over a period of time)
At this point, and out of utter stress and frustration, I initiated a change of energy provider request from Scottish Gas to SSE (Scottish Hydro. 18th July)). This transfer was unable to complete for many weeks, as Scottish Gas had STILL not managed to transfer my meter details onto the national database.
In continuing to engage with Scottish Gas, further calls were made to their operatives, as follows:
- Selwayne (9th Sept. South Africa. 25 min’s)
- Tashreeq (18th Sept)
- Phil (23rd Sept)
- Natasha (7th Oct. Advised Natasha at this stage that I would be unwilling to settle outstanding bills until I was compensated for severe stress and not least a massive unkown number of total man hours on the phone.
- 16th Oct I received an exceptionally aggressive call from a male Scottish Gas operative indicating severe threats (legal etc. Forgot to record name), should I not IMMEDIATELY pay in full, my electrical bill. At this stage I paid £318.40, which I regret doing. This only served to increase my resolve to hold out for an ethical Scottish Gas response on my gas bill, which still rolls on, as follows:
- 24th Oct raised complaint on my billing, as all bills had commenced from zero meter readings, where correct start bills meter readings had already been provided, avoiding my liability to pay costs prior to my entry into the property.
- 6th Jan 2020 (almost a year from commencement with British Gas), is where my last communication occurred, which is the most unsettling one. Call made to Pritpal at Scottish Gas, whom indicated that due to no resolution, he would be REFERRING MY CONCERN BACK TO THE ORIGINAL CALL HANDLER. Complete ‘reset’.
- HOWEVER, the above action did not occur, and my next communication received came directly from a company called Moorgroup (A debt handling agency), whom are now in regular chase contact with me, attempting to recover around £200 of gas billing, with I guess, the next stage being a court summons for monies due.
Beyond the above points, if any reader is in ANY doubt at all, as to my integrity and honesty, I have saved the best for last.
At the point of my attempted energy transfer from Scottish Gas to SSE, I simultaneously raised a formal complaint with the energy ombudsman over Scottish Gas’s utter incompetence and unethical and non-professional conduct. Once again, and for transparency, the complaint reference details are:
Your reference: EG058120-19 Date: 15 Oct 2019
Andy Dossett Investigating Officer (Ombudsman)
After an extended investigation, the ombudsman found entirely in my favour against Scottish Gas, proposing that Scottish Gas award me £75 in compensation and that they write to me formally to apologise. While that, at face values appeared to be a positive resolution, I am sure that any reader of this review will find it hilarious that an award of £75 for my incalculable manhours and severe stress, would compensate me appropriately. As a complainant, you can therefore press the ‘accept outcome’ function on the on-line complaint, or decline, if you disagree with the findings. If you decline (as I did), the complaint is therefore regarded as ‘null and void’, as if it never existed, and therefore the accused party can regard the award against them as ‘non binding’.
For those that are unaware of the ombudsman process, the complainant and accused both have visibility of the other parties exchanges (edited by the ombudsman). I therefore had sight of Scottish Gas’s statement that they would compensate me appropriately, and that they would write to me with an apology letter. This never occurred.
Having queried the above with Moorgroup, the debt recovery service, their dialogue with Scottish Gas has restated that they regard to ombudsman’s finding as ‘non binding’, and that they have no intention of offering compensation and/or a letter of apology, as per the previous commitment.
So:
It is now 17 months since I attempted to use Scottish Gas’s energy services. To date events:
- Could not set up correct billing, despite my best efforts
- Bounced me round numerous personnel and call handlers for months (No Covid factor here to mitigate)
- Threatened legal action against a customer who had been desperately TRYING to pay them for between 6 and 8 months, to no avail
- Washed their hands of the problem and passed to a debt collection agency
- Saw the energy Ombudsman award against them, and used the complainant ‘decline’ option to regard the outcome as ‘non binding’. Any substantive organisation, in this day in age would still have had the decency to write and apologise for their actions and inactions.
- Notably, and from ALL of the Scottish Gas operatives engaged with, NOT 1 individual, at any point, asked what they could do to keep a customer, whose only apparent failure, was a desire to pay his bills over a period of many months.
My apologies for the length of this communication. Sadly it is not over yet, for myself and my wife, as the stress continues, with what I am sure will be an impending court summons, where presumably a judge will rule on the events above, which I will present in full. I will continue to amend this post, and repost consistently throughout the year, until such time as the matter is concluded.
And here we go again:
23rd Sept 2020 Calls to Scottish Gas, after being ‘back referred’ from Moorgroup, the debt collection agency. Discussions with Lisa, Customer Advisor (Complaints), and then finally, Pauline, Customer Services Advisor, Collections Department. During these calls I requested that THIS communication be placed in front of a manager in responsibility for consideration. They POINT BLANK, refused to do so, and further confirmed that they had no intention of making ANY form of apology to me.
I further indicated that unless they did so, I would be publishing this review, and republishing on a weekly basis, for a period of 18 months, more or less in line with the length of this complaint against them. So here we go. It’s a large organization, and I am only one individual, but these forums are all we have. Please AVOID these horrible human beings.
Further response from British Gas to my formal complaint, by Hannah Jeoffrey from their complaints team on 9th Oct, indicating that they wished to engage, and that if I did not respond to them within 14 days, they would close my complaint again, as no further action required by me. I responded IMMEDIATELY, and now, (20th Oct), 11 days later, she STILL has not responded to my concerns, which, primarily required a letter of apology from them. I froze my online postings at their point of contact with me, but will, of course, start to repost updates from Tues 20th Oct, if I have not had a satisfactory response. That post will be post 3 of 72 ongoing posts.
Well! They finally responded in Nov 2020. A written apology, nearly 2 years from the start of this fiasco, but ZERO compensation for two years of my time (and theirs). Compensation offer related to suggesting they would not demand the late bill payment charge(Which was only there, due to the complaint existing), and even more laughably, they would not demand the early contract closure fees of £30 per utility.
In the end, I paid my outstanding bill, reluctantly. This is now post 4 of 72 posts. I will continue to share throughout the year, until British Gas ‘DO THE RIGHT THING’. This is NOT over. No commercial savvy, at all!, for such a large organization.
A truly disgusting horrible, thoughtless and unprofessional organization. Please avoid, if you possibly can.
Best regards from Edinburgh.Boiler Cover
I am a landlord living out the country. Our boiler has broken and the tenants arranged a apt with British Gas but it is on hold as I need to approve of it first for the excess. The letting agent tells me of this and that I need to contact British Gas.
I go to the British Gas website and after 15 minutes of trying cannot find a single phone number anywhere. I eventually google them and find a number on wikipedia which I phone. Another 5-10 mins of going through automatic speak to a computer stuff to connect you, then I finally get through to a actual person. Apparently this is standard and I will have to phone to pay a bill everytime this happens. I wonder, if this is standard why is it so impossible to do? The man asks for a payment over the phone, which I suggest is there another way to do this such as on the website? I told him I had found it really difficult to find a number on their website and I am reluctant to give my card details to a person I called on a number from wikipedia/google. Then the line cuts out and that was a hour of my life I wont get back. It is now passed their opening times for their call centres and I have tenants with no heating.
Its just really bad service from British Gas. They are so impossible to work around and I think they just do not care. I will be looking at changing to another company.Considering new boiler
I am seeking quotes for a new boiler, but won’t be using British Gas.
One of their fitters lives next door to me, and always parks his van in front of my windows (just a few feet away) rather than his own because he doesn’t like to have to look at it. There are in fact plenty of places within a few steps where he could park without blocking either of our windows. It was parked there without moving at all for the whole 2 weeks of the first lockdown and is now there again over the. Christmas /New Year holidays. It’s very depressing to have my windows constantly blocked by this ugly bright blue van all the time.
British Gas doesn’t care about this. It is obviously happy for its bad-mannered employees to use their liveried vans to annoy their neighbours. I can’t see why anyone would want to risk inviting someone with such bad manners into their home ..or why anyone would want to employ a company which encourages bad manners.Homecare plan
Have a British gas homecare plan. The washing machine wasn't working properly so a call was made 4 weeks ago. We were told the initial appointment would be 3 weeks later which was OK due to the current pandemic. The engineer came for the appointment ordered the parts and came this Thursday.. Used the washing machine Friday and it leaked and flooded the whole kitchen. Was immediately on the phone and an "emergency" appointment was made for Saturday anytime after 8am.... Waited until 4.45pm to phone only to be told don't do emergency appointments on appliances on the weekend.. Asked to speak to a manager 1st thing as was told they open at 7am and I'm still waiting. Absolutely appalling service my parents are receiving as an homecare customer... We have an 86 and 79 year old in the property and can't afford to be going in an out to a public launderette with what is going on currently.. We had an appliance that we could use but now we have one that is completely useless due to no fault of our own now flooring in the kitchen that is completely ruined.
Homecare Service
Very negative. The engineer didn’t turn up to fix my washing machine, so after waiting in a whole day for nothing, they bumped my job 7 days ahead. When I complained, their best suggestion was for me to waste even more time phoning round to find my own engineer, pay for it, and they would refund me. I was also offered a paltry £20 compensation. The next day another manager rang and was insistent that I close my complaint. Because I wouldn’t(the problem still isn’t fixed - the engineer this person recommended today doesn’t cover my area) he removed the £20 compensation. You couldn’t make it up.
Electricity, gas& electricity.
In April of 2019 my electricity KW consumption went from the average 300-800 KW per month to 2500, went back to 600 in may. My bill went from the average £78 a month to £445 for a single months electricity in a one bed flat!. Moved house and it took six months for them to update my electricity account. Nine months for the gas, told me I didn't need to send meter readings but it turns out the gas meter wasn't a smart meter so I should've been. I received my exit bill today and my estimated gas consumption was a whopping 41000kw a year in a two bed flat with just me and my son!. Over three times the average of a full six occupant five bed house!. I moved provider last month, far to many inconsistencies and blatant over charging. I asked for total energy consumption reports and bills from the past two years, they said I'd have them within twenty one days of request. That's was the 8th of last month, no reports yet and I can't even contact them because the call centers have been closed
energy
My estimate bill go up twice without my permision .
Review with most votes
Good company
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