British Gas Service - What A Con! (British Gas - Electricity)

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Product:	British Gas - Electricity
Date:	21/08/00 (1535 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can't think of any

Disadvantages: Inconsistant service, too many errors

Towards the end of last year (1999), I received some promotional material from British Gas with my credit card statement, with promises of cheaper electicity. As an incentive, they also promised "1000 Goldfish Points", which equates to ten quid. So, I signed up and started to have my supply from BG in January this year. Simple enough to change over, provide a meter reading on the day they say the new company will provide the service. So I thought.

A couple of weeks later, my meter was read (I've only had my meter read twice, despite living where I live for three years), received the bill, and paid it. The "1000 Goldfish Points" weren't credited, so I chased it up - quite a few times. It was August when I eventually got them.

In May, I received a "cold call" from Manweb/Scotish Power, who owned the meter, saying that they needed to replace it, which wasn't really a problem until I received an estimated bill a couple of weeks later for a lot more than I used, which was based on the old meter, which had a completely different number range. I telephoned BG to inform them that the meter was changed, provided them with the necessary information and, to be fair, the bill was cancelled. At the time of writing (some ten weeks later), I still haven't received a correct bill (I prefer to get bills paid straight away as I hate having them hanging over me).

During this time, BG had announced that they were "revolutionising the electricity market" by doing away with standing charges, which is a con anyway - ALL companies make enough money from the sale of energy and to continue a standing charge is just corporate greed and an abuse of power (literally). It was cited that this arrangement would benefit low users of power, which I'm one, being a single householder. So a little mathematics was done on the estimated bill (which had two tarrifs for when the standing charges was 'suppos
ed' to have been abolished. They hadn't abolished it at all on my account but the unit rate was substantially higher for the first x amount of units used, which was stated - but not what would be charged.

As I will not tollerate sloppy services, I changed my supplier to Powergen. Time will tell if they can provide an efficient and fair service.

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