Hello, is anybody there? (British Gas)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	British Gas
Date:	27/04/05 (946 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Large supply of idiots if you need some.

Disadvantages: Large supply of idiots if you don't

I don't pretend to be an expert on British Gas. I do not know about the extent of their services, nor do I have any comparative experience of other suppliers. I only have my own rather narrow interaction with them to go on, but it seems to tally with a lot of the other reviews here.

I used to live in a 3 bed semi a few miles away. It had a card meter. This means we had a card about the size of a credit card, which we took to shops displaying the PayPoint sign to have it topped up, and then put it in our meter to transfer the credit we'd bought. The important point to remember, at this juncture, is that the meter stopped gas coming through if the credit ran down to zero, so there was no way to use gas we hadn't paid for.

Anyway, we moved in December, so I duly phoned British Gas and informed them, gave them my new address, etc. There was no final bill because we paid for gas up front.

When we got to the new address we phoned through the start reading of the meter and BG said they would set up an account. Imagine my surprise when, after the first month, we had apparently used £133 worth of gas. At first I thought I must have left the immersion heater on all month, or something was leaking quite heavily. Then I realised the start reading on the bill wasn't the one I'd given them.

I phoned, and it turned out they'd gone with the final reading provided by the previous owner, who was a lying little toe-rag and pulled the same stunt with the electic and water. That's beside the point though. I can't believe that a company such as British Gas would simply trust a house owner to provide a final reading with no check from themselves. Actually that's not true. I can believe it, because, reading the other reviews here, it's becoming clear that BG don't care who they charge for the gas, whether it be the new owner or old. They don't care who actually owes the money, as long as they get it, and sending someone out, to see that all happens fairly, would cost them, so why bother.

Anyway, the person on the other end of the line suggested he could launch an enquiry into the matter. Having dealt with a seemingly endless string of utilities, solicitors, insurance firms, banks etc during the move, I was starting to recognise this as the code for, 'I will do nothing when I get off the phone, then you will get a repeat bill and you can phone again." So I exploded at him, and, suddenly, he discovered that it was within his authority to alter the bill there and then.

So I was a fairly happy customer again, merrily using my gas, believing British Gas to be reasonably competent if overpriced, and considering looking into other suppliers. Then, suddenly, four months after we moved out, we got a bill for gas supplied to the old address, to the amount of £130. Remember the all important point that we could not use gas without having bought it up-front at that address. So my wife phoned and suggested that the bill must be a mistake, and the person on the other end said yes it must be, and they were cancelling the bill there and then.

Which is why I was surprised, today, when I received the same bill again, but now for £180. My wife phoned them to see what was going on, and got the world's most job'sworth, moronic git (who I hope is reading this). He could not get into his head the simple issue that we could not run up a bill at the old address. Instead he persisted in trying to pin the blame for this bill on us. First he said that we clearly hadn't phoned to cut off the account at the old place. Again, he could not see that this was beside the point, because we didn't have a billing account. But to humour him my wife pointed out that they had managed to send the bill to our new address, demonstrating that they had a record of us having moved from the old address to this one. He got very snotty, and said we would have to send a letter of completion from our solicitors.

Anyway, my wife phoned me at work, and explained how abusive this idiot had been, so I phoned BG ready to crucify someone. But I started out mildly and, to my surprise, got a fairly cooperative response. The lady at the other end said clearly there was some kind of mistake and she would try and sort it, then left me on hold...

Unfortunately the closest she could come to 'sorting' it was to launch a balance inquiry, which was starting to sound familiar. She tried ending the call by saying, "Until you hear, don't ignore the bill, but don't pay it, YET!!!"

At that point I went ballistic. I asked her what on earth she meant by 'YET?' She had just finished telling me that clearly the bill wasn't mine, but was suggesting I might end up paying it. I told her I wasn't asking for an inquiry - I don't want to know what particular cock-up in the works produced this balance, I just want it cancelling. Guess what response I got,

"All right sir, I'll launch a balance inquiry..."

In the end I gave up, because it was becoming clear I was talking to the monkey. Tomorrow I will shred someone higher up the chain, and maybe I'll amend this review. For the moment though, if you have any choice I would not recommend BG.

Having said that, I'm starting to realise that all customer-services are the same. They all tell you they are doing something, when what they mean is 'Please hang up and try again when it's not my shift.' So I'm not sure that any other supplier would be any better in this respect.

Summary: