Worst customer service - ever (British Gas)

Member Name: mjc121

Product:	British Gas
Date:	26/05/09 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: give me a while I might think of one

Disadvantages: awful customer service, high prices, rude engineers, general incompetence.

British Gas is probably the very definition of both incompetence and awful customer service. Over the past 8 years I have had several major problems with them which caused me to switch suppliers.

The final straw was about 6 month ago. I had received a letter saying they needed to check my gas meter to make sure that it was safe etc. OK so no real problem so I arranged to make sure I was in on the day they said they would come round. Low and behold no British Gas person showed up.

After calling the so-called 'customer service line' I was kept waiting in the queue for about 10 minutes to be told 'Our engineer couldn't make it today, we did send you a letter about it...' Well if they had sent a letter I would have received it, which I hadn't. So they arranged a second date and I made sure the appointment was for between 1pm and 5pm.

Three days after this I received the 'our engineer can't make it...' letter about the original appointment, dated the day before they were supposed to come round and sent second class. This to me speaks volumes about what they think of their customers.

Well this was annoying, but you haven't heard the worst part yet.

On the day of the new appointment I got back home at 12:30 well in time for the start of the appointment slot for them to take a look at the gas meter. Well 5pm came and still no engineer had turned up. Yet again I called the 'customer service line'. Only to be told 'yes the engineer came this morning and the meter is fine'

OK now I was puzzled. I had booked an appointment between 1 and 5 pm yet they came in the morning when I was out and no-one else was in. 'well as your gas meter is outside he didn't need to knock or anything.' This would be fine but my gas meter
is in the cupboard under my stairs inside my house. Now when asked how the engineer had been able to check my gas meter she still gave the response of the meter being outside.

After 5 attempts I finally got her to understand that my meter is in inside and as I was out no-one would have been able to give him/her access to it. 'Well it's been checked sir so there isn't a problem.' Was her flippant reply. Well again I attempted to get the idiot I was talking to over the phone to understand that as I was out all morning and no-one else was in the house at the time (my partner was away on business that week) either the meter wasn't looked at at all and the engineer just ticked the boxed saying that they had or they gained illegal access to my house to take a look at it.

The customer service agent, well I was starting to feel a bit sorry for her as it wasn't directly her fault, suddenly became all apologetic and said that a credit would be applied to my account and she would have it looked in to. Perhaps it was the realisation that the engineer had done something very wrong or perhaps me saying that I would take the matter up with OFGAS, BBC Watchdog and the national press spurned her or her supervisor into action.

Well I have not heard anything since and no credit was applied to my account, when I called about this naturally they had no record of saying they would do such a thing. Typical of British Gas.

I switched to another supplier at the end of last year, British Gas made that as hard as possible as well and switched me back to them without my consent. They put this down to 'an administrative error'. That is a case of if you believe that you'll believe anything.

The customer service is awful and they are more expensive than other suppliers.

Summary: Never EVER switch to them. Avoid like the plague.