Powerless (British Gas)

Member Name: lamorna

Product:	British Gas
Date:	03/04/02 (931 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If you are buying, they are fast, good deals

Disadvantages: If they supply the leccy, they only understand gas, Certificates!!!

The following account will describe two contrasting experiences I have just encountered as a customer of British Gas. Shall we begin with the bad?

The Bad
********
The tortuous six months spent evicting an unworthy tenant from my South London freehold shop and flat whilst using the expensive legal system, resulted in the property being made secure and remaining empty for eleven months. During this period, planning permissions, architects, estimates and business loans were all put in place. The builders began the extensive renovation work in November 2001 with a projected completion date of April 2002.

The day that, in December 2000, my ‘bad’ tenant was evicted by the Court bailiffs I contacted the utilities and took over as the account holder to include British Gas.

The phone call from my builder on February 28th 2002 came as a total shock. London Electric had called to read the electricity meter, discovered it had been ‘tampered’ with and had immediately disconnected my electricity supply on behalf of British Gas. Are you already wondering what the electricity supply has to do with British Gas? I certainly was.

Then began a one month saga called ‘How To Get your Electricity Supply Reconnected when your Supplier is the Gas Man!’

I began with the Revenue Connection Department where I discovered that the ‘bad’ tenant had been supplied with electricity by London Electric for the ground floor shop, but had changed to a second power supplier, British Gas, for the three residential floors above. This already seems a dodgy move. To have one self contained building with two suppliers? But he had good reason. He had whipped the upstairs meter out and had been using an illegal electricity supply for who knows how long.

I had never had an electricity bill from the Gas Board. Understandable in the circumstances, so the day they called and found an empty space where
the meter should have been was my unlucky one wasn’t it? Here I was, under investigation for illegally using electricity. Though I obviously hadn’t been as the building had been unoccupied for almost one year and not a squatter in sight. I just wanted the power back on, and when asking if I owed anything I was told a figure of around £300.00.

I’ll pay anything to get the builders back to work, but it got worse. Because I was under investigation I could only have a builder’s supply of power. Fine! That’s all I want, as the entire building is about to be rewired and four individual meters installed for the three flats and shop I have planning permission for.

“But you need a certificate” they said. Now ‘they’ are any one of the twenty eight different departments in both Gas and Electricity departments I phoned every day for one month, each time speaking to a different person who would get my details up on a screen, pause and say they had to find a supervisor. I don’t blame them as the screen must have looked pretty horrific.

“A certificate of Compliance” they said.

“Never heard of it!” said my electrician.

“Well, they won’t turn me back on without one” I wept.

My electrician is registered and a member of the N.I.C and they’d never heard of this certificate either!

“We’ll fax you one” they said using another name for it “An Installation Certificate. Only, London Electric will visit the premises to switch your supply back while acting on British Gas’ behalf but they won’t do it without the certificate”

They never faxed it. Back on the phone to British Gas and them saying they didn’t know much about electricity and I was to phone LE. While I had BG on the phone with a real person and not the damned Vivaldi in my ear with the phone clamped to my
head, I asked again how much I owed. Interesting….£86.00.

Back to London Electricity. “Account number please” Uh! Uh! Sinking feeling as every time I gave me account number to them it had too many digits. I’m desperate.

Meanwhile, the builder has imported two generators, but the very nature of the power tools being used by a team of men with an immense amount of heavy duty work to do meant that one drill too many draining the generator and it all went Phut!

We’re into week three. Then I find a new phone number. Just one person at a British Gas call centre put me through to an amazing women in Leeds. She listened to me weeping about my ordeal. She got my entire three week story up on her screen, listened patiently and said “Leave it with me”

Within two hours she had it sorted. The certificate was a Completion of Work signed by the electrician confirming he had complied to the safety guidelines and I was to have my builder’s supply of power back on within the week. I asked about my alleged bill for electricity I owed to British Gas. “No! Don’t pay that, you owe nothing, as the premises have been boarded up for a year so no power was used.”

True to her word, exactly one month after being disconnected we were switched back on! She covered, in two hours, what departments and teams of people had been previously been incapable of doing. I have her extension number and full name, as I want her to sort me out if anything as dire as this happens again. And it could!


The Good
*********
Meanwhile, back home in Dorset, my central heating system’s on the blink. It’s twenty six years old and I have to give the pump a good kicking every morning to get it going. The pilot light on the gas fire packed up months ago. Not satisfactory, but I have to wait until the Spring and the milder weather before we can do without central heating. Plus
the fact, the one month delay in my building project has obviously set me back financially.

What’s this I see? A Hot Offer from my over burdened Goldfish credit card company. In fact, an offer from British Gas. They tell me I will be allowed £100.00 trade in on my old boiler, £150.00 trade in on my old gas fire, and what about this? Pay nothing until January 2003 after a 10% deposit, and to complete the offer, 5000 extra bonus Goldfish points!

I phoned Goldfish at once, quoting a reference number and was instantly, yes instantly, put through to someone from British Gas who discussed my requirements. An appointment was made and I was given the name of my own personal Technical Advisor. I have since had a letter confirming these details, complete with more information about high efficiency boilers that will save up to 37% on my heating bills.

I am told that whatever high efficiency boiler I select it will be price matched at the same cost as a standard boiler from the same manufacturer.

I will be replacing my old gas fire with a new millennium marble, stone or wood surround, and I do hope it will have pretend flames curling round the mock logs.

During my month long ordeal with British Gas and my non-power situation, was any one anything but polite to me. I was met with concern, care and often sympathy for my plight. If they said they’d ring me back with information, then they did just that, every time.

Some mornings, when I hit the phone at exactly 8.00am, resigned to the fact it would already be engaged and I’d get Vivaldi, I was surly, cross, upset, frustrated and fractious. Not once, during the hundreds of phone calls I made, was I made to feel a nuisance and I have nothing but praise for the attention I received during this dreadful experience.

Now I can’t wait to be ‘Cooking on Gas’ in Dorset.

Summary: