Landline number to British Gas: 0113 338 1499 — don’t pay for the 0845 calls.
I had so hoped that my previous post about British Gas would have been my last. However, I have now reached the point of having made or received 20+ calls to them since September, and 6 calls in the last 2 days alone totalling 4 hrs. I tried to switch to a new provider, Scottish Power (who by the way I speak to without waiting and they have all my info correct), but until BG got their stuff straight, they wouldn’t let go of me.
It turns out that when BG put me in their billing system, they screwed up just about everything that could be. Instead of one person id that covers both gas and electric, they made two. For electricity, instead of just billing me for my house, they also decided to also bill me for the house down the road. So I had 3 customer reference numbers and 2 id numbers associated with me. For whatever reason, no one there could figure out that that was wrong and how to fix it until I kept pushing on them.
After 2+ hours on the phone yesterday, I got the electricity side finally wrapped up, I thought. But the person that I spoke to sent me off on a wild goose chase for information about my Gas line, which come to find out later when talking to another BG person she should have known in 1 minute of looking on her own. She supposedly gave me a direct number to get back to her, but I called the number 3 times (waited on hold a total of 45 minutes in the process) and no one there had ever heard of her or could connect me.
So I call back again today, and still never got back to her. I got tranferred again. It seems that there was no name attached to my gas account, though they clearly knew my name from when they set up my direct debit on the bank. So I had to talk to someone to set up my gas account–put a name on it, so I could turn around and close it. When I got transferred to the house move department, I eventually ended up with the best person I’ve met at BG. He realized that the gas account I had was linked to the wrong gas meter (the house next to me), so BG was never my supplier in the first place! (Though they sent me bills from the time I moved in.) He cancelled account and refunded all my payments from day one. The irony is that 90% of my trouble has been b/c of the electricity account, but I went with BG for electricity since we supposedly already had BG for gas from the previous resident…
So I think I may have ended up with £40 in discounts for all my trouble, but I would rather have never gone through the 20+ calls and 10+ hours on the phone. The rub is that you have to pay for all those calls, but I finally got a direct number for a local call so I could use my mobile minutes for it (0113 338 1499).
I still think they have overbilled me for the electricity, and the basic person in their billing department could not explain to me how the amounts are computed. They don’t take monthly meter readings, so they base some of your bills off of estimated readings. The trouble comes from the fact that you are charged two different rates, and depending on when the estimate is taken you may pay more at the higher rate.
Hopefully, I’ll never talk to them again. Don’t take this as a mark against the British. I have no doubt that if the first person I talked to at a US company had screwed up my record like this, I would have had the same issue. In fact I had a problem with Comcast before we left, and it was similar (but definitely not on the scale of BG).
Wednesday, 16 May 2007 at 9:22 pm
Ben
Sorry to hear of the ongoing British Gas saga. Don’t use them myself, so I can’t comment on their service – unless you take the choice of another company as jsut that. Just to warn people that the 0113 number you gave out is a national number (so you pay national rate from a land line) whilst the 0845 number is a local rate call – hence designed to be cheaper. Of course the rules for mobiles (particularly those with free minutes) is different – but British Gas are actually trying to be kind by providing this local rate 0845 number…
Have you come across the swiching sites SimplySwtich.com and Uswitch.com? They give UK power utilities customers advice on which is the best power supply company based on your estimated consumption figures. Not very useful when prices are changing a lot, since it’s hard to compare tariffs accurately, but worth keeping an eye on when things are stable.
Best wishes
Mark
Thursday, 17 May 2007 at 6:36 pm
Thanks for the clarification…I thought all landlines are charged the same rate.
I used Uswitch.com to switch to Scottish Power, and I thought it was helpful and easy. Everything was done online, and no calls needed, which was nice after all the calls I had to make to BG!
Friday, 18 May 2007 at 11:44 am
Interesting – that’s how I got onto Scottish Power too! Though I got a series of letters from PowerGen saying ‘Please come back we’re nice people…’ though not claiming to be cheaper, I noted…
Monday, 16 July 2007 at 12:36 pm
Fantastic! Forget any extra cost, you get straight through.I spent 5 miniutes on line found your site, called & could not quite beleive it, when an English Voice answered after only 2 or 3 rings.I rang back just to see if it was a fluke,it was’nt
Tuesday, 31 July 2007 at 9:47 pm
Don’t think that switching to another supplier will solve your BG nightmares. In March 2006 I switched from BG to NPower. BG continually harassed me for money that they said I owed (which I didn’t) all through until the end of 2006, they kept insisting they were still supplying me, even though one of their own people had confirmed that the official register showed that they did not. Eventually they agreed that I was right and they were wrong.hooray. Until a couple of months ago when they started sending me threatening letters, now claiming that I owe them almost £600. The latest is a letter from the Debt Collection Agency they have appointed who are apparently going to get a warrant and come round to disconnect my supply. (Which they don’t provide). When I spoke to the agents and told them that I didn’t owe any money as BG weren’t my suppliers I was told “that’s your opinion” and that they are, indeed, on their way.
The most hilarious thing of all, is that while all this has been going on I actually had a BG salesman knock on my door to try and persuade me to sign up to them. He, it seems, had a list that told him who the people were in my street who weren’t BG customers so that he could solicit them, and guess what? I was one of them. Amazing!
Tuesday, 31 July 2007 at 10:38 pm
I feel your pain.