My power struggle with British Gas
Changing energy suppliers is not always as easy as they would have you believe. Here Terry Grimley relates his tortured tale.
One question has been dominating life in the Grimley household this week: can we stop British Gas sending debt collectors round to seize my 80-year-old mother-in-law’s furniture?
Of course, there would be one simple way of achieving this. My mother-in-law could pay the £331.88 British Gas says she owes them. But – yes, you’ve guessed it – she actually doesn’t owe them a penny.
She is one of many innocent consumers who have been sucked into a Kafkaesque nightmare as a result of the shambolic computer systems and abysmal customer service of Britain’s most complained about energy company.
Just google British Gas and you will find no shortage of parallel cases online. The details vary but the same basic story is repeated over and over: British Gas sends an incorrect bill, the customer calls to query it and is assured the problem has been, or is being, sorted.
Meanwhile a series of increasingly menacing demands continues to pile up on the doormat.
It is striking many of these stories relate to a period from autumn 2006 to April 2007, apparently reflecting the chaotic introduction of a new billing system. In fact, this is precisely the same period in which my mother-in-law’s problems first began.
She and her late husband were British Gas customers for over half a century. They came from a generation which was extremely wary of debt, and I doubt they paid a bill late in their entire married life.
Their problems began when they switched their gas supply to Southern Electric in September 2006.
The paperwork was duly completed, British Gas took a meter reading on November 2 and the following day submitted a final bill for £23.40 which was promptly paid.
Having then paid their first full quarterly bill from Southern Electric, my in-laws were surprised to receive one from British Gas for £129.54, covering the same period.
My mother-in-law telephoned to point out this was a mistake, as she and her husband were no longer British Gas customers.
A number of frustrating conversations ensued with various members of staff in the customer relations department, at least one of whom assured her she would hear no more about it.
Nevertheless, on March 21 British Gas wrote to confirm they were still supplying the property – even though Energywatch were able to tell me within a minute, simply by tapping the postcode into a website, the address was actually supplied by Southern Electric.
Communications from British Gas became increasingly unpleasant. A particularly nasty threat, sent on March 30, was that within ten days they would notify a credit agency of the unpaid debt.
It was obvious my mother-in-law was getting nowhere, so I decided to open up a second front with an e-mail to British Gas’s press office, using what I hoped was an attention-grabbing heading: “British Gas persecutes pensioners”.
Despite my unease at using my privileges as a member of the media to settle a family dispute (I was seriously considering writing a
