Have you been defrauded by British Gas?

.
In early 2006, when I changed my energy supplier from British Gas to EDF Energy, I received two final bills, one for gas one for electricty, from British Gas. These British Gas bills included falsified and inflated meter readings and additional charges due to my having a fictious "fixed energy prices" agreement with British Gas. If this happened to me it may have happened to hundreds of thousands of other British Gas customers. Have you been defrauded by British Gas?

Even if you find the details of my complaint trivial, bear with me, if this has happened to hundreds of thousands of other British Gas customers this may turn out to be Britain's biggest corporate fraud. This is the electricity bill in question, it looks very similar to every other electricity bill. I wonder how many people received and paid such bills without checking the details and were defrauded in the same way that British Gas has attempted to obtain money by deception from me?
Falsified and Inflated Meter Readings
See that current meter meading highlighted in green, it's not an estimate, remember this is a final bill to clear my account. It says the reading was taken on 6th March 2006 and was 1130. Well, that is not true. It is falsified and inflated. Can I prove it is not true? Look at this photograph I took of the meter reading, with a bill blu-tacked to it. This bill, dated 13th April 2006 was a second bill they sent me. The date on it proves that the photograph must have been taken after 13 April. I actually took this photograph, and others, on 24th April 2006, about seven weeks later.

How come British Gas claim their reading of 1130 was taken on 6th March, when the meter reading was only 1085 on 24th April 2006, about seven weeks later? This shows beyond any doubt that British Gas falsified and inflated the meter reading and was attempting to obtain money by deception.

Falsified Agreement for "Fixed Prices"
Now go back to that first photograph of the bill. See that £20 charge highlighted in yellow, when I rang B.G. Customer Services they said it was a cancellation charge because I had a "fixed prices" account. Well, this is rubbish. At no point had I requested or signed up for a fixed prices account. In fact it was quite the opposite. Way back in March 2005 I received a letter from British Gas saying, "Recently, you signed up to fix your gas and electricity with British Gas". I had not signed up for any such thing. This was just after B.G. had increased energy prices and I felt sure that prices would not rise again for ages, so no way did I want to pay the higher, fixed energy prices. (O.K., both British Gas and I got it wrong and about 6 months later prices did go up, so I might have done better to have signed up for such a deal, but I didn't.) So on the 24th March 2005 I rang British Gas and said, quite emphatically that I had not signed up to fix my energy prices and did not want a capped prices account.

By falsely claiming I had such an account British Gas attempted to charge me this £20 cancellation fee on my electricity account, (and £30 on gas account). It also meant that the unit energy prices on my gas and electricity bills after March 2005 were inflated to the premium capped rates.

The same things happened with my gas account, but there is no point in my showing both sets of bills etc.


Cancellation of My Bills, 4th Nov. 2006

On 4th November 2006, a few days after a program on BBC Watchdog which criticised British Gas and put Energywatch on the spot, I received a letter from Sarah Hilton, Customer Relations, British Gas, apologising profusely and cancelling my electricity and gas bills. While this gave me great satisfaction, this is not what I was fighting for. The objective of my campaign is to make British Gas cease it's illegal billing practices and stop harassing its customers. I now hope other customers will follow my example and be prepared to stand up to British Gas. With a bit of luck we might see British Gas charged with criminal fraud. You never know, you might get your bill cancelled :-)

Correspondence with British Gas

Most, but not all, of the correspondence between British Gas and me is shown in full in a 6MB pdf file, by clicking here you can open it in a separate window and cross-check everything I claim.

When you read these documents bear in mind that on 31st August 2006 British Gas eventually admitted,
"With regard to the Price Protection packages . . . , you did not sign or register for this agreement".
This means that at the same time as B.G. were being evasive, lying and making threats of court actions and debt collectors they knew, all along, that there never had been any agreement.


How has British Gas handled my account and complaints?

Over the next few weeks I plan to elaborate on the way British Gas handled my account in a number of sections.
(Sorry guys, I went overseas and was unable to complete this)
  • 1. Falsified Fixed Prices Agreement. This is ready now, click to view.
  • 2. Falsified and Inflated Meter Readings.
  • 3. The Way British Gas Treats Their Customers
    • Being untruthful
    • Evasion
    • Harrassment This is ready now, click to view.
    • Compensation
  • 4. Problems with British Gas Website www.house.co.uk/


Do you, or did you, work for British Gas?

It would be fascinating to hear, in confidence, from a current, or ex-employee of British Gas about their billing procedures. If you feel that British Gas treats their customers improperly and you can give any 'inside' information I'd be delighted to hear from you. My email address is at bottom left.



Energywatch, were they able to help?

They have been bloody useless too. After I supplied them with the information above all they seemed to do was to forward my letter to British Gas, and forward the British Gas reply to me, then saying the intended to close the case. After I contacted Ofgem, who then wrote to Energywatch, they decided to re-open the case :-) I suspect that the best approach if Energywatch is ineffective is to work your way, step by step, through their own complaint procedure until you get to The Parliamentary Ombudsman. I'll create a separate module on my experience with Energywatch in due course. In the meantime you can check out my correspondence with energywatch to see how they handle complaints, by clicking here This is a 2MB .pdf file.

Earlier this year I read somewhere that Energywatch had received 33,000 complaints about British Gas this year alone. This shows that Energywatch is failing to fullfil its statutory responsibilities. If, after 1000 complaints, Energywatch had rapped the knuckles of British Gas forcing them to improve their service and billing procedures there would not have been the continuing abuse and complaints.

Now that British Gas has apologised it is clear that Energywatch was not acting independently. If Energywatch had seriously investigated my complaint, at the beginning, they would have come to the same conclusion to that of British Gas, i.e. that British Gas was in the wrong. It's time the CEO was sacked.



If anyone has had similar problems with British Gas and Energywatch or has any suggestions I'd welcome them.

Cheers,


Pete Loud


If you have a problem with British Gas


The main bit of advice is to record everything.
  • Do not panic when you receive threats of debt collectors and court action.
    Nearly all of these are bluff. If British Gas can not prove that you owe them the disputed money they are unlikely to win their case, or even take you to court.
  • Do not telephone Customer Relations.
    Make your complaints by letter and keep all correspondence. I have found that Customer Relations say many things that are incorrect and misleading, but you will not have any evidence of their duplicity which can be used in court.
  • Keep every bill, letter, email and record every phone call.
  • Whenever you get a gas or electricity bill check your meter readings and write them down, better still, stick the bill next to the meter and take a photograph of the both of them together.
  • If you have signed up for "paperless billing" regularly save the webpages which show the details of your bill, and anything else which might be relevant. (I save them as pdf files).
  • If you complain or communicate through a website make a copy of what you say before you send the complaint. Usually you are asked to fill in a box and once it is sent, it disappears and you don't have record of what you wrote.
  • Write to Energywatch, http://www.energywatch.org.uk/, about your problem with British Gas. Do not let energywatch fob you off. If Energywatch is ineffective work through their complaints procedure at http://www.energywatch.org.uk/uploads/Complaints_about_energywatch.pdf
  • Think twice before taking your complaint to The Energy Ombudsman. It claims to be independent and offers to help sort out problems with energy suppliers. The member companies who fund this body are the energy suppliers, including British Gas. To me, that means it is not independent :-(

    and

  • Be one step ahead of British Gas Customer Relations, keep an ace up your sleeve ;-) There are many ways you might be able to do this, record conversations which show them to be untruthful, prepare your case with help from a consumer organisation, legal specialists or the media. Play dumb, then they might try and mislead you, but make sure you have the evidence to expose them when the time comes ;-)

I am not the only one to have a problem with British Gas



British Gas chicken out at the doors of the court
This is an extract from an email I received in March 2008. The writer was not not intimidated by threats of being taken to court by BG. I wish more people would stand up to BG like this.

"When I arrived to Court before we went in, the man that was representing BG took me aside and said "lets see if we can sort this out before we go in " . So I explain to him to whole story the best I could and showed him the file with all the letters and he said "To be honest I cant go through this, I dont feel this is right and I dont think BG has handled the situation very well, so I am whidrawing the warrant"."


More falsified and inflated readings
This weekend I received an email which said,
"We have changed suppliers from BG to Scottish Power. Final electricity bill has arrived (still awaiting gas) with a ridiculous reading. Actual reading on 21 August was 45216. Their final reading dated 4 August is 46938."

. . . and here's another
". . I've had a 5 month saga the same as yours. On changing to EDF in April, British Gas billed me for a reading of 23808. EDF read the meter at this date - their reading - 13001. The final bill I received from BG? £1750."

I looks like the way British Gas falsified and inflated my meter reading is standard practice.


Bills for non-existant meter.
Here is a section from a recent email.
". . . Since then though we have had countless bills for 277A, (10 years ago the house was 2 flats). The address does not exist, the meter they think is here does not exist and we do not buy their gas. We have been trying to tell them this since November and have had 3 visits from their representatives who all agree that the meter and flat are no longer. Now we are faced with a warrant to enter the home and disconnect the supply plus legal action as we have not paid their fictional £500 bill !!!!!

Am trying Energywatch but as you rightly say, they appear useless!"


Here's a bit emailed to me from a struggling single mum.
". . . they slapped me with threatening letters, sent me a county court judgement, which i defended, yet they sent me a statement saying they had provided me with gas when i lived in Herefordshire??? never lived anywhere else. I live in Stockport."


More screwed up billing and utter confusion in Customer Relations.
". . I took several readings of the numbers through the course of the day it became painfully apparent that BG were recording my night readings as my day readings and vice versa..... We believe BG owes me over £800.00 for electricity use I have not had.... I spoke to 8 different Customer Advisors and 3 Line Managers. Two weeks ago I spoke to a Line Manager who said they only owed me £290.00 and they would not send me corrected bills... "


£5,000 for two months gas. (31.10.2006)
". . . I got here something from my flatmate saying that British Gas would take me to court if I did not pay this £5000 in the next seven days. I called them, they stopped the whole thing and told me they would look into it and call me back. I hear nothing for three weeks, so I call them back. They tell me that I have nothing left to pay.

Then I hear one month later that the company are threatening to take me to court again if I do not pay this time £500. They utterly refused to admit their mistake this time so I am left to pay the money. I feel like an idiot for doing so as I only was supplied by them for two months and cannot possibly owe them so much, but you do not expect a supposedly reputable company to behave in this way. . . ."


Problems with their automate telephone billing system.
"I paid my remaining Electric bill through there automated telephone system, which I therefore presumed was the end of my dealings with them. However within a few weeks I started receiving threatening letters from BGas about non payment and how they were going to take me to court etc.
......
Eventually I sent them my bank details showing payment and then I heard nothing for a few weeks ...." etc. etc. etc.


Problems with British Gas Homecare Package
Check out this website http://www.webstermarketing.co.uk/bgas.htm
This guy is having problems with the British Gas Homecare package. It seems like British Gas abuse their customers in all aspects of their business.


If you'd like to email me, it's:
Peter Loud

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Pete Loud Websites
www.peteloud.co.uk/
since May 2002