British Gas have owed me money for more than 4mths and its getting ridiculous

[libEL]

I changed suppliers in late september and was informed that I was owed £100 from BG, and I would receive a cheque within 28days.

A cheque arrived 2 weeks later but was made out to the wrong name. I phoned and explained and was told the cheque would be cancelled and re-issued in my name.

Another cheque arrived 4 weeks later, again made out to the wrong name. I phoned again (ok, this winds me up to as my touch tone phone decided it doesnt want to be touch tone so I have to hear the 'press 1 for... press 2 for...' about 5/6 times before it will connect me to anyone ) and they apologised and again cancel/reissue in correct name, blah, blah

Mid december and again, cheque arrives in wrong name. I rang (listened and got wound up with the press 1 for ... yet again) and was probably a little snottier than I neeeded to be but it had started to really piss me off by this point, for want of a better word. I explained I was owed £100, only to be told that it was in fact £159 - no one had pointed this out until then, nor were cheques made out for this amount?! - but many apologies on their part were made and another cheque was promised, within 28 days.

So monday coming will be 28 days, and no cheque. I'm starting to wonder what sort of action would have been taken against me should I have owed them money for this long?! I want to ring, have a rant and rave but am not sure I can listen to anymore of their crap

OK you don' want a cheque -insist they do a BACs transfer direct to your account & if they don't do it within 48 hours you will start adding 10% interest for every week they don't pay.

Ask to speak to a supervisor straight off- they'll try & fob you off but I find a sweet but firm no thanks this is a supervisor matter usually gets you up a level.

YANBU to be annoyed!!

Thanks BB - I asked the last time to speak to a supervisor, and the snotty cow told me they only have team leaders - I nearly died laughing at her!

I did speak to the 'team leader' lol, who was lovely and really thought this would have been cleared up by now. I mentined having it paid straight into my account but was told they couldnt do that

Will have to make yet another call

mentined?! = mentioned

Write to say that if you have not received a cheque payable to the correct name or a bacs transfer withing 10 days of the date of your letter you will be charging them interest on a daily basis of 1.5% above the Bank of England base rate. Further, that every time you need to contact them by phone or mail you will be charging them for your time at a rate of £x per hour (minimum time chargeable 15 minutes). Further, if you have not received full payment you will be lodging a claim in the small claims court. etc etc

A letter seems like a good idea!

Ooh, can I also charge them the £15 admin fee for sending the letter

They have owed me £400.00 for two years now they just fob you off and give you false promises .

Saying that I do hope you get it sorted

comfytoast THAT is ridiculous - how come its been so long?

You should write to them telling them that if they do not pay within 7 days, their debt will be passed to a debt collection agency.

HAve you contacted ENergywatch? Look up their website and if need be they can add pressure to get this resolved for you. Will need to send copies of bills, records of conversations if you have 'em etc. HTH

British gas are fucking ridiculous. (sorry!) absolute joke of a company. We changed from prepayment to bills not long after we moved into our house. Took them 6 months to acknowledge we had changed, every time we called they said the bill hadnt changed from prepay and to callback in 7-10 days. Finally 6 months later we got a letter saying we were in debt with the gas and we would have to pay £72 a month to pay it back (this was when i was just going on maternity leave and we had budgeted to pay £30 a month gas) So last week a BG twat comes to the door saying they want to read the prepay meter as we have topped up on it recently, theres not even a bloody hole to put a prepay card in anymore. Its a brand new meter. Its a case of the head doesnt know what the arse is doing. Everyone should leave them ASAP!!!!

You can report your case to energywatch see here. They will take it up for you and get it resolved.

We had a problem with BG not switching both our products over and getting over charged on one - spent 6 months trying to sort it out myself before reporting to energywatch - they resolved it in less than a fortnight.

Say that you will issue county court proceedings if you don't have the money, with interest by x date.

If you wish, you could precede this with a request for a full statement of what you are owed.

CAB should be able to help you with county court forms, but fwiw, I made a successful claim through county court for £7800, plus interest plus fees that I was owed by an estate agent; which I managed from county court through to high court (bailiffs) without any legal council. Both county court and high court were also helpful with the forms and legal jargon.

legal counsel. Doh.

Glad I've got a heads up about how to get back what I've overpaid once my supplier changes from BG.

Aaargh - couldn't agree more - I HATE BG!Today through the post I received a final notice letter from a debt collection agency working on behalf on BG saying I owed BG £52.57 and as I had ignored all previous correspondance I clearly didn't want to settle amicably and they were starting court proceedings!

The £52.57 was from when we first moved to this house (Feb 07) the previous owners were with BG we immediately swapped to Southern Electric but the £52.57 was for the 3 or so weeks in the meantime - I argued with them at the time £52 was a lot for 3wks gas but was 9mths pregnant and couldn't be bothered so just paid it.

So now 11 months later with no correspondance in between I get this shitty letter!
I have bank stats to prove I paid it but I can see this being another BG nightmare!

When I started this thread I expected everyone to say how wonderful BG were because until I changed companies I had nothing but praise for the way they dealt with anything I had needed to contact them about. I'm shocked that they owe money to so many people, and loolop thats outrageous that they have done that - I pay everything via a payment card and am useless at keeping reciepts in right place so I'd be in a mess if that was me (and £52 for 3wks cant possibly be right )

I phoned them yesterday and was told someone would call me back to sort it out, but no call Am off now to have a look at the energywatch site, have had enough of chasing them for money they owe me, especially when I have always paid money I owe them on time