| Complaints about British Gas | ||||||||
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COPY OF LETTER SENT by Alma Hayes: Customer Service, Dear Sir or Madam: I am writing on behalf of my mother regarding concerns as to how British Gas provides service to elderly customers. My mother who is a 91 year old pensioner on a fixed income, and until December 2003 was living alone, has been a customer of British Gas for at least 15 years. For the last twelve years her account was paid by direct debit. The quarterly bills over these twelve years ranged from £20 to just over £100. On 28th November 2003 when my mother was no longer able to care for herself and needed to move from her home I called British Gas to close the account. I was told the final bill could only be sent out after the final meter reading was called in on the last day of occupancy. I provided a forwarding address for my mother in Hertfordshire for British Gas to send the bill. As I do not live in England, I had a neighbour read the meter and phone in the reading. This was done approximately 12th December 2003. When I returned to England on 12th January 2004, I discovered that a final bill had not been received at the forwarding address I had given to British Gas. I phoned the customer service line. I was told that £2,437.06 had been taken from my mother's bank account on 23rd December 2003. When I questioned where the final bill had been posted to, I was told an address in Merseyside, not the address I had given in Hertfordshire. I was also told the reading had been given as 0296. A written record I have from the neighbour shows the meter reading was called in as 5374. As can be imagined, I was stunned to find that this much money had been removed from my mother's bank account. This is the equivalent of more than 24 weeks of income for my mother, a person who lives on £99 a week and who had never had a gas bill in twelve years for more than £130 for a quarterly period! The amount removed from my mother's bank account to pay the final bill was roughly equivalent to the total amount she had paid for her gas bills for the last six years. I requested an official meter reading, which I was told could not be done for 4 days. I called back later that day when I discovered the written record of the reading that had been performed by the neighbour. I spoke to "Chris" who told me based on that reading a refund of £2,409.39 was due. I requested it be returned to my mother's bank account immediately, but was told this was not possible and it would take 21 days to send a refund cheque to her. I asked for the cheque to be mailed to my mother at the same forwarding address I had given for the final bill. As I was leaving England again on 17th January 2004, I felt some urgency to resolve the gas bill error and have the money returned to my mother's account as soon as possible. On 16th January I called the customer service line again and spoke to "David" to see if the official meter reading had been completed and to again ask if the money could be re-deposited into my mother's bank account. I was informed a cheque had been mailed on Tuesday to the address in Hertfordshire. On 25th January I spoke to my friend in Hertfordshire who was to receive the cheque for my mother. She stated that she still had not received the cheque (apparently posted to her 12 days previously). On 26th January I rang British Gas from my home in California, and spoke to "Barry" who told me the cheque was issued in the wrong name and had been cancelled and it would take another two or three weeks to reissue. To wait another two or three weeks would now make it almost two months to rectify an error I believe began with someone at British Gas taking down the wrong information, or entering the wrong data into the computer when my mother's account was closed. (I believe my mother's account may have been confused with someone's account in Merseyside as that was the forwarding address I was informed was on her account.) I asked Barry to contact a supervisor and see if the money could be returned to my mother's bank account. He was extremely helpful and eventually was able to arrange for this to occur. I realize that errors are made in meter readings, but it deeply concerns me that there are no apparent safeguards in place at British Gas to prevent the equivalent of almost 6 months of income for my mother being removed from her bank account without someone seeing that this might be incorrect! Surely a computer programme can be instigated that throws out a red flag for a human being to check an account when a bill goes from around £80 for a quarter to £2,437 for a two month period? There seems to have been attitude of "it is not my fault, it's the computer" in the staff I spoke with. There seemed no concern that an elderly person on a fixed income had half of the balance of her cheque account removed and it took weeks and numerous phone calls to rectify. How was the money so easily removed from her bank account, yet, until I refused to get off the phone and demanded to speak with a supervisor, it could not be returned to the same account? British Gas needs to look at its policies of dealing with billing errors. It also needs to incorporate a computer programme that flags accounts of elderly customers so, when an error such as this occurs, an employee can follow up and investigate. My mother is lucky that she has someone to be vigilant and oversee her bills and bank account; many elderly people of her age do not. It leaves me wondering how many other 90 year old customers have either overpaid their bills or had their gas cut off when they have not paid some exorbitant amount that was billed. Sincerely, |