British Gas are Arseholes, Switching Suppliers and New Boilers
This is going to be rather a dull post, I’m afraid. All about money and gas suppliers. But it kinda made me angry, hence why I’m blogging about it. If you don’t like it, spam my forum or something.
This morning, the postman came and dropped a few letters through the box. None for me (no further Premium Bond wins, early birthday cards, or train tickets for London this weekend), but one from my mum, from British Gas.
She has this “Price Protection” Plan – quite simply, should the price go up, then she sticks with the old price. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and the phone salesman said things like “loyal customer” and “free” and “bonus”. Of course, there was one thing the salesman forgot to mention – can you guess what it is readers?
From the letter:-
“You may have heard recently that British Gas has dropped it’s prices recently by 17%. As you are part of our price protection scheme, this does not apply to yourselves.
My mum was livid, I read the letter, and I was livid. It is shocking the way some companies treat loyal customers (and mum is loyal – 27 years she’s been with British Gas!), when I worked in the call centre, the company I was with actually stopped taking on new customers – because they got in such a mess with the current ones. They managed to turn it around. I know Han will bitchslap me as she’s had problems with them but o2 gave me £25 off a new pay as you go phone for staying with them.
I’ve told her however that you’ve basically got them over a barrel at the moment. You can either ask for the new price, or cancel your order. It’s that simple. There’s plenty of people out there who will gladly take your money off you, even if it’s a little less.
In happier news, tomorrow we’re getting a new boiler for the house. I have been having cold baths for about 3 months now, and soon I will be having warm ones again! Yay!
Comments: 24 Comments
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. 
Premium bond draws are made 1st of every month – if you win £1million they come to your house with a novelty cheque!!
3rd working day of the month you can cheque online to see if you’ve won!
As for rapey rapey british gas… surely they stated about the fixed price plan that their prices could drop as well as go up? But yeah.. 17% is impressive!
They must of made a mint out of people! Sneaky bastards!!
NO NO NO NO NO you DONT do those things ever! Gas is set to drop hugely over the next ten years! I should know – my dads in the business!
What does O2 have to do with british gas?!
Wow they must make a fortune from people who, at the height of the ‘omg omg gas prices are rising’ panic took what seemed the sensible option of protecting their money using the price protection. That is just really shitty and they must have known they would be dropping their prices when they started advertising their ‘plan’.
Cheeky bastards.
That was a pretty sneaky move by the British Gas kids. Surely you should just have the fixed rate for rising gas prices, and then be entitled to the same reductions as everyone else.
grrrr… how do they sleep at night?
However…you are probably still paying less than the normal tariff as BG increased prices by over 30% last year,which as you were on a fixed tarrif, you weren’t subject to.
Guy: Why couldn’t my 50 notes come in a big novelty cheque!?!?! THEY’RE ACE!!! (and totally legal, too
)
Han: Nothing, just needed to find a way to provide you with your daily link
Debbie & Ryan: I quite agree. The worst thing is (my mum mentioned this) that if they kept schtum about it, they probably would have gotten away with it!
And how do they sleep at night? To quote McBain: On a big pile of money, surrounded by a lot of beautiful women.
yeah Ifell for the BG scam but hey how else can they pay for shiny vans laptops mobile phones monogamed uniforms etc. I also notice on their web site they now clone their engineers in less than 12 months ,but hey who would your gran trust some guy in a fairly old van wearing jeans & T-shirt (with 20 years exerience) or the newly qualified gas trainee with nvq(read as nearly very qualified)gained in under a year but dressed in a smart corperate uniform getting out of shiny van,get real people its us who pays otherwise how could they offer their cut price deals ,remember if you pay peanuts what do you get.read their training blurb at http://www.house.co.uk
They are making a fortune, I have just had a quote for a new boiler £2000 more than my local gas man. If you dont know of anyone people are being drawn into their outragous prices.
British gas Customer Service is none existant.7 emails reqstg a bill following a reading 22/23 Feb have failed to enlist even 1 reply. i shall now be changing over my Gas supply, that is if I ever get a Bill.
Got letter from BG todday wanting to change my meter maybe the are not getting enough allready maybe the new route to the loot is going to be overclocking,or maybe the dont trust competition on all fronts (retd gas service eng)
British Gas offers hundreds of pounds off if you replace your boiler. As BG never advertises the price of boilers how does one know that one is getting a good deal from BG. Will they sell you a boiler if you are going to have it installed by someone other than BG?
If you have an older boiler and a BG service contract, BG can simply tell you that they have no spares and drive you to have a replacement boiler.I have a 25 year old cast iron Glowworm boiler which had a new heat exchanger and burner 5 years ago. That is as good as having a heart and lung transplant for a human. I told the service engineer that the pilot ignitor appeared to be faulty. He flicked the switch a few times while the pilot flame was still one. He then looked at his list of spares on the computer and declared that it was not available. He then said he could arrange for someone to give me a new boiler quotation. BG can conveniently get rid of all the spares for older boilers and customers that their boiler needs to be replaced when there is a minor problem.
Hi
Thanks for this. Dull or not, this sort of blog is exactly what consumers need when we’re being bombarded by phoneys. I had an appointment with a BG engineer tomorrow and I’ve cancelled it after reading this and a few other BG horror blogs on Times Online. I’m going with an independent contractor instead.
Keep up the good work!
In all fairness, boiler parts do become unavailible after 20 years and plus old boilers are very unefficinet compared to new condensing models. Also just because Joe bloggs plumbing and heating has 20 years experience installing it doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing when it comes to repairs, most old school plumbers are right bodgers i should know i’ve worked with some.
No one diputes the fact that spares become unavailable or boilers become inefficient , but at what point of ineficiency do boilers become unviable,also what is ineficienct putting CO into the atmosphere or dilute sulphuric acid into the earth, sorry but I don’t buy the ineficecy scam .Is the appliance dangerous ,and by that I dont mean does a piece of paper classify it as dangerous , can it be proven
Also does working with a few poor tradesmen allow one to dis most, as was said to me last week by BG trainee and I quote”the guy I’m woking with takes to much time”This is what worries me about the calbre of the BG training scheme.
Fair point about CO emissions it has been blown out of proportion, But what deems an appliance dangerous is carbon monoxide spilling back into the room, this can be in the way of lack of ventilation/ bad flueing or a leaking appliance it can be easily be proven both by detectors and spillage tests. Also the training given by BG is the best in its class, with great funding and resources, trainees are allocated a number of engineers through out the years training on district, Sounds like that trainee was unlucky enough to be put with a slow one.
Coulnot agree more about dangers but in my experience there has been times when clearly an insatallation has looked dangerous but upon aplying the current testing criteria the appliance has pased with flying colours.and also in my experience condensing technology has been around for at least 25 years to my knowlege and probably longer than that and I think the trainee was questioning thoroughness as opposed to speed. and I still fail to see how engineers can qualify in one year or less what initialy took the people who train them a considerable longer period. As for the BG Service are you telling me that the many complaints on the net could be solved by employing considerably more engineers , but there are not many vacancies.I have actualy sat in exams were people have crammed for exams and when stood infront of appliances are lost.Also I have worked with many plumbers gasfitters ,oil&gas techs who may not have known what they were about but they were invariably better at other aspects than myself,evryone who has passed theire ACS in whatever field is as qualified as the next person to repair/service .There are a lot Of Joe Blogg’s who are ex BG employees!!!!!
RE: BG training, trainees are college based for nearly 30 weeks and the rest on patch training in that year rather than a city college only offer 1 day a week ‘day relase’ over a year at nvq level so really the training at BG is alot more squeezed into a year rather than college day release.
OK so after all that what special qualifications over and above to any other trainee / apprentice do they get,ACS*** !!! read the internet BG aare letting down their customers on all fronts,by waving cash inscentives etc ,then not delivering ,remember the TV AD where BG technician was repairing pcb with soldering iron very impressive but also to my knowledge illegal .Lets face it the people at the top make the corporate decisions the rest just follow as lambs ,whereas with smalle companies you can get to the top.The damage has been done so accept the consequences,or are you the sole property of BG.after all they are only another company like the rest,but since privatisation you now are accountable to the share holder not the customer.BG are however not on their own people are staring to get wise and fight back welcome to the power of the internet.
Is there anybody out there who think British Gas were actually protecting the customer when they introduced price protection? They new gas prices were going to drop, because the price to them dropped months before they passed it on, the price fix was there way of ensuring that the price for thousands of customers stayed up. The heating insurance is the same, they will charge to inspect the system you want covering, probably try to get work out of the visit, ie powerflushing at £600, then will cover your system when they have made as sure as possible that it won’t break down, then, when it does break down, you are covered for the first part and labour, but not for any other parts broken in the same breakdown. read the t’s and c’s.
Blimey doesn’t Bob get all worked up! lol
To be fair to British Gas, who I’ve no dealings with so can’t comment on from a personal level, price fix means price fix. I figured out while watching the advert for it on the TV that it’d mean the customer wouldn’t get any discounts if they dropped their prices.. it seemed pretty logical to me.
Perhaps your Mum (or you) should have read the the small print.
I thought everyone knew that’s where the companies get ya!
I took out a homecare package with BG immediately after moving house. They told me that the previous owner had this and would I like to continue? Well I later found this to be lie. The previous owners always used local repairers. BG are supposed to make an initial inspection within 28 days. It actually took them over 6 months to arrive. I did not worry. After all, I thought the boiler had been regularly serviced by them! When BG eventually turned up, they declared the boiler dangerous and unable to repair. There was a small leak between two metal parts. Parts no longer available was the story. A local CORGI REG repair man sorted it all out in 45minutes with a bit of fibreglass rope & fire cement.
Needless to say I have cancelled homecare. I am pressing them for a refund of money paid. I am changing gas supplier.
Anyone who continues to use this crowd of incompetent liars should seek help.
Just got a quote for a new condensing boiler from BG. How about £3,900!
This price does include a new pump (£50?) and a valve in the airing cupboard.
The scam starts with your price reductions, 1/ £400 off from BG 2/ £300 off from warmzone. To help you decide the nice BG man offers a free washing machine or Fridge Freezer! (you could’nt make it up) also, he says I could have the £100 he gets!.
From all of this you have to be looking at low life dodgy selling. Look into these new boilers, the Guardian did a piece that showed they were unreliable and expensive to maintain, the word is that the German makes are more reliable. For me, I will hold onto the old boiler. Beware BG
John