A frugal life is an easy life!

It cannot be right that one of the six big energy companies in the UK, British gas, after two years, still have not a single clue how statements or bills are calculated.
If their prices were not at record levels for millions of customers, it would be hilarious. How a company of any size can continue to trade as British gas are doing, successfully avoiding the laws of the land at every turn, is beyond me.

Todays events from British gas, fell to a whole new level of incompetance and at times, broke the law!

I received a new statement of our past 12 months gas usage, which also included the previous year.
According to British gas, we have used more gas over the last 12 months than we have in each of the past 3 years.
Only problem is.... we haven't!
We can't physically have and here's why:

• We have rendered the outside of the house, all sealed with two coats of sand and cement. We previously only had breeze block, so despite the wall insulation, heat was going out through the walls and the house was drafty. This is sealed.
• 9 months ago we installed a spanking new A rated boiler - replacing our almost 40 year old back boiler that was rated G in "energy efficiency" - as explained in other posts, the costs involved never recoup themselves, leaving us permanently out of pocket. I digress, to the energy saving trust and british gas, our A rated boiler should make anything upto £220 in savings on our gas usage over each year, over our old G rated back boiler.
• New thermostat has been fitted and TRV (thermostatic radiator valves) have been fitted to four of the 7 radiators.
• We have added a layer of loft insulation to the back of the house. Not the full recommended thickness, but better than none at all.
• The gas fire was disconnected and removed in December last year, so this appliance can no longer be used.
• Our gas meter has been checked and double checked by british gas' own "engineers" (I use that term loosely)
• Our new boiler and pipework have been checked by both an independant gas safe engineer and british gas' own qualified engineer - both reported no leaks, no drop in pressure, no faults.
• For the best part of the year, there has been one less person here, that's a lot of baths/hot water and heating needs no longer taking up any gas.

With this in mind, I contacted british gas with one simple question - how on earth can we have used MORE gas than last year?

The first call went through the automated messages then cut me off straight away.
The second call was answered by Tamir - for the fourth data protection check, Tamir wanted confirmation of my date of birth.
My date of birth is private and has no valid reason for being on record with british gas, or any other business for that matter. Tamir disagreed.
I asked how british gas got my date of birth when I do not give it out to any company, he replied, "Well you have obviously given it to us!"
I obviously haven't as unless it is a government body, it is and remains always, confidential information!
Without any warning, Tamir then put me on hold and let me listen to music for ten minutes. He came back on the line saying that completed data protection and what was my enquiry?
I asked how we could use more gas in the last year despite all the changes?
Tamir though it perfectly acceptable to put the phone down on me.

I rang back immediately, speaking to Tony in british gas' scottish call centre.
After outlining the above and asking my question, Tony went on to tell me how "the other gas companies send out a bill instead of a statement and demand payment immediately" - a complete lie, as all energy companies supplying prepayment energy are required by law to send out a statement.
"I don't know why we send out statements as they are never accurate, you may as well rip them up and ignore them!" - stunning in his negligence, how on earth can british gas have trained their staff to his ability?
After pointing out that not only did Tony agree with me after I outlined why I was questioning british gas' claims that we had used more gas, he specified that the statements were not telling me how many kWH of gas we had used, it was just an estimate!
It has on the statements, clear as day, the number of units kWH of gas that we had used for the last year in large print!
Tony then felt the need to insist, that british gas only recorded how much gas we used, how this was so much was down to myself and my investigations.
When I pointed out that british gas engineers had inspected pipework/boiler/meter/pressures, etc, and asked physically what else could I do, in his infinate wisdom stated...... "I don't know!"

As if this wasn't breathtaking enough, he then attempted to palm me off on their energy efficiency team to talk for an hour about loft insulation!

I then pointed out that he still hadn't answered my question of how I had used more gas, despite having less appliances/people to use it, the line went silent at his end. I waited for five minutes incase he had just muted me or put me on hold, after five minutes the line went dead.
Tony thought it was acceptable for british gas to put me on mute and then hang up on me AGAIN, without any warning!

I rang back immediately again, asking to speak to a manager and requested account notes be read back to myself. When the lady read them back, the last entry was dated March 2011.
Tamir and Tony hadn't logged my calls, so conveniently there would be no way to trace the recorded calls either!
The manager did inform me that my account was still open by someone called Tony.

** Lesson learned here - if ringing up with a complaint, ALWAYS get the advisor's name, extention number, call centre, time and date of call, BEFORE discussing the complaint, this way the call can be traced and the recordings listened to when, as is almost always the case, the call is terminated without warning by a large company staff member and call notes are not updated (which is a criminal offence!)

I was once again greeted with the same "I don't know!" answer to my questions and advised that someone else would be asked and a call back would be made, I won't hold my breathe.

Bear in mind that many millions of customers face a harsh winter with less disposable income to cover their bills this year, I would have expected a company the size of british gas to have at least a basic understanding of how they charge people.... it appears all too often that british gas haven't the first idea about customer service and don't care in the slightest for their customers. Why else would british gas make statements that they send out as confusing as possible? They are not even consistent with the dates each statement covers!

OFGEM and the information commissioner's office, why are you not taking any action whatsoever?
Is it acceptable for an energy company to treat customers with a complete lack of respect, record prices and in a deliberately confusing manner?
Is it time that the Fraud act was used to prosecute british gas?
Manipulating a contract by one party to the detriment or loss of another party, even by accident, can be deemed as fraud.
How are confusing and conflicting energy statements, to validate their record high prices, not causing detriment to the other party (ie, me) in this case?

UPDATED:
After waiting for another two days for the magical "call back" that was promised, no call back came. (More lies!)
I contacted British gas via their twitter feed with our customer number, to let them see for themselves how their recorded reality differs from the real world.

This afternoon I got a call back from Brian.
Brian had Tony's call notes open and told me that according to Tony's notes, "I went to check on last two years spend on gas meter after putting the customer on hold, when I returned the customer had hung up"
- Now what happened in real life - As Tony had agreed that all the circumstances would, as I said from the start, cut the gas usage in the house, he now suggested that it was "because british gas don't know about these changes that they don't reflect the amount of gas used on your statement,"
Whilst pointing this out, Tony put the call on mute, the line was silent. After holding on the line for five minutes the dead tone then indicated that the call had been terminated at the british gas side.
* If I was on hold, why no music playing?
* Why no offer for someone to go back and listen to the call recording?
This would show that the call was muted without any warning or statement from Tony the advisor, it would also reveal that the call notes were falsified (a criminal offence!)

Back to Brian, "I'm sorry if there has been a misunderstanding!"
- Excuse me? No misunderstanding at all, check the previous call notes, what has Tamir logged?
Nothing!
Tamir put the phone down on me and didn't even log the call... again, this illegal!

At no point was any formal complaints procedure even mentioned, nor was an offer to have a manager listen to the recorded call.
Anyone would think that after a certain period of time, British gas delete recorded calls?

Brian continued, saying that as regards gas usage, the statements that british gas send out are not accurate.
This begs the question, what is the point of sending out an inaccurate statement then?
The fact remains that the statements contain in black and white, the ACTUAL gas units used per kWH to two decimal places.
Brian didn't want to acknowledge this at all (I tried several times).

To quote Brian, "I would agree with Tony, just rip up the statements and ignore them, they will balance themselves out by next year!"

I am now once again awaiting yet another "call back" - to date british gas haven't even acknowledged a problem, all they have tried to do, unsuccessfully, is blame everything on inaccurate statements or accuse me of using their accurate recording of gas units used.

Points to note:

• As every british gas member of staff has acknowledged this year, with the change in circumstances and appliances made this year, less gas should be being used. Not one single british gas employee can understand why this is not reflected in the units of gas being used and reported in my statements - a british gas engineer who checked the meter/boiler/pressure of the system stated that excessive charges for gas are common place when dealing with british gas.
  To date no british gas employee has even attempted to explain why this is.
• British gas say that the ACTUAL units of gas used on the statements sent out are inaccurate, but when asked for the actual units of gas used from my account, not a single employee has been able to give me the accurate figure!
• British gas staff refer constantly to made up scenarios like Brian today, who stated, "If the statement said you had paid £1 million pounds for gas, you would obviously not have paid this amount!" to deflect customers from the fact that actual gas units used are accurate on the statements (to two decimal places) and they show an increase which then cannot be explained (as in our case)
• British gas staff will not acknowledge that call logs are being falsified on account notes, if they are recorded at all.
• British gas staff have not on one single occasion offered to have a manager listen to the recordings of any calls made, even when a time, date, advisor name is given to them.

British gas have made no attempts whatsoever, to address the facts in our case, the changes we have made would in anyone's world, result in LESS gas being used. The figures that British gas do produce, wether accurate or not, show that we have been using MORE units of gas.
British gas simply do not have any answers at all.
The response from British gas staff (from advisor to management levels) has been a complete disgrace!