As temperatures drop, it’s time for some gas-lighting. My ongoing drama series on utilities companies guarantees phantoms, impostors, and chilling suspense. Even death can’t save victims from the tentacles of the energy giants. Read, if you dare, the latest instalment in three acts.
Act I
On Valentine’s Day in Chorley, Lancashire, PS was informing British Gas of his mother’s death.
Over at its probate call centre in South Africa, the team kept him on hold for 45 minutes while they put PS’s name on the account as executor and confirmed a £253 credit. The post soon brought a cheery letter from British Gas, addressed to his late mother, thanking her for asking for a £253 refund and enclosing a cheque in her name, which PS was unable to cash as her bank accounts had been closed.
He was obliged to call South Africa again, and discovered that the death hadn’t been noted, his name hadn’t been added, and the whole process had to be started again.
“This was a 61-minute call, with 10 minutes’ hold time, and what appeared to be a party going on in the background,” he says.
He was told that the account was actually £450 in credit. No refund arrived so, again, he called and again was told that his name had not been registered and that no cheque could be issued. He logged a complaint, which British Gas closed without responding, and waited the required eight weeks to take his case to the ombudsman, which ordered British Gas to issue an accurate statement and pay £250 compensation.
In response, British Gas fired off five random bills declaring a debt varying between £241 and £464.
The first of the five was sent to the address of PS’s father, who had died in 2021, the rest to his mother’s empty home. Two arrived on the same day, both demanding payment of differing sums. Eventually, a cheque followed – payable to PS’s deceased mother. He was back where he’d started six months ago.
Enter the Observer. Within 23 hours, British Gas picked up the phone, waived what it decided was a debit of £300, promised correct bills, and reissued the £250 cheque which arrived all of five weeks later. After which it wrote to PS’s dead mother advising her of her options for upcoming price rises.
Act II
Down to Sheffield, where JT is having trouble with her identity. In February, three months after moving into her flat, she realised she was paying for her neighbour’s electricity consumption and her neighbour was paying hers. Somewhere along the line, probably when the block was built, their meters were transposed and neither they, nor their suppliers, were aware of it.
“Our vendors had wondered why, when they went on holiday, their consumption never went down,” she says. She informed Scottish Power, whose bills she had been paying, to no avail. The neighbour, who was signed up with Utility Warehouse, seemed unconcerned that they were footing her costs.
I entered the scene in June and began a four-month wrestling bout. Scottish Power thanked me for raising the case, then lapsed into a month of silence. It claimed it was waiting for crucial information from Utility Warehouse.
Utility Warehouse told me it hadn’t heard a word from Scottish Power and had no idea there was a problem. It arranged for a technician to visit the neighbour’s flat and crossed meters were confirmed.
By now it was August. It wasn’t until mid October that Scottish Power announced that JT’s meter was now correctly registered. The two companies swapped figures and JT was issued with a statement showing a £241 balance, plus £300 for the inconvenience.
Act III
Londoner LM is desperate for a bill. Any bill. She hasn’t heard a peep from her supplier, Rebel, since moving into her flat nearly a year ago. She’s made 30 calls. She’s begged, in vain, to pay an estimated sum. She’s tried to defect to another supplier, but no one will have her until she is fully paid up.
“It has been hard to budget, not knowing when a bill will eventually arrive,” she says. “I feel stuck in a toxic relationship.”
It’s refreshing to come upon a company which is not interested in money. But it turns out incompetence, rather than altruism, is responsible for LM’s free supply.
One email to Rebel’s press office succeeded where 30 calls failed. The company discovered it had forgotten to update the account after a new gas meter was installed at the property last December. It claims it corrected this and issued the long-awaited bill as soon as it received “the customer’s feedback”, by which it may mean as soon as it realised a headline was looming.
The bad news is it offered nothing beyond a flexible payment plan after hitting LM with 10 months of gas bills in one go; but ain’t it beautiful to know that it’s “committed to learning from this case and enhancing the reliability and responsiveness of our systems”! Email your.problems@observer.co.uk. Include an address and phone number. Submission and publication are subject to our terms and conditions
