A dad-of-six who was left without gas for several days said his home was -2C, as his youngest daughter was rushed to hospital due to the cold conditions.
Scott Gavin, of Changford Road in Kirkby said his gas meter suddenly broke on December 11 leaving him unable to top up and without gas. With vulnerable and poorly children at home, Scott immediately called Utility Warehouse.
He said he was on hold for two hours before being told an engineer would be out within four hours, but when no-one turned up, he had to go through the process again. He told the ECHO he was told the call-out had been cancelled, but he had not been notified.
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During this time, his youngest daughter Megan, who has down's syndrome, was rushed to hospital as she "deteriorated". After spending nine hours in A&E, the family were able to return home, but the situation was still not sorted.
Scott said: "The second time we called we got put through to the same woman as the first time, she was abrupt and rude and told us we should've called earlier but they should've notified us.
"We were told to wait for another three to four hours otherwise we will be billed, but again, there was no engineer. We couldn't contact out of hours because it wasn't past 11pm but they told us it hadn't even been booked in.
"By 11pm on the Monday we had to take our four-year-old to hospital because she went really down hill, she's susceptible to the cold weather. I was ill myself so I had to sit in my car from 11pm until 8.30am Tuesday because I didn't want to be there sneezing and coughing. Luckily, it was nothing severe.
"We got home and one of my friends came around to sort the metre for free but we still haven't heard anything from the company so I will be taking it further and complaining. It's not acceptable."
Scott said he was forced to go out and spend £90 on three electric heaters in a bid to keep his home warm after his living room was -2C. Paying over £240 a week on energy bills, the concerned dad said this should "not be allowed to happen".
He added: "The baby only had an operation a month ago, she shouldn't have to deal with this as well. They said they'd be out in four hours and no-one bothered to turn up or let us know.
"I can't believe the government are allowing this to happen. I was off for two weeks ill and had to limit my business, I work with kids and go into schools with exotic animals, but these bills are having an impact.
"I'm not struggling yet but I can see how families are really struggling. It's unbelievable. If my mate hadn't come round we would still be without now.
"I have exotic animals and luckily enough, they have their own heating outside the house because otherwise, they would have been dead and I'd have lost my business. But they just don't care.
"Half of us were ill, we needed the heating on. I can't believe how we got through the cold as a kid, we need the heating on now. My 15-year-old is autistic and he ended up with a chest infection as well, he was asking if we had no money, he couldn't understand why the gas wasn't on.
"The leccy has been sucked up as well because of the electric heaters."
Scott said he received a call on Wednesday afternoon from Utility Warehouse telling him his meter had been broken for a while and he had been paying too much gas and electric. He added in December so far, he has already paid over £1,000.
A Utility Warehouse spokesperson said: “We strive to provide excellent customer service and so would like to apologise to Mr Gavin for the issues he and he family have experienced on this occasion.
“Our records show the customer’s meter ran out of emergency credit over the weekend and this triggered a safety mechanism which meant the meter didn’t work until Mr Gavin topped it up. We can confirm there is no issue with the meter now that it has credit.
“We recognise, however, that we could have helped resolve the issue sooner and we acknowledge that our service levels fell short of our usual high standards.
“As a gesture of goodwill, we have topped up Mr Gavin’s meter and are sending him a Christmas hamper which we hope he will be able to enjoy over the festive period.”
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