I had a row with the gas board yesterday. Mainly because they are greedy, money grabbing, profiteering, obfuscating, unfriendly bunch of gits who deserve every ounce of their poor reputation.
I have paid my gas bill by direct debit for several years. I also used to work for a bank and spent a considerable amount of my time handling customers’ direct debits and standing orders, so I am very familiar with the banking Direct Debit Code of Practice. And every year, just after the winter when the heating has been on and we have used more than the usual amount of gas, they try it on and hike up the direct debit by an extortionate amount.
I only found this out because I submitted my own meter reading and then a couple of days later went onto the web to look at my latest bill. When I printed it off, on the back was a small paragraph with a pronouncement that as from my next instalment, my payment would be going up from £50 a month to £77. That is an eye watering 64.9% increase, which is frankly taking the piss.
There was no customer service offered at all. No e-mail saying “Mrs White, you owe us this much, would you like to pay us and leave your direct debit alone?”, or something similar. Just a peremptory paragraph on the back of a bill which I might not have seen until I had started forking out the new amount, gone overdrawn and in a panic investigated why I was £27 worse off this month! They have done the bare minimum that legislation dictates, and nothing more. And there was no transparency whatsoever, nothing on the bill to say which tariff I was paying and whether it was the best one they could offer me or anything.
It is only lack of time which stops me scanning the web and using price comparison web sites to regularly change suppliers and get the best possible deal. I know that large savings can be had if you are prepared to invest a little time and effort in doing this, as with everything else such as insurance and travel costs, but at the moment life is too short. So I will have to put up with the gas board for now and just accept that each year I will have to have the same argument with them. And each year I will get more and more bad tempered until in a fit of pique, I will leave them for a year until I can come back and probably negotiate something considerably cheaper than I have at the moment.
Eventually I paid them the outstanding amount on a credit card, negotiated a revised direct debit increase to £58 and swapped my supply onto a different tariff which is 4% cheaper (whoopee!) but only because I threatened to take the account off direct debit and change suppliers. I shouldn’t have to do that, it’s appalling that organisations like British Gas treat loyal customers in that way when they are making such huge profits and could afford to invest a little more in customer care. Of course I know it’s not the fault of the drone I harangued on the phone, but he had an obnoxious manner as well, righteous little sod.
I better not meet him in the street, or his bosses!
