Here’s an interesting story – British Gas getting hauled over the coals in the Daily Mirror for introducing a £5 late payment fee.
Actually, they seem to have handed the announcement pretty well, giving plenty of logical explanation. That said, it won’t worry me – I kicked them into touch at the weekend for other reasons and have switched both electricity and gas in our flat to EDF Energy.
The problem I have/ had with BG is that I realised they had over-charged me by some £290, i.e. that was the amount my combined accounts were in credit when I looked. So they had set the direct debit levels at way too high a level. When I asked them to issue a credit they said they could not do so until my next bill was paid to which my response was ‘the next bill won’t be anything like that amount, so can I have my money back?’. Their answer was ‘no’, so to cut a long story short they have been kicked into touch.
I use EDF in another property and they have always seemed very responsive, so the change decision was pretty easy. We’ll see how the changeover process develops over the next few weeks…..
