New british gas tv advert

[BG hater]

According to the two customer services managers who have dealt with countless letters and emails this has been dealt with by senior management although I expect this has not happened. The final engineer that came round from them was really good and apologetic, however the original installer was incompetent and turned up a day late and did not install my boiler to the correct standards and then my system was allowed to become contaminated by the Homecare team who were supposed to maintain it. The Homecare engineer who turned up to fix the system after the builders who had pointed out faults argued with me about the flushing of the system, tried to sell me a magatech filter which should have been fitted as part of my contract and did not fully correct the gas pipework to the manufactures specs. I had been a BG customer for many years as I am nearly fifty and do not expect to be treated in this manner or expect to be lied to. I will be interested to see what gas safe say as they said that the last letter indicates that British gas have admitted negligent work with regard to the gas regs. I doubt that they will do much as I hope the faults have been put right however I am worried that others in my area will receive similar treatment . They have asked to see my boiler. I guess it depends to an extent on how good an area manager is and in my area I believe he is incompetent and allows this type of behaviour to take place. He could have turned up straight away after the complaint was made but chose not to do that and he could have arranged for the filter to be fitted straight away or even done it himself but he decided to hold my builders up for an extra day. The excuse given for the late arrival of the british gas engineer the next day was that they had all been to a pension meeting and that was why nobody was available.
These are some of the reasons I will never let a British Gas engineer near my system. As for the customer services dept, I am not surprised they were fined record amounts by the regulators and I feel it is my duty to publicise the type of treatment the public may get if they use British gas based on my experience. Maybe they have good managers that stop staff being purely motivated by bonuses they can earn in other areas but the more I look into this the less I like British gas. I have let things go in the past and accepted their apologies such as the time they sent a really young man round as part of my Homecare agreement and he shorted out the main circuit board on my boiler and blew it up which meant a day without heating. I worked on a technical job when I was was that age and blew up a video recorder at work but then again I was not dealing with something as dangerous as gas and going out representing a company in people's houses.

 

[petercj]

How much would it take to settle it now to your satisfaction?

What would the payment be for?

 

[BG hater]

I feel I should be able to recover my costs which I have incurred as a result of them not delivering what they promised. In my letters to british gas I have listed the things they have done which has caused me to lose money. I have claimed for two out of three workdays for the builder as the time taken to complete my kitchen installation was slowed down by the fact that on one day there was some body inthe kitchen powerflushing , the next day things were held up up by home care not fixing the problems and then a third day where they were fixing the magna filter and redoing pipework. I then had to take extra time off work to extend my time with the builders and have wasted loads of time writing and phoning these idiots. I wish to claim back the cost of the original piping that was quoted for and which was not used. They have finally agreed to pay for the powerflush which was needed as the system was filthy and I doubt that any inhibitor had been put in the system at the time they did not fit the filter. I feel that my boiler has probably suffered extra wear as a result of the filter not being fitted. They have finally agreed to pay for the electrics which I have paid for twice. I have also had Homecare cover and am furious that they ignored the fact that my pipes were undersized, the electrics were wrong and that they did not check the state of the water in the system. I have asked for a refund of £500 towards the Homecare costs especially as I have now seen an independent engineer service my boiler recently and seen the care that he took and also the fairly involved process he went through which is completely different to the type of service giving by the Homecare engineers which seems to involve an emissions test and taking the cover off the boiler. Mind you one of the reasons this independent guy took a while is that he said the boiler was still under gassed and he was also worried about the the flow and return ( I think that is what he said) temperatures and was critical of the way my boiler had been left by british gas. They have indicated they will only give me a couple of hundred pound for my time off work and under british law they don't have to compensate me for that but I feel I should claim about £600 which is what the extra amount the builder charged due to the hold ups caused by british gas. It could have all been sorted out in a matter of of hours if british gas had responded straight away when the gas fitter spoke to them but they chose to do nothing for 24 hours and then sent a man who was incompetent. I think they should pay for the magatech filter which they did not fit for over 5 years but they won't do that. Also perhaps they could contribute to my gas bill as the boiler was under efficient due to poor gas flow and also because they did not maintain the system and it was full of muck. That will probably be £2000 pounds so I will see what they say when I point out they have lied about my pipes in the most recent letter and that I can prove it. I doubt they care about me as I will never use them again. This is not about the money to me. I am not hard up by any means, but that does not mean I should accept being ripped of over my gas installation or accept being pushed around by cocky little area supervisor or idiots from customer services. I have spent a lot of money over the years with british gas because I believed they would deliver a good quality service superior to the one man band type of operator but I now realise I have made a mistake by trusting them and I wish I had visited a forum like this when I was thinking about changing my boiler as this would have given me a different perspective. People think of British gas because of the advertising and name and because they think they are getting a good guarantee. A punter like me believes these things and will make a choice based on things like an impressive website that talks about FSA regulation. I would never knowingly risk my family or friends safety but cutting costs on something like gas work but feel that I made a mistake in this case trusting British gas.

 

[Dannypipe]

Dear me. I'm not reading all that. I thought I banged on a bit!!

 

[petercj]

Consequential loss claims are difficult, but there's nothing to stop you putting it into the Small Claims Court, which won't cost you a lot, and you can do most of the paperwork online.

To be honest with you, I think your claim is a bit weak, but it's quite an appalling story of what can happen when things go off track when using BG, and it's not the kind of thing they would like to see reported on in the local paper - even if you lost the case.

I think there's a very good chance that they will settle with you as soon as they realise you mean business - maybe within the final 14 days notice of Court proceedings, or when the papers are served.

There is an institutional arrogance about BG staff that I've never met in any other organisation - god knows what they pump their egos up with.

They seem so steeped in their own complacency that they lack the wit or the good sense to sort out their own failings, which clearly cost them a fortune in call-backs, refunds, customer service time, etc. If they got things right first time, most of the time, they could increase their profits or price jobs more competitively.

I get the impression that this is a battle you need to get done and dusted so that the consequential wear and tear on your nervous system and blood pressure is brought to an end?

There is guidance on the Court website re completion of papers, and putting evidence together. You will need to pull out the salient and key parts of the story, and write them up as a Statement of Facts.

The sooner you get it into Court, the nearer you will be to getting some closure on it one way or another.

It's all in a days work for BG, and you certainly won't be the last to discover that BG Centrica is very different from British Gas of yester-year.

Never should have been privatised imo, but can't turn the clock back on that.

 

[BG hater]

Thanks for your reply. I will wait and see if gas safe say anything about it as they were quite helpful on the phone and seemed to think that the letter showed that they admitted negligence. I will then take them to court but by wetting to them so many times at least I have proof that they are not telling the truth but if I had gone to court early last year I would not have had this and would not have been prepared for what they could say. They do really **** me off and I have seen several cases in the press when customers services just ignore the customer or just attempt to fob them off for over a year. They suffer fom being a big corporation with poor management who employ people who are not competent to deal with claims.

 

[Rickster123]

I think there were issues but not 2 grand of issues! Maybe it is just all about money in the end.

 

[Andy Allen]

if the likes of b/c and e-on, ect are so crap, what would you suggest the average joe do to cover there heating systems..

ive had a bit of a run in with b/c and was offered the same service with e-on for alot cheaper...

begining to wonder if any of them are any good now...lol

 

[petercj]

Once the OP gets the Court papers in, there should be an opportunity to mediate (if it hasn't been scrapped due to cuts), it's done by a three-way link up on the telephone.

If it was me I'd probably settle for a grand, but then I've not had all the angst that the OP has.

 

[BG hater]

In future I will go with the small independent contractor who services the boiler properly and put some money aside for if I have to replace the boiler in the future. I will not rely on something like Homecare .