British Gas - a new height for customer non-service. Just venting.

Angilion

Angilion

Angilion

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I had a boiler service visit booked for tomorrow because I am off work this week.

I got a voicemail today telling me that it had been cancelled because British Gas don't have enough engineers to handle the workload, that a new appointment had been made for a random day in January and giving me a phone number to ring if that didn't work for me.

I work on demand 7 days a week, with no fixed days off. So there's no way I can know whether or not I'll be working on some random day a couple of months away unless I have booked a week off.

I phoned the number. I got 4 minutes of automated messages and repeated requirements to talk to a voice interpretation program that didn't work very well. I eventually wrestled my way through that to be told that they might answer my call if I stayed on hold for 30 minutes. By this time I was stubbornly insistent on doing this, so I stayed on hold. 6 minutes later British Gas just hung up on me. Not so much as a "hahaha sucker, go to hell!".

I'm paying for this. Paying every month. I'm now wondering why.
 
It's times like this (and only times like this) that I actually log into social media platforms. Bad publicity on Twitter is more likely to get you a call back than sitting on hold for hours on end.

Works even better if you can spin it as "Young family going to freeze over winter due to ineptitude of <company name>"
 
We've noticed a major drop in service from them too. During March/April we had to call them several times and they repeatedly cancelled appointments and sent people rount without the part they previously promised to bring. Their excuse was COVID at the time but I can't imagine that's the reason now.
 
paradigm said:
It's times like this (and only times like this) that I actually log into social media platforms. Bad publicity on Twitter is more likely to get you a call back than sitting on hold for hours on end.

Works even better if you can spin it as "Young family going to freeze over winter due to ineptitude of <company name>"
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Increasingly, companies use twitter, etc to tell customers about things but delete your tweet if you actually send them one. Look at some major companies and it's all one-way traffic now.
 
paradigm said:
It's times like this (and only times like this) that I actually log into social media platforms. Bad publicity on Twitter is more likely to get you a call back than sitting on hold for hours on end.

Works even better if you can spin it as "Young family going to freeze over winter due to ineptitude of <company name>"
Click to expand...

I'd rather have the clap than social media. The clap is curable. Also, I wouldn't lie to spin something. That's for dodgy politicians and tabloid rags.
 
Hades said:
We've noticed a major drop in service from them too. During March/April we had to call them several times and they repeatedly cancelled appointments and sent people rount without the part they previously promised to bring. Their excuse was COVID at the time but I can't imagine that's the reason now.
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They didn't bother with an excuse, but they did talk a lot about COVID so maybe they're just assuming that by now any mention of COVID serves as an excuse for everything.

I think I'm going to "speak" in the only effective way I can - find another company that provides boiler insurance and servicing. British Gas can't be the only one.
 
They're all crap, the directors all shuffle between these companies constantly so nothing ever changes. Same with Thames Water, EON, EDF, all of them. They know you have no choice but to use their services so they don't give a toss.

Thames actually came through recently, our water meter stopped sending them readings over two years ago. We keep getting letters saying that they're going to deduct £2 off our account and then another letter a few days later saying that they're not and that they'll get back to me, their system is obviously just stuck in a loop. I could probably rebuild half the Amazon with the amount of paper they wasted on us. As we're moving soon I wanted to get on top of it so emailed their CEO who put me in touch with someone in the claims department. They said it was an error on their end that that we won't be paying for any water for the last two years, and until the meter is replaced, so probably about 2047 knowing them.
 
200sols said:
Boiler cover is a con anyway. Better just paying for service and repairs from a local tradesperson as and when you need it.
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Not necessarily convinced on that. We probably called British Gas around 10 times in a year, all of which were covered for our flat monthly fee. When they eventually coulnd't fix the boiler (too old) they offered something like 30% off the new one. Admittedly the new boiler was overpriced. But it was still cheaper than simply buying one elsewhere.
 
touch said:
If it's venting you should call their emergency gas leak number :p
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I once called the emergency gas leak number and was initially knocked back because I wasn't calling from my home (this was before mobiles became omnipresent). I explained that the first thing I did when I could smell gas was to leave the building because there was a risk. I tried not to sound like a parent telling a toddler something stunningly obvious to anyone who isn't a toddler. They then suggested that an engineer might be round in a couple of hours. That's when I hung up and called the fire brigade (who arrived in a few minutes and made the place safe).
 
Angilion said:
I had a boiler service visit booked for tomorrow because I am off work this week.
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So get a local gas engineer. And write to the MD of British Gas, Sarwijt Sambhi, to complain about the poor service. A letter, not an email. First class, recorded delivery if you must. Don't bother with Registered.
 
They cancelled my boiler check at the last minute last year and offered a date in February. I called up to complain as I wanted the boiler checked before winter and after waiting ages didn't get anywhere. Tried online chat and they said they'd review and get back to me - the best they could offer was late January. Another chat eventually got me early November, a few weeks after my original appointment...

Just use a local registered plumber now, and he's a lot cheaper.
 
200sols said:
Boiler cover is a con anyway. Better just paying for service and repairs from a local tradesperson as and when you need it.
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Except your local tradesman will likely charge ~£75-100 for a service and anyone with any sense gets their boiler services every year, at which point a service contract starts to make sense, as it only takes one additional call out every few years to make up that difference (and then some).

One of my neighbours ended up going with BG cover after her normal guy failed to fix her boiler something like 4 times, BG did a guaranteed fix/service for about £100 with a 12 month warranty on the work, IIRC the parts they used had a trade price in the region of £300 (a small leak had damaged the main board and damaged several other bits, so they replaced the leaky part and everything else that was damaged).
 
Angilion said:
I had a boiler service visit booked for tomorrow because I am off work this week.

I got a voicemail today telling me that it had been cancelled because British Gas don't have enough engineers to handle the workload, that a new appointment had been made for a random day in January and giving me a phone number to ring if that didn't work for me.

I work on demand 7 days a week, with no fixed days off. So there's no way I can know whether or not I'll be working on some random day a couple of months away unless I have booked a week off.

I phoned the number. I got 4 minutes of automated messages and repeated requirements to talk to a voice interpretation program that didn't work very well. I eventually wrestled my way through that to be told that they might answer my call if I stayed on hold for 30 minutes. By this time I was stubbornly insistent on doing this, so I stayed on hold. 6 minutes later British Gas just hung up on me. Not so much as a "hahaha sucker, go to hell!".

I'm paying for this. Paying every month. I'm now wondering why.
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That's pretty bad from them :(

We had a Hive install booked back in March (after their system didn't initially set up an appointment in February), that got cancelled due to covid, when the guy finally got rebooked for a few weeks ago he mentioned when he got here that he was glad to see we'd already got the hub installed as it meant he wasn't rushing, from memory he was saying that they were basically dealing with a massive backlog because they'd cancelled all but urgent/repairs during the lockdown, and are or were at the time down a bunch of engineers because of them either being off due to possible exposure to covid, or were unable to do home visits because they were shielding or living with people who were shielding.

IIRC BG got rid of a lot of engineers over the last few years to "streamline" the operation and I'm going to hazard a guess that having got rid of the excess to requirements staff, it's now biting them in the backside when they've got a number of staff who are off ill/can't work.
The service has gotten worse over the last 3-4 years in general unfortunately with generally longer waits when it's a non urgent repair, or service. We used to get the get the service at roughly the same time every year, it's slipped quite a bit over the last few years.
 
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