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

Modern (last 15-20 years) boilers have very few serviceable parts, if one part breaks or fails the gas valve is auto shut (legal requirement safety feature) if the boiler over pressures or burner pressure is over acceptable limits the gas valve auto shuts off...

These Legally required features have been in place long before that, even on instant heat water heaters.

Boilers from the last 5 years have far more control mechanisms than ever before, including cO2 monitoring external to the device than ever before.

As a Gas engineer (service and mainline supply) I would not pay for an annual service unless the boiler was 15+ years old or I lived in a very hard water area.
 
Talking of servicing, the place i bought had the Corgi plan/service in place, the one sibling sorting out the sale etc got them in to service the boiler. I'm pretty sure they came in and did nothing, not even a paper report of saying nothing. And yet the sibling managed to find receipts for lawnmowers and fireplace etc, so clearly not him at fault. The day i got the keys the pressure was low and the timings were all off. My uncle had a play with the unit as he's a plumber/gas guy, i don't recall him being overly positive about it.

Re the billing. It's why i went with more expensive (in my area) Octopus. Cba with messing about, as shown with other posts here.

Talking CS. Severntrent were ringing me again, this time to check the new meter they installed. They wanted to know why it was going from high to zero rating. I explained that it was fine, that was just me. They asked if they could come have a look, i said no, then they said they had to come have a look, i said fine, come at weekend as no one here any other time. They then said they don't have anyone in my area who works weekends, i said not to worry everything is fine. They still insisted, and have put me at the top of the list (?!), for weekend visits at the weekend.
Bizarre. A priority, until it isn't.
 
The_Arbiter said:
Talking CS. Severntrent were ringing me again, this time to check the new meter they installed. They wanted to know why it was going from high to zero rating. I explained that it was fine, that was just me. They asked if they could come have a look, i said no, then they said they had to come have a look, i said fine, come at weekend as no one here any other time. They then said they don't have anyone in my area who works weekends, i said not to worry everything is fine. They still insisted, and have put me at the top of the list (?!), for weekend visits at the weekend.
Bizarre. A priority, until it isn't.
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They probably really don't want to pay weekend rates for the relevant staff, but have to check if they think there is a chance the meter has been tampered with, and whilst they do have the power to force entry to check the meter they can't do so if the householder has offered reasonable access, so they push you to accept a time that's in their favour.
Hence when you stick to "I can only do weekends" they put you on a weekend visit that they claim they don't do.
 
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IIRC the forcing entry is only allowed under very specific circumstances (gas leak/refusal to allow entry/strong suspicion of tampering), they'd possibly get in trouble if they did it just because they didn't have a man in your area on the days you were available

It sounds really like they either don't want to pay weekend rates so use it as a default answer for anyone who says "I'm at work during the week", or something similar as IIRC most of the energy companies have contracts with one or more of the specialist companies who read the meters or the actual supply network* to do meter inspections so it it's unlikely it would be their own guy anyway but rather someone who will be doing it for a bunch of energy companies (especially with smaller suppliers).

*The people you call when there is a power cut, or you smell gas in the street etc.
 
Old thread is old, but I dunnae want tae make another.

Just found (during a power cut) that the British Gas "Emergency 24/7 Hotline" number is, in fact, entirely automated. Should you choose any of the "don't know" or "connect me to an operator" responses, you are greeted with "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Our opening time are..."

And this is their "emergency 24/7 hotline."

Just how awful a company is BG can never be over-stated.
 
FoxEye said:
you are greeted with "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Our opening time are..."
Click to expand...

Finding that with a lot of companies these days :( and as often as not the times you are calling are within the opening times quoted on the automated message. Was having that with one of our 24x7 help desks at work - long story short the person who was supposed to be covering the 6pm to 1am slot from home was rarely bothering to even log in.
 
FoxEye said:
Old thread is old, but I dunnae want tae make another.

Just found (during a power cut) that the British Gas "Emergency 24/7 Hotline" number is, in fact, entirely automated. Should you choose any of the "don't know" or "connect me to an operator" responses, you are greeted with "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Our opening time are..."

And this is their "emergency 24/7 hotline."

Just how awful a company is BG can never be over-stated.
Click to expand...
Depending on what you wanted to contact them over you might have been calling the wrong people.

IIRC for a powercut you'd want to contact your local electrical supply network as they're the ones who actually deal with the supply to your house, whilst the likes of BG are purely billing agents for it.
From memory the meter will often have the number for the supply operator on it (I think they tend to/used to slap a sticker on) otherwise it's worth keeping the number in your contacts or writing it on a note by the meter, this site will help if needed. [edit]just spotted that dialling 105 should get you the right operator regardless but i'm not sure if that's true for mobile phones[/edit]

However the emergency hotline should certainly have an operator 24/7 if it's billed as that.
 
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FoxEye said:
Old thread is old, but I dunnae want tae make another.

Just found (during a power cut) that the British Gas "Emergency 24/7 Hotline" number is, in fact, entirely automated. Should you choose any of the "don't know" or "connect me to an operator" responses, you are greeted with "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Our opening time are..."

And this is their "emergency 24/7 hotline."

Just how awful a company is BG can never be over-stated.
Click to expand...
Lol reminds me of that episode of Only Fools And Horses were Trigger takes Del and Denzel to his waste depot only to find it's shut. Del turns to Trigger and asks "You said this place was open 24 hours a day?!?"" Trigger replies"Yeah but not at night."
 
Werewolf said:
Depending on what you wanted to contact them over you might have been calling the wrong people.

IIRC for a powercut you'd want to contact your local electrical supply network as they're the ones who actually deal with the supply to your house, whilst the likes of BG are purely billing agents for it.
From memory the meter will often have the number for the supply operator on it (I think they tend to/used to slap a sticker on) otherwise it's worth keeping the number in your contacts or writing it on a note by the meter, this site will help if needed. [edit]just spotted that dialling 105 should get you the right operator regardless but i'm not sure if that's true for mobile phones[/edit]

However the emergency hotline should certainly have an operator 24/7 if it's billed as that.
Click to expand...
105 is what I ended up calling. Thankfully it does work from mobiles.
 
FoxEye said:
Old thread is old, but I dunnae want tae make another.

Just found (during a power cut) that the British Gas "Emergency 24/7 Hotline" number is, in fact, entirely automated. Should you choose any of the "don't know" or "connect me to an operator" responses, you are greeted with "Sorry, our offices are now closed. Our opening time are..."

And this is their "emergency 24/7 hotline."

Just how awful a company is BG can never be over-stated.
Click to expand...
They're atrocious, I got moved onto them through no choice of my own when PFP Energy collapsed. Was glad to be rid of them earlier this year when I switched to Octopus, they offered me £75 to stay but I was getting £50 from Octopus already so declined it. Worth it just to never have to deal with them again.
 
Has anyone been converted to the new system where they've removed bank transfer details from the bill?

We're on an A number customer number now and I've just spent an hour on the phone trying to get new bank transfer details.

At first we though it might be a scam letter as there were multiple other discrepancies, but it seems other people have been complaining

www.thesun.co.uk

British Gas makes ANOTHER payment method change - dubbed 'perverse'

BRITISH Gas has made another “perverse” change to the way customers pay energy bills, The Sun can reveal. It comes just weeks after the supplier quietly ditched giro slips from thousand…
www.thesun.co.uk www.thesun.co.uk

I've just been provided these details, but I can't find them online anywhere which seems super sus.

Sort Code: 60 00 01
Account Number: 48995541

I had them confirm it in an email which seems to be from an the official British Gas domain [email protected], but the whole interaction was so weird. It took the guy absolutely ages to type out a 4 sentence email.

Anyone else found this?
 
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