Sleepless nights and dozens of bills a day: Customers' anger at new British Gas billing system

One customer told ITV News' Consumer Editor Chris Choi she has been living in fear of debt collectors after receiving incorrect bills to her home address

Words by Deputy Content Editor Liz Little

An ITV News investigation has uncovered extreme cases of customer service failures by British Gas. One customer received dozens of bills a day, more than 300 over a couple of months.

Another had their credit score destroyed over erroneous billing issues. We’ve found that that when these customers complained to British Gas service agents, they were advised that their problems were affected by the move of their accounts onto a new billing system.

The UK’s largest energy supplier, British Gas, is nearing completion of transferring its 7.5 million customers onto the New Energy Platform. The firm says its old system reached functional capacity and the migration to the new version will “improve customer service”.

British Gas claims this has been mostly seamless, but ITV News has been approached by dozens of customers who say the process has caused confusion and serious billing problems.

Ann Adams is a former British Gas customer who told us she has been living in fear of debt collectors after she began receiving incorrect bills for over 200 different accounts, all addressed to her home.

“I actually couldn’t sleep because I thought, what am I going to do if there’s a knock at the door?”, she said.

On the day of our filming with her, dozens more bills arrived at Ann’s address. They amounted to tens of thousands of pounds.

Ann’s son-in-law, Shaun Stott has spent months trying to contact British Gas and resolve the accounts error.

He told ITV News the hardest thing “was getting anyone to listen” - but when he finally did get a customer agent on the phone, they blamed the issue on the process of moving to the new billing system, which they call “migration”.

In a phone call he recorded, a customer agent says to Shaun Stott, “to be honest it sounds like it’s just been part of the migration issue that we have been struggling with".

British Gas told ITV News the call handler was wrong to blame migration, saying Ann Adam’s account has not even switched to the new billing system. However, some of the 212 accounts which have been incorrectly billed to Ann’s address may have moved to it.

Ann is still receiving incorrect bills to her home address, even though she left British Gas in April.

British Gas customer Alison Greenough was also told by a one of the company’s customer agents that her account issues were affected by migration.

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Alison was preparing to remortgage her family home in January when she discovered her excellent credit score had been demolished by problems with a British Gas direct debit.

She contacted the firm daily to resolve the issue, but due to delays in hearing back from customer service, she missed the chance to secure a better mortgage rate. Alison had to accept a loan on a far higher repayments, which she says has cost her more than £7,000.

An email exchange with a British Gas employee eventually told Alison Greenough that a billing error on her old account “should’ve left your credit file when the account moved over to our new system, but unfortunately it was readded."

The result was devastating for Alison and her family, who have had to make serious financial sacrifices to keep their home.

“I really question the ability of British Gas and the team that they’ve got to carry out these system migrations,” she told us.

“British Gas are a multi-billion-pound organisation, you would expect that they would have the appropriate checks and balances in place to understand if they haven’t closed accounts properly.”

British Gas told ITV News the migration did not cause Alison’s issue – blaming human error.

While researching British Gas customer service experiences, ITV news was contacted by a former call handler on the condition of anonymity. They claimed that there are issues with the migration process and called on the Energy Ombudsman to investigate.

Describing their time at British Gas, the former call handler said: “A lot of times you will receive calls from customers who are saying that before the migration they were in credit, after the migration they had owed thousands and thousands of pounds to the business.

"The system does have its benefits, but the concern here is not the new system. That is not a concern to customers or to anyone else. The concern is how it's been rolled out."

The former British Gas call centre worker added: “I would really urge the ombudsman to take a thorough examination of some of the issues being presented.”

The Energy Ombudsman, an independent watchdog for the energy sector, told ITV News they have “seen complaints that appear to be related to this process, including consumers having difficulty accessing their online accounts, accounts being billed incorrectly and problems with some smart meters not being billed on the correct tariff”.

The Ombudsman added: “British Gas has been open with us about the steps it is taking to address any issues it has experienced during the migration and has confirmed that it has put solutions in place to resolve and fix these issues.”

ITV News contacted British Gas about our investigation. They responded: “When we make mistakes, we hold our hands up, we make it right and we learn from them because we care about our service and we care about our customers.

"In these unconnected cases of Ms Adams and Ms Greenough, we made mistakes and we're sorry for that. These are isolated cases, but we'll learn from it to continue to improve our customer service.

"We appreciate this has been frustrating and we’re sorry we’ve let those customers down and grateful to ITV for bringing these mistakes to our attention.”

Analysis by ITV News' Consumer Editor Chris Choi

We’ve heard from dozens of angry British Gas customers who have sent us their stories of poor customer service. British Gas insists that the switch of accounts to its new billing system has been largely seamless and will bring improved service. What’s clear from our investigation is that there are customers who have seen none of the promised improvements. Worse still, some have been told the process of migration to the new billing system has been a factor in their issues. We’ve seen evidence of confusion, as British Gas customer service staff refer to issues with the process - but their comments are later contradicted by the company. There is little wonder that these customers are left puzzled by what’s going on.British Gas has claimed that the new billing platform has improved customer satisfaction. Yet information on its website links to a Citizens Advice comparison which ranks British Gas as 14th in a list of 16 suppliers - receiving only 2.4 stars out of a possible 5.

Many customers we’ve spoken to would be surprised that the UK’s biggest energy supplier sees any basis for pride in this result.British Gas says it has lots of evidence that its customer service is getting better, including getting “Best Overall Improvement” award from Uswitch and official analysis showing an increase in satisfaction from the industry watchdog, Ofgem.

But it’s clear they won’t be getting any awards from the customers we’ve spoken to for our report.

The full report by Consumer Editor Chris Choi will air on September 4 as part of ITV Evening News at 6:30pm.

If you have been experiencing issues with your Energy Provider, we want to hear your story. Get in touch with the team on: consumerteam@itv.com

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