SWITCH HUNT COSTS £2.7M

British Gas has been left with a near £2.7million bill for punishing customers who wanted to switch.

Regulator Ofgem found Britain’s biggest energy supplier gave wrong information to 2.5million customers on fixed-rate deals.

Industry rules allow customers on these tariffs to switch to another firm within 49 days of it coming to an end without being hit with exit fees.

But British Gas wrongly warned customers they would be landed with the charge, and imposed the fee on nearly 1,700 of them.

To make matters worse, Ofgem found that British Gas moved around 94,000 customers on to its costly standard variable tariff after they said they were going elsewhere.

Ofgem’s Anthony Pygram said: “British Gas failed its customers.”

Guy Anker, from Money Saving Expert. com, which triggered the Ofgem investigation, said: “Such behaviour totally undermines the concept of switching by falsely putting people off with the threat of false charges.”