Scottish Gas owner pays out £1.7m

Scottish Gas owner British Gas has paid out £1.73 million to customers over its handling of changes top repayment meter top -up arrangements after failing to inform some customers about a change of top-up provider and minimum top-up spend.

Watchdog Of gem, which raised the issues with the firm, said some customers may have gone off supply as a result, or suffered detriment through wasted journeys to shops where they could no longer top up. In addition, customers were unable to contact British Gas’ enquiry line the day of the change.

British Gas failed to notify around 270,000 prepayment customers about a change of top-up provider, from Paypoint to Pay zone–and a change in minimum top -up from £1 to £5 – which went live on 1 January 2020.

The communication was not sent out to some customers until after the change had already happened, leaving insufficient time to switch supplier if they found the new arrangements to be problematic.