British Gas pays £1.1m to 12,000 customers for missed appointments

BRITISH Gas has paid out £ 1.1million to compensate customers for a double failure involving missed appointments.

Around 12,000 customers will get payouts because it first missed appointments – and then failed to pay compensation to make up for doing so.

The resulting payout has been put in place following negotiations with the industry regulator Ofgem.

The revelation is another blow to an industry already in the dock over poor service and sky-high bills.

Alex Neill of consumer group Which? welcomed the action against British Gas over missed appointments.

She said: ‘It’s right that customers are compensated for missed appointments, and this action should send a strong message to energy companies that they must provide a better level of customer service or be held to account.’ As part of the com- pensation package, British Gas has paid out £30 for an initial failed appointment and £30 for not paying customers compensation within the required ten days.

On top of that, Britain’s biggest energy supplier has paid an extra £30 to each affected customer, which are mainly small businesses.

British Gas reported the breach to Ofgem, which agreed to its redress package and is therefore not taking formal enforcement action.

Martin Crouch of Ofgem said: ‘ British Gas did the right thing in coming forward to report this issue, and has since improved its processes. It’s crucial that suppliers keep appointments on time, and make amends when things go wrong.’

Energy suppliers and their agents must meet minimum standards of customer service under Ofgem’s Guaranteed Standards, including when they visit premises. When they fall short, customers must be paid compensation. British Gas said: ‘We discovered the error last year. We have apologised to customers, given them all compensation and an additional goodwill payment. In April we introduced new system checks to ensure this can’t happen again.’

The problems at British Gas provide further evidence that energy giants are failing to deliver the level of service customers would expect alongside high tariffs.

Last year, the Competition & Markets Authority found millions of households were paying a total of £1.7billion a year more than they should because they were on high standard variable rate tariffs.

Previously firms have been fined for billing errors, poor customer service and misselling deals with bogus savings claims.

British Gas, Npower and E.ON are under investigation over claims staff threatened to impose unjustified exit fees on customers planning to switch to a cheaper rival.