The great British Gas price cut is here! You know, the one before they put all the prices back up, so enjoy it while it lasts. Yes, BG have today cut the cost of household gas by an average of seven per cent; customers will apparently save an average £55 a year as a result of the move, assuming they don’t hike prices up again in the next twelve months.

Still, after a month of bleak winter weather, any cut in energy prices is nothing to be sniffed at. BG are also claiming
that households using pre-payment meters will save more because the company has removed the price difference between payment methods.

It’s not all good news, however, but then it so rarely is. Yesterday, regulators Ofgem warned that bills could hit nearly £2,000 a year for the average household by 2016, because of gas shortages. But that’s a long way away and we’ll probably be a huge war before then, so don’t worry too much. They didn’t say that bit.

The regulators were also bandying about some enormous numbers in an effort to scare somebody; as a country we apparently need to spend £200 billion – nearly £8,000 for every household in the country – to improve the energy infrastructure over the next 10 years to ensure consumers can still receive supplies. Who’ll pay for that, I wonder…

It’s day two of the second round of Bitterwallet’s Worst Company In Britain 2009 marathon, and today sees a veritable Battle Of Britain as British Gas and BT go toe to toe in a bid to hoover up your votes of hate.

Which of them have bothered you the most over the past year? Tell us, and the shabbier of the lousy pair will make it through to the quarter finals of the competition that is directly responsible for The X Factor being axed before this weekend’s grand final owing to lack of interest.

As usual, you’ve got until midnight tonight to decide who you hate the most. While you’re pondering that, find out who made it through between Halifax Bank Of Scotland and eBay, check out all of the results so far or print out this small, free poster, which will give you an easy guide to who’s made it through to round two.

Some gas, yesterday

People, it’s almost 2010 and anything is possible. We now know this for a FACT because British Gas are offering their customers the opportunity to pay their bills according to the amount of energy that they’ve actually USED instead of a wacky estimate that someone somewhere has made up. Can you imagine that?

It’s all possible with the help of a new service called EnergySmart which incorporates the use of a little monitor gizmo that plugs into your meter. This will allow you to read your meter, analyse your bills, monitor your CO2 something-or-other and rate your farts by using a system incorporating the names of British Prime Ministers and the lengths of their terms in office to signify the fart-strength. For example, a weak, odourless fart would be a Jim Callahan while a rasping lingerer would be a Margaret Thatcher.

British Gas say: “Instead of issuing you with a bill we will contact you by email or text and ask you to submit a reading from the normal meter. Estimated bills were seen as a source of frustration by customers as they didn’t accurately reflect the energy they had used.” Well knock us down with a damp insole, you don’t say?

Sadly, if you’re a vulnerable customer who would stand to benefit most from more accurate bills, you’re screwed. EnergySmart won’t be available to pre-pay customers or those who do not have internet access. Still, never mind, it all looks good from a PR point of view and might help British Gas out in the next round of the Worst Company In Britain 2009 fandango.

Time for another showdown between two of Britain’s biggest corporate shits as our Worst Company In Britain competition rolls steadily on.

We’ve got a double bill for you over the weekend, and as we know some of you spend your weekends flying kites and making love instead of reading this site, we’ll be keeping the polls open until noon on Monday.

First up is gig merchants See Tickets against energy pipers British Gas. Let’s be honest, we’re not offering any odds on the outcome of this one if the comments in your nominations are anything to go by…

Call back tomorrow for another head-to-head of the morally-dead.

We’re probably the only folk in the country who bother to click on ad banners. After all, gems like SugarDaddyForMe don’t find themselves, now do they? So when we saw a banner from British Gas proclaiming CHEAPER ELECTRICITY PRICES ACROSS BRITAIN, the thought of saving our hard earn pennies was too much to resist.

What you’ll find is a map of our fair isle to click on; highlighting each brings up a very simple bar graph, which proves that British Gas is, on average, the cheapest supplier of electricity no matter where you live:

It’s a powerful message, especially since it’s all too obvious with a single click of the mouse. By comparison to the British Gas prices, the competitors are absurdly expensive, and never once cheaper. There’s some small print provided for the comparisons:

*Bills based on average annual single rate consumption of 3,300 kWh, paying by Monthly Direct Debit, including VAT. Standard prices as at 7th May 2009

So what happens if you plugging the same consumption figure into calculators for other suppliers? Not surprisingly, the results are as different as chalk and cheese, as unrelated as Chichester and Copenhagen:

According to nPower, they can provide the same amount of electricity to a Norwich postcode for £67 less than the figure British Gas says they can. Meanwhile over at Scottish Power:

An instant quote from their website gives an estimated cost of £405, £10 than the claim by British Gas.

While it’s possible there’s been a seismic shift in tariffs in the past four weeks, we’re not aware of any. So there are two points to this, both concerning the presentation of the information. British Gas provide a simplistic and visual way of demonstrating a price difference. Beyond the annual consumption and some basic housekeeping, there’s no other detail that might make a significant difference, such as which tariffs were compared.

Also the prices quoted by British Gas are averages – that means you can easily see the average price of electricity in your region, but that the actual cost to you might miss that number by a country mile. The ease with which the information is displayed leads you to believe that in all circumstances, wherever you live, British Gas is cheaper, and that might be so. Yet some basic comparisons, as deliberately quick and simple to emulate the process by which British Gas displays the information, suggests somebody’s figures are wide off the mark.

The point, which is already etched into the bark of common sense (along with “never punch a bear in the mouth” and “illicit affairs are always best roughly five seconds before climax”) is that if you want to know what you can save on your fuel bill, don’t ask the suppliers. There are plenty of comparison sites that’ll do the maths for you.

Reaction to British Gas’s May 7 announcement that it was cutting electricity costs by a further 10% was greeted by apathy at best, and scathing critique at worst.

The main reason that the price cut isn’t being enthusiastically embraced is that last year British Gas raised prices by 42%. Also, consumer groups say that the cuts do not reflect the level of cuts in wholesale electricity prices, which have been much greater than 10%.

While British Gas is the last of the “Big Six” electricity suppliers to cut rates, there is already speculation that a new round of price cuts among the competition could begin anew. Right now, British Gas is the cheapest of the electricity suppliers for those who use monthly direct debit payment.

So what is the typical consumer to do? Go ahead and switch, then wait for another round of price cuts and switch again? Perhaps the real solution, the one that makes the most sense is to do what you can right now to lower your monthly bill. For example, signing up for an online account and paying automatically by direct debit will reduce your costs immediately.

If you haven’t compared plans online, go to UKpower.co.uk, a comparison/switching site to find the latest rates and payment plans. And regardless of which you choose, being smart about electricity use can save you money and save natural resources.

[UK Power]

Well here’s a refreshing change that’ll have scores of Bitterwallet readers across the land cheering into their afternoon tea; a woman has been praised by a judge for taking British Gas to court for bad customer service. Can you hear the roar? Can you?

A property investor has been told by the Court of Justice she can sue British Gas for £10,000, for harassing her over money she didn’t owe. Which? reports that Lisa Ferguson left British Gas as a customer in 2006, but continued to receive bills and threatening letters for the next five months. Despite letters, phone calls and assurances that the matter would be sorted, it wasn’t and the threats continued.

British Gas attempted to blame everything on an IT error, but Lord Justice Jacob was having none of it, saying: “They should instead start taking responsibility for the running of their company in a competent, honest and ethical manner.”

“Real people are responsible for programming and entering material into the computer. Moreover, the threats and demands were to be read by a real person, not by a computer. A real person is likely to suffer real anxiety and distress if threatened in the way which Ms Ferguson was.”

And as if your opinion of Lord Judge Justice Jacob couldn’t get any higher, he had this to say of Ferguson: “It is one of the glories of this country that every now and then one of its citizens is prepared to take a stand against the big battalions of government or industry. Such a person is Lisa Ferguson.”

British Gas are sticking to their story in the upcoming court case, stating that significant system changes caused the problematic billing. That may be, but unless Ferguson was speaking to a call centre based in the future, she’d have been speaking to real people, not mindless automatons, that could have done something about it.

[Which?]

Some good news to wrap up your Wednesday! No, not really. Just more misery about how the utility companies are ripping the arse clean out your wallet and getting away with it.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has produced a report, because that’s what multi-national development agencies do best. This one in particular highlights that aside from Turkey, energy prices are rising faster in the UK than anywhere else in the western world. But you’d sort of guessed that, hadn’t you?

Yes, although Turkey and ourselves may be sat in the dark wrapped in blankets waiting for Summer, the Telegraph reports that everyone else is dressed in only their pants eating ice cream. Ireland’s bills are over three per cent lower than last year, the French are paying nearly seven per cent less, while the US are paying over a fifth less for electric and gas.

Despite the fact wholesale energy prices have dropped, only the ladies and gentleman of British Gas have cut their prices, and that was after yanking them up by a third last Summer. Don’t take of off the mittens just yet, kids.

A phrase involving cart and horse arrangment is probably appropriate to describe it; from February 19th – a month before Spring starts and we all start using our central heating less, British Gas is to cut gas prices by 10 per cent.

British Gas claim the move will benefit more than 7.5 million homes and cut £84 from the average annual gas bill, with average bills falling to below £800 a year. 10 per cent is a modest cut, but it hardly makes up for the company ramping up bills by a third last summer.

So why couldn’t British Gas have cut the prices sooner, such has before that nasty blast of Siberian weather when we all had to wear five jumpers and have the boiler chugging all day long? In their own words:

British Gas buys its gas supplies in advance to make sure it always has enough for its customers. As a result, much of the gas people are using this winter was bought in summer 2008 when wholesale gas prices were at record high levels – almost 90 per cent higher than the winter before. British Gas worked to keep its prices as competitive as possible and did not pass on this cost in full to its customers.

Expect other energy suppliers to follow suit, and the inevitable merry-go-round of being begged to swap suppliers and tariffs and blah.

A couple of weeks ago, we told you about how British Gas were charging you too much for your energy supply. It’s not their fault, obviously, it’s yours for not noticing stuff, being psychic or working at British Gas. In a nutshell:

- British Gas increased the cost of the standard tariff, Click Energy 5, by up to 42%

- On the same day, British Gas introduced a new, cheaper, online tariff, Click Energy 6

- British Gas didn’t tell customers about the new tariff, or transfer them to it

Sneaky, especially if you’re a low income family or pensioner without computer access; not only can you not change to the tariff but there’s no way you’d ever be aware of its existence. We talked to a British Gas representative and confirmed that changing to the new tariff was as simple as applying online or a quick phonecall to customer services.

Well, sort of. Just because you’ve asked to switch tariffs,that doesn’t mean they’ll get around to doing it anytime soon, as MarkV told us: (more…)

Whether you swapped your utility accounts to British Gas just a month ago, or you’re a loyal and long-standing customer, you could be paying up to £200 too much for your gas and electric. Didn’t you hear? There’s a cheaper supplier available! Their name? British Gas. Oh.

If you’re a British Gas customer, take a moment to read this.

On September 30th, British Gas sent an email to customers explaining that those on the Click Energy 5 tariff would see gas prices rise by a staggering 42% and electricity by 21%. No big deal; every supplier’s prices have gone up in recent months, right?

Here’s the rub. On the same day, British Gas launched a new online tariff called Click Energy 6, which boasts discounts on duel fuel accounts of up to £200. That’s great news, except if you’re currently on Click Energy 5, you will not be automatically transferred to the new tariff – you’ll have to apply online or make a call to customer services.

So why didn’t you know about the new tariff? Seems British Gas didn’t tell you. A call to the press office confirmed that customers were sent an email regarding increases to the Click Energy 5 tariff. We’ve read it – there’s no mention of the new tariff at all.

The press office couldn’t shed any light on the matter. In fact a spokesperson stated they “aren’t made aware of the contents of customer communications.” Ok, well maybe British Gas sent a letter with details about the new tariff? Nobody in the HUKD forums received it if they did, nor has anybody who contacted Bitterwallet about the matter. “We might have sent a letter”, said the press office spokesperson, “but we tend to send most communications by email now.” The spokesperson also confirmed that any letter would “probably” have the same information within it as the email, i.e. none whatsoever.

The only conclusion we can reach is that British Gas has not told customers about the new tariff. Not only does this mean that tens of thousands of customers don’t know they need to change tariffs, but customers without internet access could never see a new tariff is available. The press office did explain that the tariff is visible on price comparison sites, but why would you look for something you don’t know exists? And how would you find it without a PC?

If you’ve received an email or letter about the new Click Energy 6 tariff, please let us know and we’ll be happy to put the record straight. Otherwise, check in with your neighbours, elderly relations or anyyone who doesn’t have access to the internet; if they’re a British Gas customer, they need to switch tariffs (online or by calling customer services) or switch suppliers.

Thanks to csiman

Click to see the email sent to customers (more…)