British Gas chaos leaves thousands without heat
http://money.guardian.co.uk/utilitie...728603,00.html
Saturday March 11, 2006
The Guardian
Thousands of British Gas customers have been left without heating or hot water for days - and in some cases weeks - during the coldest part of winter because the company's HomeCare insurance operation is in chaos.
A whistleblower who works for British Gas has revealed that staff were told customers without central heating "no longer constituted a priority", even though they have paid around £200 a year for emergency call-out insurance.
More than 3.4 million people have such policies promising "expert boiler care", but thousands have endured long waits in the cold for engineers who often fail to arrive or don't have the correct parts.
The whistleblower contacted the Guardian after reading our report on how it took British Gas three months and seven appointments to fix a minor problem in an oven in Surrey.
He says call centre staff deal with similar instances every day, and every "third or fourth call is currently from someone complaining about the poor service they have received".
He reveals that appointments to fix boilers are frequently cancelled without informing the customer. Around Christmas it was taking the company six days to fix some boilers - longer if new parts were required. While the system was unable to cope, he says the company continued to press staff to sell policies to new customers.
British Gas admitted it has experienced problems with its HomeCare operation, but denied several of the whistleblower's claims.