YP Letters: An irritating encounter with British Gas

The heat is on British Gas over its customer service.

I WAS interested in G Cooper’s recent letter about the final account cheque for £1 from British Gas with the request to contact them if he wished to rejoin them at a later date.

Contacting them is a sore point with me. After switching to another supplier, I owed BG a small amount and, wishing to pay it off by cheque, I wanted the address to which to send it.

I phoned them. After listening to all the automatic list of opening information, I then had to go through the option list. When I eventually got through to a person, I asked for the address to which I could send the cheque. She couldn’t do that until I go through the security procedure. I said that I only wanted an address for the cheque. She couldn’t do that until after I provided the information. So I then had to answer about six questions about my name, address, account number etc.

Eventually I was given the address. About an hour later my phone rang and it was an automated message from British Gas asking for me to participate in a phone survey about my experience during my query. How irritating that they need all my personal details in order to just give me an address, yet they aren’t bothered about them when they choose to ring me and want me to complete their survey.