15 June 2007
British Gas customers who live in the ScottishPower and ScottishPower/Manweb regions will receive a small decrease in their energy bills after the supplier announced regional cuts yesterday.
The new tariffs will see British Gas just edge its rivals in the dual fuel stakes as it reclaims its mantle of cheapest energy supplier from ScottishPower. Commentators have criticised the price cut for being far too small, with British Gas' cuts only beating ScottishPower's rates by 0.49% or 1.50 for the average bill.
Geoff Slaughter, Energy Product Manager for the price comparison and switching website uSwitch.com, comments: "This move could be viewed with a degree of cynicism. British Gas seems to be making pricing reductions to support marketing campaigns rather than offering the best price they possibly can to all of their customers."
ScottishPower had been among the last of the big six to reduce its bill costs after a price war was initially kicked off by British Gas earlier this year. ScottishPower's reductions, which come in force today, will see a decrease of 16.5% for gas and up to 5.5% for electricity.
While British Gas may well please some customers with its recent bill reductions, over 45,000 of them are likely to be extremely annoyed at the fact that due to a computer error, their Direct Debits were mistakenly cancelled.
A letter sent out to these customers from British Gas' Customer Services Director Lois Hedgpeth read: "You may have noticed that over the past few months we have not collected your monthly Direct Debit payments and more recently you may have received a reminder notice for these missing payments.
"I apologise for this mistake, which was caused by a system error. Our specialist team is working now to resolve this. We appreciate your patience in this matter and I will be in touch again soon."
This colossal mistake comes mere months after British Gas pledged to sort out its substandard billing process after the uproar caused by its failure to notify 400,000 customers last August that their Direct Debits would be increasing.