‘Astonishing and appalling’: British Gas battles customer anger over energy bill struggles
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Complaints ratio for Britain’s biggest energy supplier is almost three times higher than its rival Octopus Energy. “It has been both astonishing and appalling in equal measure,” says Jonathan Hattersley, 66, from Cambridgeshire. He is one of thousands of British Gas customers left frustrated by Britain’s biggest energy supplier.
The gas and electricity supplier helped its parent company, Centrica, to a profit of £1bn for the first half of the year. But while the FTSE 100 company handed out millions of pounds in dividends, Hattersley lodged one of the 400,000 complaints British Gas received in 2024, on top of the 1m it recorded the year before.
Hattersley inherited the supplier after moving into a small rented flat in Ramsey in late 2023. But months after contacting British Gas to set up his account he had yet to receive a bill. “Being an honest chap, I contacted them and got a whacking great bill, including from a period when I did not even live here,” he says.
Hattersley was presented with a £1,341.83 energy bill covering a little over seven months in his one-bedroom flat, about double the normal amount for such a property. The supplier’s customer service staff insisted it was correct, Hattersley says. “There are many emails I have going back and forth, with astonishing claims of my energy usage in my tiny flat,” he said.
