Guardian: “British Gas has been forced to pay out £1m to customers after mis-selling energy deals to thousands of shoppers in Sainsbury’s stores nationwide and the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush, London.”
“The penalty came on the day npower, another of the big six energy suppliers, admitted it was still dealing with a backlog of late bills affecting 345,000 accounts and had received 120,000 new complaints in June alone.
The continuing problems come a week after the industry was referred to the Competition and Markets Authority for an 18-month investigation into possible profiteering and a collapse in customer confidence.
British Gas employees, who were selling gas and electricity tariffs directly to shoppers, overstated the savings that householders could make by switching to the plans. In some cases moving to the British Gas tariff would actually result in a bigger gas bill.
The sales were made through Sainsbury’s Energy, a tie-up between the supermarket and British Gas, in stores and by British Gas directly at the Westfield shopping centre between February 2011 and March 2013.
British Gas has already paid £566,000 direct compensation to more than 4,300 affected customers and made an additional £434,000 towards its vulnerable customers via the British Gas Energy Trust. Those affected should already have received a typical £130 payment.
….British Gas became aware of the issue in April 2013 and reported it to regulator Ofgem. Ofgem said it has accepted the compensation package proposed by British Gas and it would not formally investigate because of the company’s prompt action.”
Future Today
