These days the various faceless corporations across Blighty (once National Institutions now owned by the institutionalised Old Tory/New Labour voters who recognised a quick buck when they saw it and didn't give a shit about socialism) have turned the prefix 'British' (once a guarantee of dependability) into something synonymous with 'Ripping Off Bastards."
For example: 'Ripping Off Bastards Telecom' are still taking money from my bank account for a pricing error they made themselves last year. And 'Ripping Off Bastards Gas' have particularly got up my nose recently.
After moving into our cottage just over a year ago we decided to have meters fitted, never ones to run up debts. Our gas provider at the time was Norweb or somebody who fitted the meters quickly and painlessly and that was that.
Then one afternoon some bald headed git from British Gas turned up on my doorstep under the guise of 'checking meters'. He convinced me that we could save some money if we changed company because, unlike Norweb, British Gas didn't have a standing charge on their meter system.
The bastard lied.
There was, and still is, a standing charge. Not only that but last week our meter went arse over tit. It swallowed the units we had remaining on it reducing us to £0.00 credit and forcing us to refill the card at the Spar. Unfortunately the valve inside the meter was apparently jammed, the cause of the balls up in the first place, so the money we'd put on the card wasn't being accepted. Ten quid down we called out the engineer who fitted us with a new meter and took our old card...credit and all...away.
Armed with the new card and still ten pounds down we went back to the Spar...stocked up at great expense, and returned home to refill the meter...only to have it tell us that we now owed British gas umpteen quid, which it promptly removed from the card leaving us with fuck all.
Obviously by this point I was a little annoyed. The fucking thieving bastards owed us money, not the other way round. So I phoned up their help line...only to be greeted, after punching numerous buttons to reach the relevant section, with the message, "All of our assistants are busy at the moment. Your call is important to us which is why we're cutting you off."
For the last six hours I have been trying to get through to the nice people at British Gas to register my complaint. As yet nobody's bothered to answer the so called 24 hr help-line.
So here's my piece of advice for any potential British Gas consumers...
BRITISH GAS ARE SHIT! THEY'RE IGNORANT! THEY'RE LIARS! THEY'RE EXPENSIVE! THEIR PHONELINES ARE CRAP! THEY WILL ROB YOU BLIND AND THEN ACCUSE YOU OF OWING OF THEM MONEY! WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T CHOOSE BRITISH GAS FOR YOUR UTILITIES! AND NEXT TIME YOU SEE A BRITISH GAS SALESPERSON IN THE STREET KICK THEM REPEATEDLY IN THE BOLLOCKS UNTIL THEY GET A PROPER JOB!
Amen.
