Background
The Secretariat received a complaint from a member of the public who reported that she had attempted to obtain further information about Click Energy (an online gas/electricity account run by British Gas) by calling a premium rate number. She stated that she was immediately put on hold as ‘no operators were available’ and that she did not wish to pay 75p per minute to be kept on hold.

The Secretariat monitored the service and was kept on hold in excess of seven minutes. Having looked further into the matter it also appeared that the service was operating without the required permission and that the introductory message failed to supply the information required by the Code of Practice 10th Edition (amended July 2005) (‘the Code’).

Although it appeared unlikely that there was any wilful attempt to mislead or cause consumer harm, it remained the fact that the live service did not have permission and that it was keeping callers on hold for an unreasonable amount of time. It was on those grounds that the Secretariat approached three Committee members with regard to using the Emergency Procedure.

The Committee members agreed that whilst it was highly unlikely that British Gas were trying to cause its customers harm, it was operating a live service without permission from ICSTIS. The use of the Emergency Procedure was specifically relevant in this case due to the extensive delay experienced by consumers. It was therefore agreed by all three Committee members that access to the service should be removed under the Emergency Procedure.

Breaches of paragraphs 3.3.1, 5.4.1, 4.12 and 7.2.3 of the Code were raised by the Secretariat and an opportunity given to the service provider to respond. A response was received on 17 November 2006 from British Gas Trading. A decision on the breaches raised was made by the Adjudication Panel (‘the Panel’) on 30 November 2006.

Although it appeared unlikely that there was any wilful attempt to mislead or cause consumer harm, it remained the fact that the live service did not have permission and that it was keeping callers on hold for an unreasonable amount of time

Quote:


Do these people live in cloud cuckoo land or is it just the establishment thing of one large corporate always covering the back of another. :question

Anyone who studies the terms and conditions of Click Energy will soon realise the whole service is an utter ripoff designed to give the impression of a cheapest possible energy price only to hit you with premium rates for phone calls and which even fines you if you fail to submit a meter reading within a few days of them sending an email asking for one.

As my gas and electricity meters are in a locked basement room owned by the landlord I cannot get often access to it was an easy decision to instead go for the nice people at www.equipower.co.uk who do not have penalty charges for anything and after my pointing out the error of their ways over their 0845 number at director level soon replaced it with an 0800 number.

The people behind Click Energy are cynical scamsters and nothing else.  It is a headline cheap energy service which is not cheap because the low prices are funded by a plethora of ripoff charges.

The miely mouthed ICSTIS should have fined them £100,000 and not £5,000 for such a flagrant abuse of the premium rate system.  What is £5,000 - perhaps one day's annual bonus for their Chief Executive?

bbb_uk wrote on Jan 12^th, 2007 at 12:59pm:


Surely they would have gone to covert premium rate 0871 at 10p per minute unless ICSTIS surprise us later by actually imposing proper Premium Rate regulation?

I think you miss the point bbb_uk which is that in general call centres cost and don't make money for companies, even when using 084/7 numbers to defray part of the cost.  The only except would be premium rate number like the one just closed down at £45 per hour calling rate.

The point of the premium rate 75p per minute number was actually to avoid most people other than a diehard and crazed few calling altogether and so to force them to use email instead (which are in turn often not read or only responded to from India in meaningless terms).  Having 0870 numbers will mean far more calls being taken in total and so will cost British Gas extra money.