In April this year I decided to switch from British Gas to Flow Energy. What followed after that is seriously nothing short than a comedy of errors. This weekend I decided to write to the MD of Flow Energy to see if he has a sense of humour.
Judging by the lack of reply I am guessing…probably not!
Here is what I wrote to him. This might not have resolved my problems but this might just give you a reason to smile!
PS: If you don’t know what Fawlty Towers is then check this link out. It is hilarious and I recommend strongly that you watch its episodes. Most of them are available on YouTube.
Letter begins here
Dear Mr Stiff,
My name is Nikhil Gupta (Nik Gupta) and I requested both my gas and electricity to be switched over to Flow Energy sometime in April this year. My supplier at that point was (and for gas still is) British Gas. However what ensued after my initial request was a string of what I can probably best describe as comedy of errors which beg no lesser accolades than the performance of the team in the class Fawlty Towers.
To begin with your team decided that I am not fit to be a man and would not stop addressing me as Mrs Gupta in written or verbal communication no matter how much I protested via phones or emails. Out of sheer frustration I was about to offer to drive to your call centre and submit a proof of my gender when one fine day some fairy somewhere in your team waived a wand and presto! I was Mr. Nik Gupta again.
Next they decided that the actual Mrs Gupta is not worthy of being added as a joint account holder onto this account so would not add her name. However fortunately that matter was also eventually resolved when I absolutely stomped my foot down one day.
But in retrospect I now realize that we were just getting warmed up. And so on a fateful day somewhere towards the end of July I received a confirmation email stating that my Gas supply has been switched to Flow as well. I thought that is that and the switch is over. However a few weeks since that email from your company I received a bill from British Gas and a demand for meter readings again. I called up British Gas and then I called up Flow and well – both the companies claimed that they are supplying gas to my property!
Your customer services team simply stopped responding to my emails/phones when I enquired how can they claim to be providing gas to my property at the same time when British Gas says they still are my property’s gas suppliers. However my persistence with the phone paid off and one fine day my call was answered by a customer care executive who had the foresight to check the details of the switch again (well just for luck as they say). It turns out that Flow Energy ended up taking over my neighbour’s gas supply instead of mine! Thankfully due to my pro-activeness I avoided been billed twice i.e. by you and British Gas both but I shudder to think how long would this double billing have gone on had I not paid due attention to this process (well someone had to considering Flow’s team surely wasn’t).
Suffice it to say that at this point I still haven’t received a reply to my last email that I sent a couple of months ago. To be honest I have kind of given up too. There is only so much one can laugh at the irony and total helplessness of a situation.
I hope sir that I have managed to pique your interest a bit with the situation I have described above and you might decide to take a peek into what in absolute name of the Lord is going on within the walls of your call centre. If not I will perhaps write to Ofgem and Energy Ombudsman and give someone in their offices a reason to laugh a bit too.
Kind regards,
Nik Gupta