Where the hell do I start? Right now I am pissed put it that way. I’ve just returned from a lovely night out with the girlfriend, to find an email in my Inbox telling me my electricity bill is overdue. "Heck that be no problem" I thought to myself, "I will just use my dads credit card and pay the bill, and bank transfer him the money".
At this point you’re asking why I aren’t using my card I would guess? Well because the old British Gas website that boasted about discounts and paperless billing does not even accept VISA! However they do accept Solo, Maestro, Delta and other crap cards that only 60yr old pensioners use. So I pay the Gas and Electricity bill with my dads card and then transfer the money from my account to his. Sweet? Well no.
Upon seeing the email, I bounce off to
www.house.co.uk to pay the bill, and I am then redirected to their ‘new’ British Gas website, which utilises their new £400 million pound billing system, that has received nothing but complaints since going live. I login and click on View Bill and get an error message stating that the bill isn’t available at this time. What?! Have my fellow asians in India who are no doubt behind the site forgotten something that doesn’t allow me to see my bill on a Sunday?! So I click on HELP, because at this time I want to strangle the nearest thing to me….who sadly happens to be said girlfriend. I get a response
"KANA System is not available at this time" - wtf? Speaky ENGRISH?! Annoyingly "Kana" happens to mean ‘Food’ in Hindi…
Girlfriend who is getting increasingly angry states the obvious "Why not click on the Pay Bill link?", ah yes that would make sense, I mean that’s why I came to the website. So I click the link, and begin entering my fathers credit card details. I click on Submit…."Credit card authorisation is blocked, please call xxxxx xxxxxxxx". So I call the number only to get the message that "We care about our customers and value your feedback, please hold while we find more people in Delhi to answer your call. Meanwhile, please listen to Tom effing Jones for a bit". Dear British Gas, if you gave a living toss about your dear customers you would, for a start allow us to pay our bills with credit cards that people use on a daily basis, and not employ some half trained noober off the streets halfway across the globe, and why Tom Jones?!
I originally signed up to British Gas’s Electricity scheme because they promised savings, and to be honest that part is true. However it’s of no use to me when I cannot pay the godamn bill with a credit card that I have used for years to pay for everything in life. I buy stuff from overseas on a weekly basis, I pay my bills, hell even all the courier companies know me on a first name basis yet a huge company like British Gas can’t even come up with a decent billing system.
Their house.co.uk system was dire, and their new one is equally as bad. On a Sunday night, everything should work. I shouldn’t have to be told that features X, Y and Z aren’t available, because other billing sites manage things like this fine. Hell NTL were even better at billing. Creating first impressions is everything when it comes to internet websites and I am seriously unimpressed. No wonder they’re getting slated all over the place.
Top stuff and very well worth a look if you’re a Simpsons fan, and like me, you’ll enjoy if it you aren’t.