My best friend of 33 years passed away suddenly in June, tragically suffering a stroke just 13 days after his 50th birthday.
His children had gotten together at Christmas to buy him two general weekend tickets for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July. They had planned it as a treat as part of his 50th birthday. He was unspeakably excited and I was lucky enough to be his plus one.
His family and I are devastated by his death, and their grief was compounded when his children contacted Silverstone to explain the situation and request a refund.
They were shocked to be told that there would be no refunds and that the tickets could not be transferred or sold. It is outrageous that they could be so cruel. The owner of the Airbnb I booked for the weekend refunded the full cost, so why can’t Silverstone? GS, Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Sally Hamilton responds: I was devastated to hear that your friend passed away at such a young age. And like you, I was shocked that his children did not get a refund for the special gift they had planned for his important birthday.
One of his daughters tried to get the not inconsiderable sum of £538 back, but was confused when she was told that the main ticket holder had to keep one ticket, while the other ticket could be given to, say, a family member.
She felt this was inappropriate, as no one in the family was fit enough to attend the event, and neither were you.
She was so upset by the reaction that she decided to just let the matter drop. She didn’t feel like fighting.
But when you heard what had happened, you were so excited that you contacted me right away.
I have contacted Silverstone to express my concerns about the situation.
I’m happy to say that they immediately saw that something was wrong and they fixed it quickly.
That same day, the company contacted your friend’s daughter to apologize and arrange for the money to be refunded.
It said his daughter had been given a standard response about refunds by an inexperienced team member, who had not escalated the matter to a higher decision-maker.
A spokesperson said: ‘As soon as we became aware of the situation, we (the customer) called to express our condolences and apologise for our negligence.
“We would never want to add to their displeasure at this difficult time. Of course, we have agreed to refund the tickets immediately.”
British Gas want £5,858 from my son…
My son had two terrible years with British Gas.
He had billing issues which, after much back and forth, he thought had been successfully resolved. British Gas confirmed that his accounts were up to date, refunded £590 of his money and paid him £30 in compensation.
He then switched to Octopus and thought his problems were over. But then he got a new bill from British Gas for almost £4,000 – which he disputed again. They then sent it again – for £5,858. Please help him. SH, Stourbridge, W. Middle.
Sally Hamilton responds: You told me that the stress of trying to resolve his billing problem for two years has taken its toll on your son and his wife.
While he fought to prove he didn’t owe the huge sums demanded by British Gas, the couple tried to have a baby. Nothing happened, so they arranged for IVF treatment.
As luck would have it, they eventually conceived naturally. Your son believes it is no coincidence that this happened shortly after they thought the dreaded gas bill was finally gone.
With these financial worries now behind them, everything seemed rosy again – until the huge gas bill of £5,858 recently arrived in their account. Your son burst into tears when he saw it.
You came to me hoping that I could make British Gas change its mind about this insane bill and put an end to the torture of your son.
The energy supplier agreed to an investigation and came back to me a few days later with an explanation.
It turns out your son was in this purgatory because his previous energy supplier was Bristol Energy, part of Together Energy, which went bust in January 2022. British Gas was appointed ‘supplier of last resort’ by regulator Ofgem and took over Together’s customers.
The intention is for customers in such circumstances to have a smooth transition, but I’m afraid that wasn’t the case for your son.
After I got involved, British Gas finally added fuel to their investigation and discovered that Together had given them the wrong meter details for your son’s supply, which set in motion the catalogue of errors about his billing. It has now established the correct meter details and put the bill on hold while it works out what your son actually owes.
The official rules for back billing have also been taken into account. These state that you may not be charged for energy used more than 12 months ago if you have not received a correct invoice for it, even if you have requested one.
It is outrageous that British Gas failed to detect this meter error during your son’s many interactions with customer service.
This could have saved him more than two years of agony. Instead, he was continually told that the bill reflected his usage, with British Gas adding to his financial woes by tripling his quarterly direct debit to £424 while the bill was ‘under review’ from February to May this year.
Your son and I waited a long time for British Gas to resolve matters, but it turned out that they were having problems handling your case as your son now works for Octopus Energy.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by this explanation, but the good news is that British Gas has finally taken the pragmatic approach and erased the erroneous bill of £5,858 and, as an apology for what your son has experienced, also erased the real bill, which turned out to be £2,291 for both gas and electricity. Absolutely correct.
A British Gas spokesman said: ‘The customer came to us through the supplier process after his previous energy supplier went bust.
‘They gave us the wrong meter details when we took over his supply which caused the problem with his bill. We have spoken to him to say sorry that we did not resolve this when he first contacted us.’
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