British Gas has paid £1.1 million compensation to domestic and small business customers after they were left waiting for meter readers who failed to turn up or arrived late for appointments.
The supplier said that about 10,000 businesses and 2,000 households had each been paid £90 as a result of the issue, which related to its use of a third-party meter reading company.
Under Ofgem rules, customers are entitled to automatic compensation if their supplier misses an appointment. British Gas discovered this year that compensation was not being paid because the agent it was using failed to keep proper records, and reported it to the regulator.
It has paid customers the £30 they were owed for the failed appointment, £30 required under the rules for failing to compensate them within ten days, and an extra £30.
Ofgem said it had agreed to the compensation package and would not take formal enforcement action over the failings.
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Martin Crouch, Ofgem senior parter, said: “British Gas did the right thing in coming forward to report this issue, and has since improved its processes to make sure that, when appointments are missed or not kept on time, all customers receive the compensation they’re entitled to.
“It’s crucial that suppliers keep appointments on time and make amends when things go wrong.”
A British Gas spokesman said: “We have apologised to the affected customers, given them all compensation and an additional goodwill payment. In April this year we introduced new system checks to ensure this can’t happen again.”
