House of Jamie - Fight the power!

Fight the power!

2008-Aug-2

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So following on from my last blog entry, and my quite obvious annoyance, I emailed British Gas MD Phil Bentley, to express that particular brand of deep annoyance.
with...

Mr Bentley,
Following your interview on GMTV, I have a few comments i'd like to make, and I intend to be as honest as possible.
I'm 22 years old, and my family have been struggling to make ends meet for years, in my view, because of people like you.
With the huge profit British Gas made last year, plus your huge salary last year, I cannot for the life of me understand how a board room sits around a table, looking all important/pretentious and decides that the best course of action, during a period of economic hardship for working families everywhere, is to put a massive hike in prices.
You claimed it was all down to the rising cost of oil. Ridiculous statement to make, we all know that the rising cost of oil has been nothing but a greedy yet false justification. It is the reason I will never vote Conservative, due to the Right winged greed of Privatised companies during the 80s and the money grabbing lunacy it provoked. This is what we get for being told we should leave utility companies to the professionals. Greed.

I like most were disgusted by the lies you told. For example, you claimed you weren't just trying to please shareholders. As a 22 year old, with much less life experience, and alot to learn, I know for a fact that you were only trying to please shareholders. This is what you people do. With such a massive profit last year, you've seen the problems faced by rising oil costs and you've rubbed your hands together greedily spotting an opportunity to squeeze as much out of the struggling families as possible, for the benefit of those who already have money to live. And then, have the audacity to say that you understand our problems. You don't.

In 2007, i'm under the impression that British Gas received over 21,000 complaints due to bad customer service. People I have spoken to, who are with British Gas, have nothing positive to say about the service. So, customers are effectively paying more money, for a worse service. Where is your justification in this? In my opinion, you're ruining the lives of many people. Many, especially old people now have their lives at risk due to fuel poverty, because of you. And I cannot believe, as a civilised sociaty, we allow people to get away with this. We should renationalise utility services, in order to make sure everyone is safe in the winter, and not just to line to pockets of the rich.

You have been slightly clever though. We all know that when oil comes down, you wont cut prices by the amount you've put them up. You will cut them by 2% or so, every so often, cleverly realising that people will see it as a benefit, that it's a relief, rather than the fact that you shouldn't have put prices so high in the first place.

On GMTV you said we should all be more energy efficient. This comment angered my family and many more horribly so. It isn't our fault. We aren't the greedy money grabbing ones. We aren't the ones earning a fortune every year. We could light a match and hold our frying pan over that, instead of using the cooker, but i'm not sure it'd be all that affective. Plus it'd mean you couldn't buy a brand new Porsche, or please your shareholders, and we wouldn't want that.
We are no longer with British Gas. Out of principle, I will never in my lifetime resort to signing up to British Gas, And I strongly hope many many more leave, because your salary along with the profit margin last year, disgust me.

Thanks
Jamie.

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To his credit, I got a reply. To his discredit, the reply was more bullshit, and more blame shifting.

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Dear Jamie,

Thanks for your email tonight. I'm sorry you feel so negatively about us - we offered the lowest prices last year, and we weren't the first to increase prices this time - and we've reduced complaints by 95% since I joined British Gas last year.

There's too many points you raise for me to reply to specifically: suffice is to say, I understand your anger - this is a difficult time for every home and family in the UK, and frankly I agree with a lot of points you make - but the truth is that gas prices today are set by the oil producers - Algeria, Qatar, Russia and Norway. I'm sorry I can't fix that - and I can tell you, neither can Gordon Brown. The fact is that British Gas beats the competition hands down in supporting the fuel poor - why? Because we're British and we care - most of our competitors are European monopolies for whom the UK is not a core market - we're spending £350million next year to help those who have real difficulties with their bills

Jamie, I assure you that I deeply care about the impact of higher energy prices on our customers - watch this space: other competitors will follow us soon!

All the best - I hope my kids are as articulate as you at the age of 22 - you clearly feel strongly about this important issue.

Best wishes

Phil Bentley

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I wonder if ANY Chairman, Managing Director, or Board of Directors, anywhere in the World are actually decent, honest people. I fear not.
Shame.

Oh and just incase you doubt the authenticity of such an email.....

2008-Aug-5 - EclectaComment

Posted by Eclectablog

Actually a pretty decent reply. Amazing that it was such a personal one.

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