British Gas joins the conmen in our hall of shame

The country's greatest financial sleuth, Tony Hetherington (right), writes for the Financial Mail on Sunday and This is Money. His weekly column is a hall of shame that should be on everyone's 'must-read' list.

>>Check the archive

This week he shines his spotlight on serial conman Simon Hill, aka Simon Johansson, whose decade of deception has finally led to justice - not for him but for one of the men he worked for, Richard Dompier, who has just been jailed for ten years in the USA. Britain is criminally behind-the-times when it comes to dealing with its white-collar crooks.

Simon Hill is not a household name. But it is a name worth remembering as are so many of the names in Hetherington's files.

One thing I find particularly alarming about the exposure of scams and rip-offs is just how often our supposedly trusted household names come under investigation.

After the near collapse of Northern Rock it is becoming increasingly difficult to know who to trust. For example, Marks & Spencer was recently in the spotlight over the wording of its advertising. Trivial by comparison, you may say? But I don't agree.

Big companies that spend fortunes on PR and advertising that don't live up to their claims are the scourge of our lives. Who can forget the empty promises from ING Direct? But which is the worst company in these stakes over the past year?

Talktalk is up there with the worst of them. But my money is on British Gas, which gets another mention from Hetherington this week over yet more billing errors and legal threats.

Personally I would not do business with this company. Here's a few more reasons why:

• Hounded for nine years by British Gas
• When will British Gas bungles end?
• Hetherington: British Gas bullying and travel insurance failures
• Has British Gas fixed me up?
• British Gas messes up 45,000 direct debits
• Wooden spoon for British Gas
• British Gas: awful on every level
• Is British Gas really cheapest?
• British Gas swamped by billing complaints
• Billing errors? British Gas again
• British Gas household share plummets
• British Gas fined £5,000

And from the blog (don't forget to read the comments)

BLOG: British Gas - institutionally moronic
BLOG: My British Gas nightmare: customer services hell
BLOG: Would British Gas make you leave the country?

And finally

Switch your gas bill supplier now

Richard Browning, This is Money

Comments

[allan ledwith]

You mentioned TalkTalk as being bad - well try its sister company AOL UK! AOL UK advertised a broadband service that in my experience was worse than dial up.

In spite of repeated complaints the service never improved and AOL UK never reply to letters or emails!

At least BG will answer letters.

AOL UK have been found by Which? surveys to be a poor ISP in three surveys - and with Talk Talk, AOL UK have been accused of taking on subscribers and failing to make proper provision to serve the increased users.

I have been struggling with AOL UK since July 2006 and have got nowhere - BUT AOL UK still want to collect their subscription - which isn't the best value for money. PS AOL UK is now part of TalkTalk - no surprise!