British Gas rated worst by new customers amid reshuffling of industry

A survey of more than 12,000 consumers has found British Gas to be the most unsatisfactory energy supplier among people who have had to change companies because of the contraction of the British energy market.

In the last year, more than 2 million households have found themselves being switched to a supplier different to the one they chose, after soaring energy prices pushed more than 20 companies out of business since last September alone.

Energy regulator Ofgem reallocated them to new suppliers, with any outstanding account credit supposedly being transferred to the new energy company, but the survey conducted by the Money Saving Expert website found that new customers of British Gas were those who were least happy about their experience.

Asked to rate how their transfer had gone and continued to go, just 2 percent of British Gas customers chose "great", 40 percent said "OK "and 58 percent chose "poor".

The website's founder, personal finance expert and broadcaster Martin Lewis, said the turmoil of the energy markets over the last six months was "unprecedented" and that the customers of failed suppliers had been given a particularly hard time.

"Millions have been moved to new firms they didn't choose, and with the collapse of cheap switchers' deals, they've had little choice but to stay there-often left confused and frustrated by an opaque and inflexible process," he wrote on the website.

"Missing credit balances, billing delays and poor communication would be bad enough in isolation-but in the midst of the explosion in consumer energy prices, we mustn't underestimate the impact of these errors on people's financial and emotional wellbeing, many of whom are already feeling scared and vulnerable.

"Yet it's clear that some firms have handled these transfers much better than others-the differences in feedback between the best and worst performing providers are stark."

The company also scored poorly with how long it was taking to transfer account credit, and for how it handled customer communications.

A spokesperson for British Gas said the switching process had been blighted by the variety of ways that previous suppliers shared customer information, but it was working hard to resolve the situation as soon as possible.

"In the last six months we've stepped in to take over the energy supply of over 700,000 customers from eight different failed suppliers. Unfortunately, each of these suppliers also has its own process in terms of how they share data," the spokesperson said.

"But the majority of credit balances have now either been applied or will be shortly, and we have been in touch with individual customers where there has been a delay."

Energy supply has become an increasingly important issue in the United Kingdom in recent times. Last year's soaring prices, which killed off so many smaller companies, have resulted in the consumer price cap being raised this spring, leading to much larger bills, a situation that is expected to become even worse as a result of disruption to global energy market caused by the Ukraine crisis.