British Gas 4+

Blank screen & no real time accuracy

1) The app has the potential to be good but it has no real time accuracy regarding the actual balance left on your smart account. E.g. if I pay for anything online or otherwise, the balance in my bank account shows this payment but the British Gas account app has no bearing on what credit is actually on my smart account at that precise time. So it makes it hard to manage the account and keep it in credit appropriately.
2) when you open the app to make a payment on either gas or electricity, you go through to the screens to the utility you wish to pay for, chose the method of payment and then go to choose how much you wish to pay and at this point the screen goes blank white. You then have to close the app, re open it and log in all over again and start again to try to complete your transaction through on the second attempt. It’s a waste of time and annoying. It usually works on this second time. I am guessing these two issues are linked, and that the screen is going blank because the app is not originally updated with the real time account balance information. On the second time of logging in after the blank screen is gone through, the utilities show different credit balances than on the first attempt. But they still don’t tally with what is on your actual smart meter!

Developer Response ,

Hi ☕😊☕ thanks for the 3 stars 👍The best way to check your meter balance right now is on your smart meter or monitor. Our digital team are aware of the white screen fault and hoping to have this fixed in time for the next app release. If you need any help, please send a DM to @britishgashelp on Twitter or a PM on Facebook and we'll get back to you. Thanks, Mel

If I have another option I’d use it!

Absolutely the worst app! Smart meter and app together are useless! the app crashes 99% of the time, facial I.D often doesn’t work either so you are constantly still signing in, and then that leaves you without being able to top up your meter, which means you could of just walked to the shop And topped up with the card. Tbh since having the meter and app i Been worse off. I’ve been going back to walking to the shop for top ups. Also the option of only being able to top up £5 minimum online where tbh when there’s been hard times where I wish I could of put in £4 or £3.50 we’ve all had those times before so it’s quite annoying also cause the shops still allow it. And I work night so if I don’t check the meter I’m sure my other half doesn’t so there’s times the gas supply cut off and I put the emergency on for the time being and i had to reset it, but it accumulated 53p debt. How is it able to go in to minus without activating the emergency and puts you into further debt so i couldn’t use my £5 emergency until I had paid the 53p date accumulated by the meter! One last thing if the electric cuts out you CAN NOT! put the emergency on because you have to use the meter to put on the emergency on but the meter is off because the electric cuts out. Absolutely the worst flaw there is!!!! There is so much more wrong but this is all I can bare for now for this atrocious app and meter put together

Could be a lot better

BG weren’t my choice of supplier, we were transferred to them when ours went bust. All our previous suppliers apps were much better Peoples Energy, SSE, Eon. When I submit a reading every month because I want to keep on top of my bills, BG doesn’t produce a bill or calculate how much I’ve used against my DD payments, they only produce a bill every 6 months and then my readings completely confuse things as they estimate and then recalculate making bills difficult to understand and I’m sure they’ve charged me twice for same period. On the app I can see previous electricity consumption for last year 2022 broken down by month and can see we’re managing to get it lower, we do have a smart meter, but I can’t see any previous consumption for gas so have no idea how much we used last year or whether that is coming down too. I’m sure we have a smart meter for gas too but guess it’s not compatible with BG which is why I want to submit regular readings. I’ve also no idea whether our DD payments are on track which is a worry with the horrendous increases. Why can’t they produce bills more regularly and the app calculate usage and costs when required like it’s competitors and to help reassure its customers. I’ll be transferring away as soon as I can.