Today the boiler sprang a leak in my 86-year-old Mum’s home - water pouring into the kitchen/blowing electrics etc. So, no heating or hot water. She has had a Homecare agreement with British Gas for years and pays a substantial sum for it each month. A phone call to the advertised number resulted in her being told - by the automated system - that an engineer could visit but not until ten days time. Attempts via the online chat service/Twitter to make contact and explain that she’s a vulnerable customer facing an emergency resulted in promises that an engineer would arrive today and would phone first. When the phone call came, it was from Dynorod who - on chatting with Mum - decided they had been asked to get involved by mistake, so we had to start the contact process all over again. Since then, we were told that an engineer would be with us by 6pm, then by 10pm - still no show. The system for making contact with British Gas is utterly appalling: how can they expect an 86-year-old widow to navigate her way through the online contact methods (which don’t seem to result in any effective action anyway). Disgusting customer service.