British Gas stuns grandmother with incomprehensible letter
A 92-year-old grandmother was so astonished by a badly-written letter from British Gas that she at first assumed it must be a scam.
The letter was sent to Dorothy Edwards, of Sheffield, after her son Philip queried an unexpected bill of £1,300 on her behalf.
But it was riddled with over 30 errors - mostly spelling mistakes, with a smattering of grammatical disasters that meant some sentences made no sense at all.
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"looked into your account furtheer regarding your complaint, and have found theat when thee account was billed on thee 17the august 2016 for £899.15 thee payment amounts had already been scheduled to decrease on thee 19the August," read one.
Another read: "Withe theis been said and thee correct actions we have taken to inform you and staying withein thee direct debit guarantee guidelines, Unfortunately at theis time we wouldn't be compensating £250.00 to thee account which you confirmed to myself."
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Dorothy's son Philip tells the Sun that the letter was so badly written that he at first assumed it was a scam.
"I thought that was the only logical explanation, like those ones you get about needing money to be sent across," he says.
"But to make matters worse when I spoke to British Gas about it, they just laughed down the phone at me over their own spelling errors."
British Gas has now apologised.
Research from channel Nick Jr UK a couple of years ago revealed that 40% of people rely on autocorrect to monitor their bad spelling, with 20% saying they would panic without a spellchecking tool.
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But British Gas isn't the only organisation that's failing to use one when it should. Earlier this week, for example, Leicestershire's Police and Crime Commissioner advertised for a new chief executive in terms that soon saw it being widely mocked.
"Te Chief Executive is also the Monitoring Ofcer with responsibilities for the legal decisions of the Commissioner," read the ad, continuing: you will develop and implement efective engagement with all sections of the community."
The ad has now been corrected online.