British Gas pays customers $1.4 mln for failed appointments

LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Britain's largest energy supplier British Gas, owned by utility Centrica (Frankfurt: A0DK6K - news) , has paid a total of 1.1 million pounds ($1.4 million) to customers in compensation for missed or delayed appointments, the country's energy regulator said on Thursday.

Regulator Ofgem said the company had approached it about its failure to compensate 12,000 customers when third-party agents missed or delayed appointments and had made required amends, meaning it did not intend to take further action.

British Gas has paid each customer affected, mainly business energy users, 60 pounds for the initial failed appointment and for not compensating them within the required 10 days, plus 30 pounds in extra compensation, Ofgem said.

"We discovered the error last year and reported it to Ofgem. We have apologised to the affected customers, given them all compensation and an additional goodwill payment. In April this year we introduced new system checks to ensure this can't happen again," a British Gas spokesman said.

British Gas is also under scrutiny over the terms it offers customers when switching supplier. Ofgem said earlier this month it was investigating whether the company had breached licence conditions relating to its obligations to domestic customers who move to a competitor. ($1 = 0.7679 pounds) (Reporting by Karolin Schaps; Editing by Greg Mahlich)