If you get a suspicious email

It’s not always easy to spot phishing emails. These online scams appear to be from legitimate companies and link through to fake websites asking you to enter your personal information. They can often be very sophisticated and convincing, so it’s important to know what to look for.

If you’re in doubt over any email claiming to be from us, don’t click any links. Please attach it to a new email and send it to phishing@britishgas.co.uk. Then delete it straight away.

If you are a British Gas Business customer and have received a suspicious email, then please visit UKB online-security webpage.

Please note: We’re currently doing some research and you may receive an email from @kpmg-nunwood.co.uk asking about your experiences with us. These emails are completely legitimate and no cause for concern.

How can I tell if my email is from British Gas?

We email you for lots of reasons, like letting you know when your new bill is ready, confirming a payment or telling you about offers we think you might like.

You can tell it’s really us because

If we know your name, we’ll always start our emails with 'Hello' and your first name. If not, we’ll simply use 'Hello'
Here’s a list of the internal email addresses we use: @britishgas.co.uk, @cd.britishgas.co.uk, @q.britishgas.co.uk, @mail.britishgas.co.uk, @mail.energy.britishgas.co.uk, @centrica.co.uk, @energy.britishgas.co.uk
We also send emails from the following 3rd party domains for a few different reasons:

Appointment confirmations: @contactengine.email
Rewards programme: @bgrewards.co.uk, @myglobaloptions.com,
homecarebgcard.co.uk
Research projects: @britishgas.flexmr.email and @kpmg-nunwood.co.uk
Energy debt team: @e-mail.britishgas.co.uk

If we email you about your account, we’ll include your customer reference number in the email
We’ll rarely ask you to update or confirm your personal details. But we may ask for some information when you enter any competitions with us
We’ll never ask you to reply directly to our email. But if you do, you’ll get an auto-response with helpful solutions on our website
Aside from our welcome email which will include your contract or agreement, we don’t add attachments to our emails
We’ll only link back to the britishgas.co.uk website – but it’s best not to click on any links if you’re in any doubt

Never trust emails and websites that

Begin with 'Dear customer' or 'Hello' and your email address
Have a poor design, typos or bad spelling and grammar – for example, email addresses with @birtishgas.co.uk or brtisihgas.co.uk
Come from public domains like Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail. Anyone can change their sender name to 'British Gas', so always check their actual email address to be sure
Have suspicious looking attachments
Use odd looking web or email addresses. Our website is britishgas.co.uk/, not someaddress.com/britishgas.co.uk

Always check website links

The most important thing to be wary of is website links. Most of the links in our emails will take you to the British Gas website (www.britishgas.co.uk) – but there are a few rare exceptions.

Whenever you hover over a link, you might see a redirect link from your internet service provider, which will look something like this:

https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fl.cd.britishgas.co.uk%2Frts%2Fgo2.aspx%3Fh%3D67795%26tp
%3Di-1NGB-Hr-1NH-5QOMD-1n-4CufJ-1c-5Onmo-l4kAx9udtF1KY4sx&data=02%7C01%7C%7C3f9141e1a4a54d0c29a508d811ea
4895%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637279045221
481483&sdata=QwfSS9SlQC75ySsNcLhtY6Foxgn1aKmk1w1AAsQOZGM%3D
&reserved=0

They’ll recognise phishing emails and warn you if they think it’s suspicious. And if it’s a genuine email from British Gas, you’ll see our domain name within this link (highlighted in bold here). But some providers don’t use redirect links. So instead, you should see britishgas.co.uk when you hover over a link.

But if you’re in any doubt, don’t click on any links. And if you get an email asking for payment, open a new web browser and access your account directly from the britishgas.co.uk website. There you’ll see any genuine outstanding payments you need to make.

For more help on how to protect yourself online, visit Get Safe Online.