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British Gas faced a torrent of online abuse today after hosting an online Q&A session on the day it announced steep price rises.

Despite thousands of families already struggling to pay their bills, the energy giant announced price hikes of 10.4% for electricity and 8.4% for gas.

And just hours later, British Gas customer services director Bert Pijls had his coffee at the ready while he braced himself for a Twitter debate.

The Q&A was one of the top 10 trending topics as hundreds of customers took to the site to vent their anger at the rise.

Hundreds if not thousands of angry Twitter users bombarded poor Mr Pijls with a series of complaints, as he desperately tried - and failed - to bat them off one by one.

Mr Pijls reiterated comments from Ian Peters, managing director of energy at the company, who said the decision to raise prices was not taken lightly.

He said the three main reasons behind the hike were: "1. Wholesale price rises 2. Improvements needed to pipes & wires 3. Cost of govt programmes."

Following the Q and A session, twitter users were quick to point out that British Gas were advertising for a new social media manager with a basic salary range of £50,000 - £60,000.

We have put together a collection of the best tweets below.