Victor Meldrew is a complicated chap. The situations he gets himself into are rarely his own fault - they are merely a mixture of bad luck, negative attitude and the right to justice. Recently this has echoed in my experiences of utility companies, namely Seeboard and npower.
Pretty much as soon as I moved into the flat in Bromley I switched my gas and electricity from Seeboard to Powergen as according to uSwitch the latter would be cheaper. I also knew they have better customer service as I was about to find out in more detail. My supplies were successfully transferred to Seeboard some time in March but that is when the problems began: Seeboard transferred me back to them without my permission (an 'ET').
And so it began…
The process of dealing with the ET takes about six weeks during which time you get letters from both parties ("Sorry you're leaving Powergen…", "Welcome to Seeboard…", "Sorry for the mistake…") before it all settles down again. For this to happen once is bad enough, but exactly the same thing occurred less than a month later. The first you know about it is the vague letter from Powergen saying how staying with them can save you money - this letter uses the terminology 'energy' rather than 'gas' or 'electricity' so you easily lose track of which supply is with which company. Then you have to phone up and try and sort it out with both parties (although I should have probably avoided talking to the idiotic robots at Seeboard).
During this whole period you miss out on any dual-fuel or DD discounts and I've only paid about £20 in bills so far this year as the supplier has been so inconsistent and the ET process doesn't seem to generate a 'final bill' from either party.
After having things sorted out for the second time in May and putting a block on the gas with Powergen I received another "we're in the process of transferring you" letter from Seeboard. For the third time, an ET had gone through, even though I thought the block was in place (I had received a "sorry we cannot transfer you" letter from Seeboard at an earlier date when the block must have still been active). This infuriated me (Victor-style). How can this possibly happen again? Surely there are notes on my Seeboard account advising of previous problems? Surely the muppets are fed up of me moaning at them? Obviously not…
At time of writing my electricity is now back with Powergen and my gas should be shortly, but they said that a block could not be put back on the accounts again. I am suspicious that it was not done in the first place.
And so this leads me onto today's story which began when I received a nice letter from your friendly neighbourhood collection agency. I am used to getting these for the previous tenant of my flat (I even got one yesterday - Mr G Clark hasn't lived here for nearly a year) but not for me.
It turns out that nPower have been trying to contact me for a £100+ bill from my previous address and the agency must have dug my current address out of somewhere as nPower apparently didn't have it. Nor my final meter reading or moving out date even though I gave them all of the above months ago. As far as they were concerned I absconded at the end of April… nearly four months after I actually did.
It's not nice opening letters from collection agencies (or in the case of Mr Clark, above, notices of possession removal for goods up to the value of £1700) and I am quite concerned that nPower decided to take that route rather than attempt to contact me directly. After all, they should have all my current details. At least the agency woman I spoke to saw it from my point of view and was not as rude and persistent as Mr Clark's council tax chasing agency.
Rant over. Ooh, that reminds me of a great Family Guy quote:
Dennis Miller on TV: I don't wanna go on a rant here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowolf having sex with Robert Fulton at the first Battle of Antetum. I mean when a neo-conservative defenstrates it's like Raskalnakov filibuster dioxymonohydrostinate.
Peter on Couch: What the hell does rant mean?
Ever tried accidentally typing Seaboard into Google and seeing the top Sponsored result?!
