Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Energy Companies

You have to love them, or not. Long-term readers may recall the trails and tribulations we've had in being a landlord when it comes to sorting out energy costs. This is hopefully the end of a tale that started back in 2007 when the meter was replaced and the utility company decided to match up each of the readings to the wrong rates.
This was obvious from the first invoice and if they'd simply credited it and reissued a correct one that would have been the end of the story; but as we know utility companies are never wrong. They kept issuing the invoices with the wrong rates, we kept telling them. In June 2009 we finally got them to reissue the invoices, but that meant a solid 2 year bill. "We'll pay it obviously but as it's for two years we'll do it in instalments, how do you want that to work?
"We'll get back to you"
They never did. A new invoice would arrive and I'd call them and they'd "get back to me" we never got a statement, we never had threatening letters or calls.

Yesterday they turned up threatening to disconnect because we hadn't paid, no notice, no warning. They wanted the balance in full.

On the letter they gave me was a number I didn't recognise compared to the invoices I called it, explained the situation and we're about to set up the instalment plan that I'd be trying to get them to sort out for six months.

Wonderful people.

2 comments:

Orphi said...

I would question the legallity of trying to charge a customer sums that they do not owe, and threatening to disconnect them when they have paid what they owe. But that's just me…

FlipC said...

As I've said before when dealing with these things the onus is on you to prove they're wrong; in this instance it was akin to asking how we used units tagged to the Jan/Nov rate tariff in August?

We owe them the money invoiced that's no longer in dispute, but it took two years to get to that point and another six months to work out a payment plan.