F*^%$@&**!!ing utilities companies
Today I walked in at my mate’s place and said, “There’s only one thing I detest more than global socialists and feminazis.”
“Er – fellow bike riders? Spammers?”
“No, utilities companies!!”
“What happened?”
“I’d arranged everything as either direct debits, payment cards or on a staggered basis – all bills are under control. Firstly, I get a bill from British Gas at this address, telling me I haven’t paid my bill for so long and they’re going to shut off the supply. I don’t use British Gas, the place changed to Scottish, my utility company is not them either, so what the hell is this bill? Every flat got one too.”
“That can be sorted. Any others?”
“Effing BT again. Having already taken three months rental in advance, they sent me a bill with rental for the month, not the usual £12 but for £40 and then tried to charge me for 147 calls.”
“Unless you phone someone I don’t know, you’d not make more than 30 calls to me.”
“Let’s be conservative and concede 70 calls in the month all up. I hate the phone, as you know and don’t use it if I can help it. Now where do they get 147 calls and it’s been going on for some time?”
He mused over that and I added: “I think one of three things – they’re putting someone else’s bill on mine, they’re trying it on which is criminal dishonesty or some bstd is tapping into my line and making it a party line.”
“Could be.”
“I’m calling BT tomorrow [I'll have to give it the whole morning to get through to a human being once they've wasted the first hour of my time in endless loops] and then it will be the wrong person. However, I’m going to get an itemized bill.”
“They don’t do that now?”
“Not on your nelly. They tell you how many calls you’ve logged and how they’re split into nice little divisions but they never tell you who you supposedly called.”
“F… BT off.”
“Can’t. Even going Virgin and Sky, they still want a BT line and it’s not the Broadband that’s the issue – it’s bloody BT itself. They’re either thieves, incompetent or both or else someone’s got into my line.”
As I was fuming, he waited and I added, “I wouldn’t mind being set on by radical Muslim throatslitters or a bunch of Marxists or feminazis who stiletto me to death – I deserve that for what I say on my blog. I don’t mind the fact that the other tooth they warned me about is now painful and I have to go back in to the dentist on Thursday – it was my neglect that caused the problem. You wear those things. I don’t mind my site crashing and my emails hacked over Albion – Euronazis are like that, that’s their nature.
What I DO object to is being billed for what I haven’t used.”
“Welcome home to Britain.”
“Actually, Russia’s just as bad in its own way but they rip you off in a different way.”
That will have to be another post.
Filed under: Society & human issues
You think that’s bad- try HSBC!
Aren’t government monopolies just grand? And the computer generated bill is NEVER wrong!
Good luck getting a real human. I hate those voice mail systems. And the companies that use them.
As often happens, some things you say puzzle me. I can view every last item of my BT telephone and broadband bill online, number called, time of day, length of call (even what colour of pants I had on at the time, which seems a tad intrusive and worrying…) but seriously, I’ve been able to do all that online for years, so why not you?
Tiberius – I’ll avoid them and thanks.
Mad Piper – indeed.
Andrew – for the simple reason that they don’t send it. I’ll have to order it by phone.
I’m still confused James. They don’t send me anything either. I log on to the BT website and look at my bill in all its glorious detail.
Ah, I didn’t understand that. I get sent the bill by dead tree – four pages of it. Perhaps I’ll be able to access it online.
The joy of living in France. Started with a France Telecom line but never used it except for dial-up access to the net via Free France. At last ADSL came to the village, converted Free France dial-up to Free ADSL and now I don’t see a FT bill – all taken care of by Free France in the charge for the ADSL. I even get free phone calls to any country in Europe plus the USA, Australia and NZ – this is to a fixed phone with a small charge to mobiles.
Grrrrrr.
That isn’t right about the itemised billing. I get an itemised bill from BT, all calls that cost over 40p show the phone number and duration of the call.
But following your commenters I think I will be investigating the online option
I’ve just sorted it with them. There is the online option but you have to contact them and they give you a password which you can then change inside. Any calls under 50p are not listed on the dead wood bill [according to the bill in front of me now] but can be viewed at the BT site, as Andrew said.
The utility companies must be quaking in their wastebins if you hate them more than socialists and feminists!
Actually, they were quite reasonable on the phone today.