I’ve taken a utility company on and won!

If you don't need it yet then theres no point in paying for it, 3mbps is pretty low I think? I think thts about what we were on but it kept dropping to about half of that.

I have nothing against broadband, it’s just the house is unoccupied and I don’t see the point of spending £30 per month, plus the speed quoted is 3mbps, my phone is faster on 4G. I agree that BT is best, we had it in our last house, if there’s a fault it’s easier to report it straight to BT. 

Is having broad band such a problem? I know many people get it with thier mobile contracts, but we don't, we use BT and have sinse we moved in, there are fewer options out of cities and as they all seemed to want a BT landline connection anyway we thought we'd just go for BT and cut out any middle men. BT are aboiout as good and bad as any other provider, great when it's working awful when it's not, but when our signal got so bad their own speed test whatsit got timed out at 3am they gave us a discount.

Well done, sounds like a very similar scenario. The same as you, I just wanted a correct bill, I wasn’t after something for nothing. It’s frustrating when the computer says no.

I was getting similar messages, “we note your account is in debt, please pay immediately.”

Congratulations. 

I will share my experience of a water bill and the ridiculous billing and arguments I had to go through. 

I live alone in a flat and my annual water bill based on ratable values rose to £540.  So I decided to have a water meter fitted because the water company advertised that a single person with a water meter would pay in the range £250 to £350 depending on the usage.  After the meter was fitted I received an estimated bill for £895 for the following year.  I phoned them to query the bill and was told that after six months they would read the meter and adjust the bill based on my usage.  In the meantime they recommended I set a direct debit.  I paid them nothing for ten months, waiting for a more reasonable bill.

Ten months later I received nasty letters demanding that £895 be paid immediately or else legal action would follow.  Then the phone calls began, demanding to know why I wasn't paying.

I explained that I was expecting to pay £300 with a water meter and they were asking for £900 a year.  They wanted to know how many people were living here, I explained I lived alone.  They wanted to know why I was using so much water, did I have some medical condition, did I take several baths a day, did I have a very large garden.  I explained that the £900 was an estimated bill and I was waiting for them to take an actual meter reading before paying.  They explained that they only take a meter reading 6 months after a meter is fitted, I explained it's been 10 months and there still hadn't been a reading.  I asked for a full itemised bill because so far they had only sent a demand for payment. 

I finally received a detailed bill and I compared it to the charges they advertised on their website.  My estimated usage was for a single person. But my standing charge was from a unmetered tariff and they added cost of estimated usage.

So instead of changing my tariff from unmetred to metered. They added the two tarrifs together. 

My £895 charge was £560 unmetred tariff plus £335 estimated metered tariff.

When this was finally sorted our and they actually read the meter,  my annual bill fell to £240 for that year.

Thank you, my house is the same, walls are 2ft of stone. The aerial on the meter seems to work as it’s near a window. An electrician is due to start rewiring the house soon, all the heating is being hard wired as the same problem with signal would occur. They are running some sort of media cable and points around the house but then I would need broadband.

When I bought the house, the account was £2500 in debt but that’s another story. I got that wiped as well.

Welll done you, I've finally, just about sorted out my problems with the energy supplier. They keep on at me about getting a smart meter and I keep teeling them our house is unsuitable for one as the walls are made of mixed materials, some of which is 2 foot thick stone and the signals don't travel through the walls properly and we have boosters all over the house, we even have a seperate booster so as the thermostat for the boiler in the hall can tell the boiler when to put the heating on.

Roy said:

I had an old black Bakelite meter

The meter(s) I have are modern in the sense they were probably fitted just a few years before the advent of smart meters. I don't doubt their accuracy (and hope they've plenty of life left, unless someone chooses to tell me they've developed a fault at some point)

I'm all for re-nationalising the lot, but I can't see that happening for quite some time. 

Roy said:

Maybe an iced bun?

Yes please

I'm painting my bedroom at the moment so delivery would be great!

The worrying thing about this is that the bill was worked out by hand!! Well done!

Maybe an iced bun?

I do see your point, I had no choice, once a meter became faulty a smart meter is the only option given. The days of the meter reader are sadly over.

The meter  I have seems to be okay, it has a SIM card in it and an aerial as the house is remote. I’ve decided not to have broadband.

Im living 250 miles from the house and can watch the electric usage from my phone though an app. I can see if anything is being switched on which is good security wise.

The customer is just an account number, the company is there just to make money, the customer is just an inconvenience.

I had an old black Bakelite meter  removed from my old house, I had always read it and given the readings, after it was changed my bills dropped massively. My only concern is that the new meters are very advanced, they can feasibly cut your power off from their end.

I don't like Direct Debits and I don't like Smart Meters.   

My choices (and I don't like being told)

So I pay my bills, always on time, and read my meters when requested to do so (because they don't seem to do that much anymore)

The laugh is they tell me I could 'save' if I paid by DD.   (If I give them permission to debit my account, I can save.) 

Apparently I can also 'save' by having a smart meter.   

1 in 5 that have a smart meter aren't happy with them, but that's besides the point.   I don't want one.  I resent the insinuation that a device is going to tell me that I could use less. How?

This device is so clever (apparently) that it is going to save me more than my own brain does which already programs me to turn things on or off when not needed.   Yet I still need this device, they say.

When I last spoke to my provider (about an estimated bill, and the inaccuracy of it)  some guy whom I found very hard to understand tried telling me that it was my own fault - if I had a smart meter, I'd not be getting estimates.   

What part of 'the customer is always right' have these people forgotten?   

When I threatened to take my business elsewhere, he replied that this was my prerogative.  Meaning his task to get me to agree to a smart meter was actually more important than the retention of my account.

Well done.

A cup of tea celebration is in order.

Good to hear Roy

Roy said:

the ‘sweet smell of success.’ 

Most excellent!

Thank you Number,

I just wanted to share that even with the struggles most of us have, we should never give up. There’s often a way around something. I struggle terribly with telephones, I would have spent most of the calls just saying, “um,” by using email I had time to prepare my answers and break down the information. Once they had supplied a spreadsheet I thought, “you are now in my world.”

There is strength in numbers!

Well done for persevering. It is so frustrating when they try to persuade you that something obviously incorrect is correct. Unfortunately for them, there are some of us that won't get fobbed off 

Dear Roy,

You are kind and righteous to share this story with us/widely.  In any event, I am personally grateful to you because I am going through something similar with my "imposed" utility provider at the moment...... like your "lot", my "lot" are also liars and chancers too.  I am proving to be (like you) a Number that won't allow hogwash to stand!  There is strength in numbers/sharing!   When I reach a resolution with "my lot", I will share as you have too.

There is power, in the weight of numbers.

Thank you Roy.

Yours,

Numbe

Good work. You have to challenge this stuff, as so many people don't. Admire the tenacity!!