Redirected

Posted: Mon 21 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Central Bedfordshire Council, Commuting, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Driving, Work-related | 2 Comments »

This morning – and for the next two days – it turns out that Bedfordshire Council (Sorry, Central Bedfordshire Council) are resurfacing the road outside my house. (Again)

As work is (apparently) due to start at 8am, and go on ’til at least 6pm – i.e. the entire time I’m usually away from the house – it’s not too bad. However, it would’ve been nice to be warned about it in advance, which would’ve meant I might have parked elsewhere, for example.

It’s obvious that the warnings haven’t gone out at all, as there were also school buses and bin lorries trying to get down the now-closed road while people were working on it.

I don’t mind too much – it just means I find and use a different route to/from work today and tomorrow, which is always entertaining. But I can only imagine how many unwarned people there are who are going to be noticeably affected by the lack of warning/notice/signage about this over the next couple of days.

Not, mind you, that I expect anything less from the twunts that run the council…

 

Utilities 7 – Water Meters

Posted: Mon 14 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Anglian Water, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Utilities | 2 Comments »

[For the rest of the story, you can click here]

On Saturday, I was due to get my two water meters replaced with “Smart” meters by Anglian Water. Supposedly these transmit data, and mean they can be ‘read’ from the street, rather than needing access to the house in order to read them.  It also replaces/removes the ‘outreader’ displays, which were supposed to do the same thing (or at least would if they hadn’t been installed by a moron) and which in my case were utterly screwed from the start.

Thankfully, the actual installation went OK – or at least seems to have done. The engineer turned up when he’d said he would, the work got done, he left, and there’ve been no water leaks since.

Of course, that doesn’t cover whether Anglian Water will actually manage to correctly swap the meters on my account, close the previous meters with the correct readings, or be able to read the meters correctly in future.

As I’ve recently had my half-year bill, that means this could still go on, as my next bill isn’t due ’til Feb/March 2014…

(And yes, BW, I have taken timestamped photos of the meters on installation, and also have a note in my little book about time/date/reading, just in case)

 

Utilities 6 – nPower Communications

Posted: Sun 13 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, nPower, Utilities | 3 Comments »

[For the rest of this one, click here]

Yesterday, I got a letter from nPower – addressed to the correct name, at the correct address. (This is actually noteworthy, as it hasn’t happened in the preceding eighteen months)  It relates to the complaint I made about – um – the fact that they couldn’t (well, hadn’t) corrected my name and address on my account, despite repeated requests to do so.

Apparently, because they haven’t been in touch in so long since I raised the complaint, I can now speak to the Energy Ombudsman about it.  (Which I threatened to do last month, when it all actually got sorted)

So. Should I do so?

After all, the complaint has actually been fixed, but it now looks as if their entire system is so broken that even though it’s been sorted – and the correctly addressed envelope proves it’s been sorted – it hasn’t been flagged on the system as sorted.  Which really is pretty fucked, however you look at it.

I’m tempted to do so, and cost them some more money (apparently even registering an issue with the Ombudsman lands them with a fine) and see where it takes me…

 

 

Utilities Part 5 – More Metering

Posted: Sat 12 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Anglian Water, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Utilities | Leave a comment »

[You can read previous bits of this here, if you care]

This morning, Anglian Water are supposed to be (finally) fitting my two ‘smart’ meters.  They’re due sometime between 8am and 1pm.

Whether they’ll turn up – and indeed whether they’ll get it right this time – as yet remains to be seen…

Domains

Posted: Fri 11 October, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Literacy, Own Business, People, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

I have too many web domain names – although I’ve been divesting myself of some of them over the last year, acknowledging projects and ideas that will never happen (and some that I can’t even remember having) as well as some where their lifetime has expired and I’ve no intention of renewing them.

However, domain renewal has a lot of automated processes, and one part of that is automatic reminders that get sent out about each domain.

And each email looks like this…

Your domain, [x] is due to expire on [date].
It is manadatory, that you receive this email for each domain you own, 28 and 7 days prior to your domains expiration date.

Yes, a spelling error and a punctuation one. I didn’t notice it for a while, because I usually ignore those mails just from the subject line. But now I’ve noticed it, that “manadatory,” drives me crackers.

I’ve written to the company involved, asking them to change it, but nothing’s happened. It’s nothing major in the grand scheme of things, just something that annoys me on a regular basis.

Utilities Part Four – Smart Meters Again

Posted: Mon 23 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Anglian Water, Customer Services, Domestic, Utilities | 3 Comments »

So yes, Saturday’s “installation of smart meters” with Anglian Water turned out to be an utter, total cock-up.  About the best bit of the process was that they turned up here first thing, rather than leaving me ’til last thing in the day.  Other than that, it was a total clusterfuck.

Despite no less than four calls between myself and Anglian, all of which saying “We’ll be installing the smart meters”, what they apparently actually meant was “We’ll be doing a visit to check that everything’s ready for when we install the meters”. In other words, all it involved was checking that what I’d said was right about the meters not reading the same as the outreaders (nice that they’re so trusting) and that the stop-cocks all work. And that was it.

Fair to say, I was pretty pissed-off.  Not at the guy who came round – it wasn’t his fault that his colleagues are incompetent tossbags – but definitely at . It’s been listed now as a formal complaint, and I’m waiting to see what they’ve got so say about it all.  Regardless, I see some more compensation in my near future…

Utilities Part Three – Smart Meters

Posted: Sat 21 September, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Anglian Water, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Utilities | Leave a comment »

Today, as per the post from yesterday, Anglian Water are supposed to be here fitting new ‘smart’ water meters.

I’ve no idea when they’re coming – the timescale I’ve been given is “Saturday” – nor what will need to be done when they arrive. Nor even how long the work is likely to take.  I will be clearing the areas around both meters, to make sure they’ve got easy access, but other than that, *shrug*, no idea what the plan will be.

As such, my Saturday is looking to be somewhat random. They could be here at 8, done by 9, and I’ll have the day to myself.  Alternatively, they could get here at 4, be here til 6, and my day’s kippered.

Fortunately, I’m pretty laid back about it all, and not going to get stressed one way or the other. But it does strike me as a pretty shit way of doing business…

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