Connected? Maybe
Posted: Thu 1 May, 2014 Filed under: BT, Customer Services, Domestic, Utilities Leave a comment »Following on from the last couple of posts about my connection, the guy from BT came out today and all seems to be well.
A new master socket appears to have fixed things – which is better than I was expecting. I’d kind of thought it was likely to be a replacement cable, but thankfully that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Of course, time will tell – if we get another weekend of vile weather and the connection starts dropping again, then we’ll be back to Square One.
Connected? Revisited
Posted: Wed 30 April, 2014 Filed under: BT, Customer Services, Domestic, Technology, Utilities Leave a comment »Back at the start of March, I was having issues with my Broadband connection, which BT was doing a fantastic job of avoiding. Because it would’ve cost me significant amounts of money to take the day off and wait for BT to chuff about investigating. Besides, while the weather’s been fine it hasn’t been that much of a problem.
So I’d postponed the appointment, BT had promised to make it again – and hadn’t. Quelle surprise.
Last week it got worse again – ‘coincidentally’ after it had pissed down with rain – so I got back on to BT. We went through all the rigmarole again, including dealing with similar levels of understanding (or lack thereof) from the first-level support people. It amazes me just how effing dumb their script is, and how incapable they are of deviating from it when they’ve already been given the relevant information.
Still, one conversation with the supervisor/manager later we got progress, and my line being monitored (again) for 24 hours by second-line support.
They’ve called today, and confirmed that (yet again) my line is shit. This time, because I’m working from home, there’s an engineer coming out on Thursday to fix it. There’s still been all the bollocks about “If it’s a fault inside the house you’re liable for it”, but I’m pretty damn sure it’ll turn out to be an external issue. Anyway, we’ll find out soon enough.
And after that I suspect I shall be having words with them about why it’s taken five months to fix a problem that (I predict) required no access at all to my house.
To The Ombudsman!
Posted: Mon 21 October, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, nPower, Utilities 2 Comments »As nPower have today announced that the average joint-fuel bill will be going up by over 10% from December 1st, I’ve decided that I’m now definitely going to take my complaint to the Energy Ombudsman, and cost the fuckers some money.
Jesus christ, a 10% increase. Do they think people are made of money? Fucking hell.
I wouldn’t mind so much if there were any decent alternatives to change over to. Sadly though, they’re all as shitty as each other.
Utilities 7 – Water Meters
Posted: Mon 14 October, 2013 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 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 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…