Utilities Part One – nPower
Posted: Thu 19 September, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, nPower, Utilities 2 Comments »Since moving in to the new place, one of the banes of my life have been the utility companies for the property.
nPower in particular have been stunningly shit. It’s taken them eighteen months to get the name right on the account – the letting agency notified them of the change, and they did nothing. I’ve gone through the process no less than six times, sending ID and proof of tenancy, and it all disappeared into the black hole of “Fuck-All Happening” that seems to define nPower. Even their complaints team were so bad that they didn’t even call me within the expected timescale, despite repeated requests. The best one was emailing the proof documents the fifth time, putting on ‘read receipts’ etc., and getting one back saying “The message was deleted without being read“. That was when I started getting really pissed off.
Additionally, because of ‘moving to a new system’, they managed to not send me any bills – and not be able to send bills, because gawd knows, I asked! – for a year. I then got four bills in a day – all printed on the same day, all sent out, all for different amounts. And all with one week in which to pay.
It appears to have now been sorted. I totally lost the plot, and requested that they just send me a “we can’t be arsed to fix the problem” deadlock letter so that I could take it up with the Energy Ombudsman and get them properly screwed over. Suddenly I finally got through to nPower’s one efficient person, and everything was done within twenty minutes, with her not even being able to understand why it had taken so long. I think her phrase “Well I can see that someone put the documents in the system. They just didn’t bother to do anything else with them” pretty much sums up the entire painful process with nPower.
I’m going to wait for the next bill so I can see whether they’ve finally got things right or not. I’m remaining pessimistic for the moment, but who knows, maybe miracles do happen on occasion…
Furnishing
Posted: Wed 18 September, 2013 Filed under: Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Getting Organised, Shopping Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I finally got round to buying myself a new bedframe. It’s been a long time without one – basically, the one I had from previous house was too big to get up the staircase in the new place. (And by new I mean ‘the one I moved into in May 2012’)
It’s been an absolute ball-ache to find a decent bed that’s short/low enough to get up the staircase, which is one of the most awkward I’ve ever lived with – narrow, enclosed, jutty-out bits in the ceiling, steep, and with a 180° bend that needs to be negotiated with larger items. In short, it’s a bastard. And shifting a mattress up there is an exercise in swearing and sheer physical labour.
Coupled to that, crappy finances meant that investing in a new bedframe was – well – not a priority. But with new job, and all that, I thought I’d get round to doing something about it at last.
Anyway, having done some research, Ikea now do a low bed, so on Friday I went to the nearest one, and ordered it for delivery. (A downside of now having Saab instead of Mondeo – a bedframe and/or mattress won’t easily fit into a saloon car!)
Come Sunday, it finally got delivered at about 5pm. No timescales or delivery warning, just blew a Sunday waiting for it to arrive. Bastards. But it’s all assembled (one bit being a pig, due to the necessary methods not being listed in the actual instructions – cheers for that, Ikea) so onwards and upwards in this great game of life.
Scoring
Posted: Sat 7 September, 2013 Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised Leave a comment »As part of both the Five Year Plan and rebuilding post-bankruptcy, one thing that’s really useful to know is one’s credit score, as well as what records are being held, and what they say.
So I’ve signed up (briefly) to Credit Expert, the happy smiley public face of the credit-reporting/scoring agency Experian.
It’s been an interesting process so far. When I registered to look at the record, I got told I’d got an existing account. Surprising – I did use them about eight years ago while with Herself, but nothing since. So I’ve had to go through a bundle of hoops in order to resurrect the old account, on a defunct email address/domain, because ‘we can’t have two records/accounts for the same person’ (according to their customer services clowns) despite that second account having a new email, address, phone number, and details. (Indeed, it’s kind of spooky that they can make the connection at all, based on the sheer level of change that’s gone on)
Annoyingly, this ‘use your old account’ process means I can’t take advantage of their ’30-day free trial’ offer, but I can live with that, to be honest.
Still, it’s letting me check all the relevant information, and I’m quite surprised to see that things are more positive than I’d expected. I was fully braced for seeing a score down near zero, and rebuilding from there. Instead, because of the ongoing accounts I’ve held over the last year (and more) it’s sat in the “fair” bracket. Which is quite amusing, when you think about it.
There are some bits I want to check out, particularly a couple of accounts that still say there’s large amounts outstanding – despite them being part of the bankruptcy process. I’ll find out what needs doing with those, as (I think) they should be sat along with the other accounts that read “closed”, rather than “In Default”. But I’ll find all that out, and figure out what needs doing.
There’s a long way to go yet, and I have no intentions of ending up back in the same situation I was in last year. But I do want to rebuild, to know I can make use of these things should I ever have to, want to, or need to. It’s not a quick process, but these first steps have shown me that perhaps – perhaps – the process won’t be quite as slow and drawn-out as I was expecting initially.
Replacement Card
Posted: Thu 29 August, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances Leave a comment »On Bank Holiday Monday, I went out and about, and used my debit card to get some cash out of a cashpoint (ATM, Hole-in-the-Wall, whatever) at a branch of my bank. The card slot looked a bit odd, but both machines looked the same, and I know Barclays love to piss about with how their machines work. So I thought nothing of it.
However, about twenty minutes later I walked past a different Barclays cashpoint (why they’ve got them in multiple places in the town I don’t know, but such is life – this one was in the wall of a WHSmiths) and its card slot was different, and didn’t have the bits that I’d wondered about on the ones at the branch.
As a result, I called my bank, and cancelled the card. Bit of a pain in the bits, but far less inconvenient than the potential for losing money to dirtbags and having to find it. I was expecting it to be a week before getting the replacement card – that’s about normal, and didn’t cause me any real problems – but just a pain in the bum.
Anyway, I’ve got to say I’m impressed. The card arrived yesterday morning. Two days for production, printing, whatever, and sending. I know it’s how things should work, and it’s still pretty sad to be impressed by something that’s just being done correctly, but in this one, well, all fairness to Barclays, they’ve got something right.
Year One
Posted: Fri 9 August, 2013 Filed under: 2012/13, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Thoughts 1 Comment »As of today, I’m no longer technically in bankruptcy. (Which is a weird word to type, but that’s something else entirely)
I declared myself bankrupt a year ago today, and that discharges automatically after one year, other than in exceptional circumstances. Basically, if the court decides you’ve been obstructive, or untruthful – or you’ve continued to build debt while in bankruptcy, or done anything else seriously stupid – they can extend the period of bankruptcy, but I’ve not done any of that, so it expires today.
There’s still a long way to go before it’s completely expunged from the record – another five years, in fact – but regardless, this is a milestone. (Rather than the millstone that the debts themselves were)
I’m still paying what I can afford for the next two years too. Once that’s done, it’s about rebuilding properly – for one thing, the amount I’m currently paying through the court system can go into a savings account. I haven’t missed the money, so I might as well keep paying it, but for my benefit rather than anyone else’s.
Bankruptcy isn’t an easy process, it’s not one I’d wish on anyone else. But it’s also not the great stigma on one’s character that it used to be, and while it’s not The Answer, it most certainly is An Answer.
For my own life, I’m glad I made the decision to go down this route – not that there were many other options, to be honest – because it’s allowing me to start again, to build up from those solid foundations that the last year has let me build.