I just received two horrible bills in the mail.
The first one was from my new Electricity company -Origin- they took over in Sept of last year but somehow never got around to sending me the bill.
When they did - it included an extraordinary amount for Offpeak usage in Sept-Dec. $1500 for an 85 day period. WTF? Usually its about $100 or $200.
I called up and the operator kept on asking me repeatedly whether I had installed any new electrical appliances like a hot water heater which can be very expensive to run. She was stonewalling me and I was getting no where. I gave up.
Obviously the reading (done manually) was incorrect. So I called up the previous old electricity company SE and asked them for the old reading to compare. Duh. Turns out they never bothered taking the offpeak reading.
So I called up Origin again - and thankfully I got an operator who was a bit more helpful. After a bit of discussion - she said its obviously an error in the first reading of the meter- and told me she'd send back the bill to the accounts dept and get them to sort it out. Fingers crossed now.
At least I know how to read the electricity meter now.
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I also recently switched ISPs. My contract with my old ISP had expired - leaving me free to choose a new one. So I did. Unfortunately, I forgot that my home phone is still under contract with Optus. They called me up and hooked me up with a new phone contract last October- but it wasn't activated until March of this year. The termination fee comes to $440 including GST. ARGHHH!!! I couldn't believe that the home silly land line phone would cost so bloody much.
I called up Optus and they said the only way they could waiver it is if I returned back to them. The problem is my new ISP bundled my internet plan together with the phone. So I'm not sure whether I'll end up coping another fine with my new ISP.
I emailed my new ISP and asked for help. Hopefully we'll work out something.
Appropriately the Bible verse for today is this:
"Therefore do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body... For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow,... each day has enough trouble on its own." Bible Matthew 6.25-11.
2 comments:
that kinda sounds sucky, and some of these utility companies often make mistakes like this, creating shock and anxiety, which is annoying. Sometimes, I think the phone people almost do deserve getting shouted at if they do not understand what the customer is going through.
The contracts are rather dodgy, esp. when they rely on verbal recorded agreements. There's nothing on paper. And the termination fees covers the length of the contract - which can be very exorbitant. I don't see why they can't get limit the termination fee to a bond - set at the price of one month fees.
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