The Ranting Room

^^^

If I ever get in any trouble I'm going to give you a call Jim!    

 

 

Jim Garten wrote: OK I've been paying £55 per month to my gas supplier; they recently read my meter & the new statement confirmed that gas usage vs payments came to a balance of £0.09 - perfect - I'm paying exactly what I need to. Not so. The thieving s now want to increase my monthly payment from £55 to £96; an increase of over 61% - this in the face of industry wide opinion that the retail cost of gas per unit is to fall sharply over the next 6 months - I say again: THIEVING s!

What a terrible system.  All my services (electricity, gas, water) are billed strictly based on usage.  Why pay silly inflated estimates when you have meters? 

ok get this one Jim,

My mum who is an elderly widow living alone recently (3 years ago) had mainline gas fitted into her cottage which is exactly 2up, 2down mid terrace. For2 years she paid £28 per month for combined gas and electric. In March of this year they put it to £32. which she accepted ok.
In September they increased her monthly payments to a WHOPPING £106.38 per month.     She was in the middle of her first bout of chemo at the time, so my sister tried to deal with it for her, we are STILL waiting for it to be sorted out. But APPARENTLY if you pay by monthly direct debit although generally your gas/electric cost is up to 10% cheaper than the standard bill payer, it is ENTIRELY LEGAL for the provider to set the monthly debit at WHATEVER THEY WISH, and trying to get money back from them is almost impossible. Mum's health means that she is too sick and dizzy to read a book or watch TV, and pretty much goes to bed when it gets dark as she's pretty frail. My sister, who is local to her, brings her cooked food some days, other days she might just have fruit or toast (she's pretty sick) she has one radiator in the lounge and one in her bedroom. no more.  £106.38 a month?????  That's robbery of the worst kind. We are all helping out where we can and hope we can sort it out as soon as possible, in the meantime she is under stress that she really could do without right now.

Classic Dean!

^ whenever I've had dealings with people like that it I come away with the desire to change professions to one where I am in control of them... like a surgeon... "Ah yes I know you thought you came in for a relatively simple procedure but you can't get the parts for these older models, so we tightened your nuts and slapped some sealant around your ballcock, it should hold everything in place but what you really need is to replace all the plumbing with modern metric replacements. SOooo anyway, that will be £20,000. Have a nice day and if you have any problems don't hesitate in contacting our approved helpline on... sorry, I'm going to have to ask you not to drip on the carpet."

Andy - re your plumber's incident; I wholeheartedly agree; a few years ago, Vicky and I decided it was time for the old avocado coloured toilet/cistern to go (ah yes, the 1970s, eh? ); that's all we wanted - a plumber to come in for an hour or so tops & replace it with a bog-standard (sorry ) white one.

When we eventually managed to get one to come round to do it, he didn't turn up; nor did the next one we tried... or the next . Eventually one did turn up & to his credit was perfectly friendly & not too overpriced - but he was the fourth one we tried!

Nowadays (luckily) we have friends who are professional plumbers/painters/decorators, and are trustworthy, reliable & knock off £20 from their day-rate for 'mates rates'.

Referrals on a percentage basis

Plumbers!!

No offence to any prog plumbers, of course..

Last Friday a cocky, arrogant and uncommunicative plumber turned up at my house to fix a problem with my kitchen mixer tap. After tightening some bolts and squirting some sealant around the base of my tap assembly, he charged me £104 (for 20 mins work) then f****d off! I was outraged at the price, of course, but at least the problem 'appeared' to be solved. Two days later the problem re-occured, so I called to arrange another appointment and to express my dissatisfaction at the work he'd done. The t0sser on the phone then had a go at me for complaining about one of his precious engineers!! I made another appointment for the following day. The plumber didn't turn up. I had now taken the best part of two days off work waiting for these people, and they have taken money off me for nothing! I have just written to their customer service dept and demanded a refund! Yeah right, I guess I can ing go and sing for that.

What is it with customer service in this country? I seem to remember a time when some pride was taken in work. A time when the customer came first; acknowledged as valuable to the business, but especially in industries like plumbing there seems to be this attitude of 'if you dont like it, you know what you can do' It makes me sick. Together with a double glazing company and a garage the last week has just been dealing with an orderly queue of w*****s, one after another. It makes me sick! There must be more to life than just dealing with sh!t, surely!



Takes deep breath, and returns to work, with very forced grin...

Dean wrote: "This is a ranting room A room in which to rant While all the men and women plant. This is a ranting room But I won't be ranting soon. "Father why are all the children ranting? They are merely crying son. Oh, are they merely crying father? Yes, true ranting is yet to come." (with apologies to Mr Cave )

Inspired, Dean.

And now, if you please, an adaptation of 'The Curse Of Milhaven' on the subject of excessive street furniture

Edited by Jim Garten - August 14 2008 at 03:56

^^^ I hear what you're saying, Mr Science ...