Off Topic...
as this concerns one of our beloved former public utilities, which may or may not be trading under a name like 'Gritish Bas'.

I decided to go abroad for a bit towards the end of last year so let my flat out. Prior to this I had some problems with the gas bill. I thought I had it sorted, but I've now just had to send them this letter. (It doesn't start well - I consider it a courtesy to get someone's title right, normally only a problem when addressing a woman but in this case it wasn't obvious from the person's name what sex they were. I'm not a bigot but I'm not that au fait with names from the indian subcontinent to know what is a male or female first name! Is it too much to ask people to include their title when they write to you?)

Anyway:

Dear Mr/Ms Fuckwit,

I have received a letter from you (dated 21 June) concerning the above account following my letter to you (dated 18 June). You would have had a quicker response from me if you had written to me at the address at the top of that letter rather than the billing address. Please respond to this letter on the address above.

I find the contents of your letter very frustrating. I appreciate that your systems indicate that I have an account and have had one since 2003. I entered into a significant amount of correspondence with yourselves and othershitpowercompany last year and have also had to write to you twice this year.

To summarise (yet again):

• I set up an account with yourselves for both gas and electricity supply in 2003.

• Subsequently it transpired that neither of these was being supplied by you, but by Othershitpowercompany.

• I successfully resolved the problem with electricity supply last year.

• I thought I had successfully resolved the problem with gas supply last year as well. In previous correspondence to you, I sent you a copy of the closing bill with Othershitpowercompany before I moved out of the property last year prior to it being let out.

• You refunded to me last year all the monies I had paid to yourselves from 2003 onwards as they were actually due to Othershitpowercompany. I paid up the full amount due to this company.

• Earlier this year, you sent me a bill for gas supply to the property. I responded to you that this was incorrect. A conversation with one of your call centre operatives from your Edinburgh call centre advised me that this was indeed an error, and that although the Meter Serial Number was correct there was an incorrect correlation in your systems between that Meter Serial Number and the Supply Reference Number.

• Your Edinburgh call centre operative advised me that any bills that came through should be ignored and that a ‘zero’ account closed bill would be issued in due course. I have also received a cheque from you in respect of monies that had inadvertently been collected by direct debit by you.

• At your call centre operative’s request, I performed a ‘burn test’ and I can confirm from this that the gas supplied to the property is indeed passing through the meter with serial number 1234567S.

I fail to see why I have an obligation to pay you further monies. I have now received a number of demands to pay this bill, with added threats of legal action and one letter threatening me with having the supply cut off. Since I do not actually live at the property (it is tenanted) I assume you cannot legally do this.

I am not prepared to waste more of my time sorting out this issue, having to write repeated long accounts of the previous actions taken by you and me on this matter, when I have already supplied you with all the pertinent information.

I would like you to:

• Annul this bill for £195.11 (plus the additional £14 for your ‘urgent telemessage’) immediately.

• If there IS an amount due to you in respect of this property, please sort it out between yourselves and Othershitpowercompany. I have paid them fully for all gas used whilst I was occupier of the property. Your (or Othershitpowercompany’s) failures in this matter, if any, are not my problem to sort out.

• Desist from any legal action against me – it is not warranted!

I hope that you can appreciate from the tone of this letter that I have now run out of patience and am quite angry about having to spend yet more of my time attempting to resolve this issue.

If your response to this correspondence is not to my satisfaction I will take the matter up with EnergyWatch.

Yours Sincerely,
Calamity

Apologies for ridiculous length and girth.
(Calamity wetter than a fish's wet bits - bloody rain on, Fri 27 Jul 2007, 0:22, Reply)