CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Thursday 17 August 2017

EE ba gum

The most stressful thing about moving is dealing with the utilities. I hate dealing with utilities. I hate using the phone, and I cannot stand dealing with call centres. I just can't do it.
I had EE broadband before I moved, and had been very happy with it. I went online and completed the requisite details for moving, which seemed pretty straightforward. OK, it took a fortnight, which I was a bit pissed off about - if I'd known that I'd have done it sooner. But still, confident that in two weeks my phone socket would magically come to life I sat back to wait, relying on Jim's mifi in the interim. Just before the two weeks was up, I got an email from EE. 'We would like to talk to you regarding your Broadband and Landline services', it said. 'Please call 0800 0790 283 as further information is required regarding your account with us.' Naturally I replied to the email, saying I don't use the phone, please can you ask your questions by email. That was five days ago, and naturally I have heard nothing since. Meanwhile, Jim's mifi data has run out (6 gb in a month; how?) until tomorrow so I am writing this at work.
That is as nothing however compared to my experience with Extra Energy, whose gas and electricity 'services' I inherited with the house. No, I had never heard of them either. I went online, set up an account, and sent them meter readings. I didn't get a bill, but I got a threatening letter saying I hadn't paid the bill. So I emailed them some more meter readings. The emailed back saying they couldn't deal with it as I had used a different email account from the one I had registered with them. OK, that sort of makes sense. But they said, could I phone them instead. So if someone pretending to be me had emailed from a different email account, that's something they are absolutely security conscious about; but anyone could phone pretending to be me and that would be fine. Also, as per my previous gripe about CRT, the only thing this imaginary imposter could do would be to pay my bill, so that doesn't seem such a massive security threat. I have now established some sort of email correspondence with them, albeit with massive time lags on their part, but that hasn't stopped them sending me another threatening letter yesterday. Now, I want to pay the bill (the sooner I can, the sooner I can find another supplier) - but I want to pay an actual bill, not their wild guesswork. I've given them the information - and updated it twice - but so far all I've had is one grossly over-estimated bill, in between the two threatening letters. Meanwhile the letter-sending-out machine seems to have no idea what the emailers are doing. 
Worst of all, the threatening letters only provide a phone number - no email; no postal address (just a tiny head office address hidden at the bottom). I told the email people that I don't use the phone because of a disability (!) and they fell over themselves to assure me how seriously they take this. Yeah, right.
On the other hand, a highly commended for Yorkshire Water, who have dealt with everything smoothly and by post, including a very nice, clear and friendly letter explaining why I couldn't pay quarterly like I did before (because I don't have a meter at the house! Baths all round!)

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