Picking Fights-Updated

Two stories to tell this week.

The first is about electricity and the unreasonable (in this case unlawful and illegal) costs demanded by suppliers. I suppose we can mostly agree that they want too much money, but what gets my goat is the "green" shit attached to my energy bill.

They sent me an estimate for the next 12 months. £2,800. That's two thousand eight fucking hundred British pounds. I phoned them up to ask if they were doolally. They are. And it has forced me to write to their legal department to ask several questions. The wifey on the phone, (a very cheerful lady) said that 12% of my bill goes to the government for "environmental & social schemes, CO2 emissions, and the like". And the like? She couldn't expand on that last fuzzy definition of what the charges went to.

I asked her "Who says you have to charge me 12% for this nonsense?".

"Government", she says, quite emphatically. (She thought she had dodged a bullet there. She was wrong).

"Really?", I ask, "So can you just quote me the statute, Bill or Act that says so?".

"Erm, no. I don't have it to hand" she says.

"No problem, I'm paying for the call, go and get it from your legal peeps".

8 minutes on hold.

"I called them and they can't put their fingers on the exact law at this time" she says.

"That's because no such law exists", says I.

She had lost all of her earlier cheerfulness. I think I may have ruined her day.

Anyhoo, I knew it wasn't her problem, and we had already discovered that no-one told her that they were scamming customers out of (what must be) millions of £££'s each year.

So I have sent them an FOI request to discover just exactly when they started charging me this 12%, to ask for the statute by name, and for them to point out specifically where it says that I, the consumer, must pay it. I asked them a couple of other awkward questions while I was at it. I'll get back to you on this when they get back to me. They have 20 days and counting.

Courtesy of our pal Nige, check this video out:



Good stuff this. It is information you can and should use. I fully intend to.

The second story is about that bully we pay billions to every year-the taxman. I used to dread talking to them, nowadays I find unparalleled joy in our little talks.

Back in 2003 I wasn't earning much. One day a form drops through my door entitled "Do you qualify for working tax credits?". I had no idea, so I filled it in and sent it off. They wrote back and said "You DO qualify! We will start sending you truckloads of money". And they did. It all went well for about three months. I got a promotion and a pay rise at work and I duly informed them by phone, as instructed. "We will send a new form for you to fill in" they said. The form arrived, I filled it in and sent it off. (Basically the form was the written version of our telephone conversation). Instead of reducing the amount they were paying, they increased it. I phoned and said "Stop sending me money. I do not qualify for (this much) anymore". "No problem" said they, "We will amend the figure". They didn't. The money kept on coming. Long story short, I made about 14-20 calls to them over an 18 month period. I filled in more forms than you could wave a shitty stick at, and they kept getting it wrong. Every time. Their gormlessness reached unprecedented heights.

Fast forward five years. I forget to complete the annual form. They write to me saying "We want our £6K back". I said "Nope. Not paying that. How do we make this go away?". They said "Keep filling in the annual forms we send and we will never ask you for the money". So that is what I did. They paid me something each year (a small sum) but they took it off me again and used that to whittle down the total. All good until last Friday.

I got a demand. In the post. I rang them for a chatsky.

They said, "We want our £4K."

I said, "Nope. Not paying it. You told me...etc etc".

They said, "Well, you no longer qualify for any money whatsoever and now we want that overpayment back".

I said, "How do we make this go away?".

They said, "Let's set up a standing order".

"Ain't gonna happen", says I, "Think of another way".

"We---ell," they said, "If you think we messed up that might be a way of getting rid of your debt".

"WHOA!", says I, "Let's never use that expression again. It is not my debt. You screwed up every step of the way. This is not my problem, it is yours. You fix it".

"Erm, okay. We'll send you some forms", they said.

The forms arrived yesterday. They mostly state both parties responsibilities and I rapidly discovered that I had honoured every single one of mine (and I told them so) and that they had dishonoured every single one of theirs (and I told them so), I used every available millimetre of white space to explain why, how and when they had fucked it all up. It went in the post this morning.

They have two weeks to get back to me. One thing I will guarantee: it will be a cold day in hell before I pay them a penny. Even if they don't like my version of events, I have at least six other ways to tie them in knots.

My reasoning is this: if I call the garage and order a mini, but they deliver a  BMW 320 and I point out their mistake, and they do nothing to correct their mistake, I am going to drive the Beemer. Then, 8 years later when they ask me to pay for a Beemer and not the mini that was promised, I am going to say....fuck off.

The two stories are related in that they are both demanding money from me. The energy company (with whom I have a private contract) will be paid what I lawfully owe but I am not paying them an additional 12% when they have absolutely no legal obligation to charge me for this shite in the first place. I am not the first to challenge an energy company on this issue. The precedent is in place.

The taxman screwed up. Apart from any other lawful excuse I may employ to make the problem go away, I also remember (Blair?) announcing to the HoC that overpayments would not be clawed back. I searched Hansard but could not find that particular speech. I'll keep looking.

In the meantime, try saying no. It works a treat.

CR.