A moan - utility companies.

[Typhoon190]

Annoyed.

After consistently ensuring my direct debits where slightly above my apparent usage, out of the blue I was met with a £300+ bill for my water. Now I have a bill of over £250 from BT! Not happy. Have made my feelings known politely.

[steve-45]

I too have noticed that my BT bills seem to be ever increasing, time to shop around I think ....

[rustymotor]

Originally Posted by Typhoon190

Annoyed.

After consistently ensuring my direct debits where slightly above my apparent usage, out of the blue I was met with a £300+ bill for my water. Now I have a bill of over £250 from BT! Not happy. Have made my feelings known politely.

Hi, you mean you just got £550 in bills and don't what they are for? puzzling.

[SCP440]

My previous Gas and Electric supplier hit me with a huge extra one year, ''they had miscalculated the average'' apparently . I gave them a piece of my mind over the phone and suddenly they realised they had made a mistake . I asked how this was possible and they agreed to keep the standing order the same.

The problem is we trust these companies to work out the charges correctly but who actually goes through there statement to check? If they managed to get an extra £ from each of these customers for a few months that would be a tidy sum.

[Rev Jules]

Do you have a water meter, if not then you have paid for the rateable value of your house, as for BT do you have the works IE! Tele, Phone Broadband ECT!

You must know what contract you have with them.

Rev

[Rev Jules]

[SIZE="5"]
Don't get me going on utility companies we are still waiting to get the Solar Panels transferred to our name since last September 17, they wanted proof of ownership being sold with the house, and a the Land Registry Document in our names, UTILITY WAREHOUSE ! a load of idiots!!!!!

Rev

[steve-45]

Originally Posted by Rev Jules

Do you have a water meter, if not then you have paid for the rateable value of your house, as for BT do you have the works IE! Tele, Phone Broadband ECT!

You must know what contract you have with them.

Rev

Only landline and Broadband, and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I don't actually need a landline.

Thinking of switching to a broadband only package with a third party supplier when OpenReach eventually get round to updating my area to fibre.

According to the BT website this upgrade is 5 months away .... its been saying that for the last 3 years .....

[MSS]

Originally Posted by Typhoon190

Annoyed.

After consistently ensuring my direct debits where slightly above my apparent usage, out of the blue I was met with a £300+ bill for my water. Now I have a bill of over £250 from BT! Not happy. Have made my feelings known politely.

Have you tried asking the two companieds what the bills are for?

Those are large bills in both cases and the two companies should be able to provide a straightforwardbreakdown of what they cover.

[MSS]

Originally Posted by steve-45

Only landline and Broadband, and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I don't actually need a landline.

Thinking of switching to a broadband only package with a third party supplier when OpenReach eventually get round to updating my area to fibre.

According to the BT website this upgrade is 5 months away .... its been saying that for the last 3 years .....

I've just noticed this above post and feel that it suffers from what is widespread confusion amongst buyers due to termonilogy.

All broadband services, other than mobile broadband, require a physical connection of some sort into the home in order for the service to function. The "line" could be a copper line ( e.g. up to around 40Mbit/s based on Openreach services), a cable operator's line, or a fibre line ( ultrafast broadband based on FTTP or equivalent technologies). This is the minimum required for broadband to function.

On top of the "line" plus the broadband service, the user can purchase add-on services such as voice calls (telephone), TV packages etc.

The so called "Broadband Only" deals still include one of the above line types and charge a rental fee for the line. The user choice is about whether to purchase the additional services such as TV, voice calls etc.

You cannot have broadband without a line (copper or fibre), other than mobile broadband via your mobile SIM. Also, most fibre based broadband services still require a copper line into the home. The exception being the Virgin and BT Ultrafast services which are delivered over a fibre into the home. These have only recently started to be rolled out. These are also the most expensive broadband services and therefore not candidates for reducing the cost of your broadband.

[neilll]

Just to add about utility companies!
I changed from "Avro Energy" back in November and am in credit to the tune of nearly £300 (still waiting)! I received an email today saying they will check out my account and refund me in 5-10 days!!
Folks if you are looking for a new supplier try "peoples energy" seem very good at the moment and someone answers the phone!

Neil