Adversities of life in the 21st Century

On Monday I received my rough draft from the Energy Suppliers Ombudsman in order that I could amend sign and add information I felt was relevant. Around thirty pages of A4 paper later I feel I have managed to cover the main points of my complaint in brief. Tomorrow I return the letter and wait to see what transpires.

From what I hear my ex-home may be in some way hexed as far as electricity is concerned. My new tenants appear to have difficulties of their own. When they moved in to my old home I explained the "difficulties" there are with Scottish Power. They decided they wished to have nothing to do with Scottish Power and went through Uswitch on the internet. They got a letter from NPower - the company they had decided to go with saying that this would all be finalised within 4-6 weeks and there would be no disruption to service.

It would seem that they got a letter today stating that NPower - the company they had chosen, had cancelled the contract through Uswitch as my tenants were already existing customers of NPower. This they found strange as prior to moving into my old home they were with Scottish Power. Is there some kind of curse on this property related to energy???

I received a bill from Scottish Power today, not at my new address, but delivered by my tenant to me. Apparently the meter was read on 01/10/07 with a reading of 2837 which they (Scottish Power) say was the end reading for the period between 10/09/07 and 30/09/07. However I read the meter as I left my old home and at 8pm on the 30/09/07 the meter read 2824. So they (Scottish Power) appear to be trying to charge me an extra 13 units. 13units @ 10.369p/u = £1.35 before VAT is added. Then I got to thinking that suppose they did this to all their customers every meter read, this adds up to a substantial sum of money.

Now I know that the next bill will start from the figure (in this case) 2838 to whatever, but it means that the extra £1.35 +VAT from every customer is a huge sum of money earning interest in their (Scottish Power) bank account and not the customers' own bank accounts. Besides that I was not at the house following my departure at 8pm therefore the extra 13 units should not form part of my bill. And as my tenants are not wishing to use Scottish Power, then the extra 13 units belong to my tenants power company.

Finally received our letter of deadlock from Scottish Power. However it would seem that Martin Brannigan as I have referred to him, is actually called Martin Broddigan. Hence forth he will simply be referred to as Scottish Power Martin.

We have since been in contact with the Ombudsman service and they are happy to take up the case, so things are looking better. The Ombudsman service say that Scottish Power cannot do what they are trying to do as regards debt collection and therefore say they will put a stop to that.

Now that I've set up at mother's house, things are a bit tight. In my own house I had a dedicated room for my computer (12'x8'). Now my entire living space is around that size. I went around to my old house to see that the new tenants have settled in, and while I was there they got a visit from the meter man. Presumably checking that I had not lied about my final read.

I may be wrong but, since most energy companies want everyone to go onto paperless billing(including Scottish Power), does that not mean that everything is on computer already. I mean bills are computer generated. And if so all this information should have been available at the touch of a button. So how has it taken 2 weeks so far and no word. They must be using Intel-based computers, or worse Dell intel-based computers.