PowerGen - Part II

I am close to tears of laughter here. This is so incompetent it's unbelievable.

No-one phoned me back.

This morning, we got a REPLACEMENT BILL. For MORE. Covering the period from 7 Jan to 12 Feb, and claiming to be a bill that settled our account, and expressed regret that we were leaving PowerGen.

Except that WE HAVEN'T BEEN A CUSTOMER OF POWERGEN SINCE DECEMBER 2ND! And I have letters from them to PROVE IT.

I foresee a morning on the phone.

[Update: 08:40am]

Checked paperwork: noticed that the two final bills in my possession (the Dec 2 one and this morning's) have different account numbers.

Round one. Spoke to a lady in customer support. She said 'but the first account number you gave me was closed on Dec 2'. 'Exactly', says I. And proceeds to explain the details, and point out that I am not paying the bill. She says 'one of my colleagues has put this account on hold and will be dealing with it'. I point out that I do not consider that their idea of 'dealing with it' (by sending me a DIFFERENT bill that is STILL for a period for which I am not a customer of theirs) is dealing with it in a competent manner, and remind them of the existence of the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act, and EnergyWatch. I ask, somewhat forcefully, to speak to someone who is actually competent to deal with my problem. She puts me on hold for a good 3 or 4 minutes, then comes back, and says she'll call me back (asking AGAIN for the phone number I gave her five minutes previously). I express doubt, since her colleague failed to keep that promise on Thursday - she assures me she will.

I await developments.

[Update: 09:40am]

Still no call. Have just noticed that the first erroneous bill had an estimated reading for April 19. Interestingly, the second bill has an ACTUAL reading for Feb 13. And it's higher.

How can this be, I ask myself? Especially since I have NO recollection of letting anyone in to my garden to read the meter.

PowerGen part 3

No call as of 1pm.

I phoned again, and got Jenny in Customer Service.

Apparently they're blaming Scottish Power, for not forwarding on the final reading from Dec 2, and she's going to call a supervisor and the central clearing point for Electricity billing and sort it out. I remind her that I'm going on holiday on Friday and I'd be really unhappy to come home to a red bill and a snotty letter from their collections department.

[Update 1:20pm]

While typing this up, it occurs to me that if Scottish Power didn't forward the final reading, then where the **** did PowerGen get the meter reading for the final bill they sent me when we transferred, since it's clearly marked on the bill as being a customer reading (i.e. we supplied them with the reading).

Ho hum. I phone Jenny again, and point this out. We discuss this a little more, and she concedes that, indeed, something seems to be screwy here, and promises to call me back.

[Update 1:35pm]

She calls back. Trumpets sound, birds fall stunned and dead from trees and heavenly choirs sing Hallelujah. It appears to be a mistake on PowerGen's part (now there's a thing): the bill has been cancelled. And I will receive a letter confirming this: I point out that "by Friday" would be nice.

Lets see what happens now.