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General Things That Annoy You thread - part 2
Comments
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Thats what I do with Octopus, never had any problems and when the surplus is too much they just return money back into your account when you request. The annual cost is not obviously not equal throughout the year and the energy costs in the winter much higher.LargeAddick said:
When British Gas do that to me I just go online and reduce it to the amount I think is needed to cover my usage.Carter said:
They are all fuckers for it, they regularly, say quarterly will send an email telling us they are upping the direct debit. I then send an email back telling them not to.9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to me
Its simply and cynically to inflate their books, nothing to do with making sure we are using energy responsibly.
I'm happy to go back to receiving a paper bill and go down the post office to pay it if this continues and they can employ someone to keep an eye on it instead of running a formula upping the amount of money they take from me each month that always leaves me (them) hugely in credit
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Just don’t do direct debits and take your own meter readings and pay on an invoice basis.
Scam avoidance2 -
Cheaper tariffs are usually payment by direct debit only.LenGlover said:Just don’t do direct debits and take your own meter readings and pay on an invoice basis.
Scam avoidance0 -
I've got a DDR with Fuse and chose to pay the bill monthly.0
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9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?4 -
Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.3 -
When some arsehole artic lorry driver thinks he can avoid a weight limit on a nearby main road bridge by trying to get through a tiny lift bridge over a canal. A 5 mile, 15 minute drive to Nantwich is now a 12 mile, 35 minute trip. The lift bridge will be closed for weeks, if not months.Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
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You have to expect this sort of thing if you choose to live in an industrial heritage museum0
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Being blamed for breaking the door handle of the milking parlour as it came off in my hand this morning. Even though we have both known for weeks it was on its way out and we were both treating it gingerly on every use. It just happened to be me who turned it that last time 🙄
Still, I am now a firm believer in karma.
I walked back into the main house to continue the chores of the day and realised that the electric was off. Looked at the fuse box and couldn’t see what was at fault so went to give the good news to himself, who was stood by the goat shed with an electric screwdriver. I gave him the good news, which was met with what had I done now? 🙄
Through process of elimination it turned out that he had decided to screw in a new plank of wood on the goat shed, without checking what was behind it. He had drilled screws into a live electric cable on the other side and tripped the fuse. It took us 2hrs to work this out (we have a big farm with many electric points).
Fecking eejit.10 -
bobmunro said:Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.I understand the concept, but the point is that Octopus's own estimate for our total annual usage, including winter, is £2,125.15 (or £177 a month.
So why should we be paying the requested £234 a month, or even the £220 we've already been paying, when their own figures say £177 should cover the year?
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How so many of the things that cause people difficulty in their lives (as demonstrated by the last couple of pages on here) are the direct result of the toxic economic conditions and fundamentally flawed economic system in which we are forced to live. But how so many of them mange to stop short of making that connection and instead focus on these things as individual issues rather than a systemic one.7
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Gribbo said:bobmunro said:Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.I understand the concept, but the point is that Octopus's own estimate for our total annual usage, including winter, is £2,125.15 (or £177 a month.
So why should we be paying the requested £234 a month, or even the £220 we've already been paying, when their own figures say £177 should cover the year?
Ah - that's different. Can you adjust the DD yourself? Not sure what my new supplier will do but Scottish Power allowed you to adjust the DD with only a recommended amount from them - but in reality their recommended DD was always about 1/12th of the annual estimate.Have they perhaps factored in the rises this month and January?1 -
Yeah, the good thing about Octopus is that you can adjust it to whatever you like. They do change it themselves, but email before hand, so I go straight on and stick it back down again. Managed to resist sticking a fiver in, but then that's no different to them requesting nearly double their estimatebobmunro said:Gribbo said:bobmunro said:Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.I understand the concept, but the point is that Octopus's own estimate for our total annual usage, including winter, is £2,125.15 (or £177 a month.
So why should we be paying the requested £234 a month, or even the £220 we've already been paying, when their own figures say £177 should cover the year?
Ah - that's different. Can you adjust the DD yourself? Not sure what my new supplier will do but Scottish Power allowed you to adjust the DD with only a recommended amount from them - but in reality their recommended DD was always about 1/12th of the annual estimate.Have they perhaps factored in the rises this month and January?0 -
Sounds like filthy commie talk to mecantersaddick said:How so many of the things that cause people difficulty in their lives (as demonstrated by the last couple of pages on here) are the direct result of the toxic economic conditions and fundamentally flawed economic system in which we are forced to live. But how so many of them mange to stop short of making that connection and instead focus on these things as individual issues rather than a systemic one.10 -
yeah! proper bolshie commie talkCarter said:
Sounds like filthy commie talk to mecantersaddick said:How so many of the things that cause people difficulty in their lives (as demonstrated by the last couple of pages on here) are the direct result of the toxic economic conditions and fundamentally flawed economic system in which we are forced to live. But how so many of them mange to stop short of making that connection and instead focus on these things as individual issues rather than a systemic one.0 -
KBslittlesis said:Being blamed for breaking the door handle of the milking parlour as it came off in my hand this morning. Even though we have both known for weeks it was on its way out and we were both treating it gingerly on every use. It just happened to be me who turned it that last time 🙄
Still, I am now a firm believer in karma.
I walked back into the main house to continue the chores of the day and realised that the electric was off. Looked at the fuse box and couldn’t see what was at fault so went to give the good news to himself, who was stood by the goat shed with an electric screwdriver. I gave him the good news, which was met with what had I done now? 🙄
Through process of elimination it turned out that he had decided to screw in a new plank of wood on the goat shed, without checking what was behind it. He had drilled screws into a live electric cable on the other side and tripped the fuse. It took us 2hrs to work this out (we have a big farm with many electric points).
Fecking eejit.
But you love him really
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No wonder our country is in such a financial state,I have received a letter from hmrc(2 letters in fact) stating my wife and I are owed a total of £47.00 in tax rebate click on the given website to claim.30 minutes later having jumped through more hoops than a circus animal,I have given up.They have written to me,I have gone on the website and now i have to download passport photos to prove my identity.I am 82 and have no idea how to navigate all this crap,they can keep the £47.00 to buy some more red tape to keep themselves occupied.Absolute jobs for the boys.9
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Comodification of housing along with the financialisation of basically everything in society is the root cause of the majority of societies issues. Still it made a made up number on a computer go really high for a while.Carter said:
Mortgages are a racket, like loads with the housing/moving/borrowing money to keep a roof over your head marketcantersaddick said:Being charged a mortgage exit fee simply because my 5 year fix has run it's term. Like what. You can't administer closing the mortgage account out of the 40k interest I've paid you.
Pure rent seeking behaviour that in a properly functioning economy simply wouldn't be allowed.
Conveyancing solicitors hold a particular place in hell, truly a job if ever there was one that will fall early on to AI given most of them use that as a default already
Mortgages have to be one of the safest bets in the world. Even if you default to the point of having your home repossessed the bank wins and holds an in-demand asset as security.
I've got this bullshit to do next year and I'm looking forward to it as much as I am a colonoscopy0 -
Completing a ID check for a new mortgage with the broker only to be told that the lender then has another 3rd party that it uses for its ID checks and that its £12.50 each before we can get any further. More rent-seeking non-value-add behaviour. Why do we put up with this crap?cantersaddick said:Being charged a mortgage exit fee simply because my 5 year fix has run it's term. Like what. You can't administer closing the mortgage account out of the 40k interest I've paid you.
Pure rent seeking behaviour that in a properly functioning economy simply wouldn't be allowed.
Burn these corporations to the ground3 -
This againcantersaddick said:How so many of the things that cause people difficulty in their lives (as demonstrated by the last couple of pages on here) are the direct result of the toxic economic conditions and fundamentally flawed economic system in which we are forced to live. But how so many of them mange to stop short of making that connection and instead focus on these things as individual issues rather than a systemic one.1 -
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I got this for the whopping sum of £13-something so I followed the instructions and used my govt gateway id and it asked me to input my bank details which I did and then it said that doesn’t match.thickandthin63 said:No wonder our country is in such a financial state,I have received a letter from hmrc(2 letters in fact) stating my wife and I are owed a total of £47.00 in tax rebate click on the given website to claim.30 minutes later having jumped through more hoops than a circus animal,I have given up.They have written to me,I have gone on the website and now i have to download passport photos to prove my identity.I am 82 and have no idea how to navigate all this crap,they can keep the £47.00 to buy some more red tape to keep themselves occupied.Absolute jobs for the boys.I mean it did, it was an exact match but it wouldn’t be told…
I started again, told it I didn’t want to use the govt gateway id and it said fine, what is your national insurance number, I put that in and it asked if it wanted them to send me an old school cheque., which of course costs more money for them so I said yes and all was good.Might be good to try it again that way around @thickandthin634 -
Not for me, the whole idea of paying monthly is so i dont have to remember to pay a bill. Octopus do take the piss, I could be on average £500 a year in credit with them and £1k in credit with them in July if i didn't keep reducing their monthly suggestion and taking money back off them.bobmunro said:Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.I dont see them being too keen in the idea of me having a £500 debit balance with them in the winter so why the fuck should they have a grand of my money in the middle of the summer.1 -
I think you might find it’s your broker taking a fee here.cantersaddick said:
Completing a ID check for a new mortgage with the broker only to be told that the lender then has another 3rd party that it uses for its ID checks and that its £12.50 each before we can get any further. More rent-seeking non-value-add behaviour. Why do we put up with this crap?cantersaddick said:Being charged a mortgage exit fee simply because my 5 year fix has run it's term. Like what. You can't administer closing the mortgage account out of the 40k interest I've paid you.
Pure rent seeking behaviour that in a properly functioning economy simply wouldn't be allowed.
Burn these corporations to the groundIf you went direct to the mortgage provider I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a fee charge for an ID check.Somewhere along the line you are paying a fee to a broker rather than going direct.1 -
9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meJust change to pay on receipt of bill by direct debit. Keep back the set amount each month into your bank/savings account and pay the bill from that kitty.Start this in spring if money is tight, so you build up a surplus before the winter0 -
I read that as 'minge' sorry my fault!JohnBoyUK said:Claudia Winkleman's Fringe.
Get your hair cut you daft bint!
Winds me right up. Has done for years.2 -
I had the same problem,said my bank details where incorrect which of course was rubbish.In the end I phoned them and despite a wait of around 15 minutes,a very helpful young man dealt with the situation very well and to my satisfaction,and like you will be sending cheques.I really dont know why,for such small amounts,they just dont send out cheques in the first place.Fumbluff said:
I got this for the whopping sum of £13-something so I followed the instructions and used my govt gateway id and it asked me to input my bank details which I did and then it said that doesn’t match.thickandthin63 said:No wonder our country is in such a financial state,I have received a letter from hmrc(2 letters in fact) stating my wife and I are owed a total of £47.00 in tax rebate click on the given website to claim.30 minutes later having jumped through more hoops than a circus animal,I have given up.They have written to me,I have gone on the website and now i have to download passport photos to prove my identity.I am 82 and have no idea how to navigate all this crap,they can keep the £47.00 to buy some more red tape to keep themselves occupied.Absolute jobs for the boys.I mean it did, it was an exact match but it wouldn’t be told…
I started again, told it I didn’t want to use the govt gateway id and it said fine, what is your national insurance number, I put that in and it asked if it wanted them to send me an old school cheque., which of course costs more money for them so I said yes and all was good.Might be good to try it again that way around @thickandthin632 -
I always liked to overpay my tax bill by a quid just to make them issue a refund several weeks later.5
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Octopus wrote to me yesterday saying my account was only ~£500 in credit at the moment and 'to avoid going into debt over the winter' they were going to up my monthly payment by more than £60. The fuck you are! If it's okay for you to have £500 of my money in your account now, it's okay for me to have a couple of hundred quid of your money in my account in the winter.Alwaysneil said:
Not for me, the whole idea of paying monthly is so i dont have to remember to pay a bill. Octopus do take the piss, I could be on average £500 a year in credit with them and £1k in credit with them in July if i didn't keep reducing their monthly suggestion and taking money back off them.bobmunro said:Gribbo said:9goalswentpastperry said:
They were doing the same to me and I had accumulated a decent surplus. It was surprisingly simple to get a rebate from them.Gribbo said:Energy companies (Octopus) constantly wanting to set your Direct Debit too high.
We were paying £140 a month, but they asked us to increase it to £290. I cranked it up to £220, and now they're asking for £234, even though their estimated annual cost works out at just under £180 a month.
All seems a bit scammy to meEDF did this to us years ago and we ended up with about £500 sitting in credit, but it wasn't easy to get the money back from them back then (early Internet days), so we just left it there until it was gradually used up.
Re. the extra £54 they're asking for each month - I don't see why it's their prerogative to build up a credit balance with my money. I'd obviously much rather have that £54 in my own account, where I can decide what to do with it. At the moment, people need every extra £50-odd a month they can get just to cover shopping, fuel and the general cost of living. Why should I hand it over to an energy company to sit in their account?
But the whole idea of paying monthly by direct debit is to smooth the cost over the year - overpay in the summer, under pay in the winter.I dont see them being too keen in the idea of me having a £500 debit balance with them in the winter so why the fuck should they have a grand of my money in the middle of the summer.3 -
Next door but one neighbour has about 4 grandchildren, all running around in Chelsea /West Ham kits.
He has asked for me to get some tickets for one of our games around Xmas so he can take the grandkids as a treat. Or Tickets for West Ham Home.(x6!)
"Why don't you get a package for Chelsea/ West Ham?"
"Too dear "
Totally gobsmacked at the cheeky monkey.0 -
Does he know what 'treat' means?usetobunkin said:Next door but one neighbour has about 4 grandchildren, all running around in Chelsea /West Ham kits.
He has asked for me to get some tickets for one of our games around Xmas so he can take the grandkids as a treat. Or Tickets for West Ham Home.(x6!)
"Why don't you get a package for Chelsea/ West Ham?"
"Too dear "
Totally gobsmacked at the cheeky monkey.
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