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The Ranting (or Venting) Thread. 
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Paul1965 wrote:
F***ing DART charge rip-off. Pure greed. Ramping the charge from £2.50 to a £70 fine if you don't pay by the end of the next day is just profiteering.

Yup.

One of my colleagues had an even better one.
So, he's got his own DART account as he travels between Ipswich and somewhere in Kent on a regular basis.
Now, he was going on a training course from work and had a company pool car to get there. The course was in Kent somewhere so he had to use DART. He just went and forgot to pay the charge because he was used to it just being deducted automatically from his account when he went in own car. His bad, to which he admits.
Now, because he'd been in a pool car that the company rents from a third party the charge notice went to the hire company first. They passed it onto our finance department within 2 days I think. Finance then sat on it for nearly a month by which time the charges has doubled (there's a delayed payment penalty on it).
When Finance finally contacted him the charge had gone from the original ~£140 to somewhere in the region of £400 because of the late payments and the admin fee charged by the rental company. Funnily enough he went absolutely ape at them and refused to pay all but the original fine (they eventually agreed to this).

In a similar vein, my parents have been studiously ignoring a parking fine issued by a private car park in Scotland using ANPR.
So my mum goes into this car park but there aren't any spaces. It's quite a big car park so by the time she leaves she's been in there for over 10 minutes which the car park considers to mean that you've parked.
A while later a parking charge thing is delivered to the parents. I know the law in Scotland is a bit different from elsewhere in the UK and Dad decides they'll just ignore it and see what happens, confident that, as Mum had a witness in the car, they'd be able to successfully contest it court if it ever went that far.
So, queue a series of increasingly threatening letters, not of which they respond to. It eventually looks like the parking people have dropped it.
However, last month my brother gets a letter from a parking company claiming he's liable for this parking charge. Now, my brother and Dad have the same first initial and surname but apart from that my brother has no connection to the vehicle - he's not (and never has been) the registered keeper and he wasn't on the insurance at the time the parking fine was issued so how the hell did they manage to get his address to send him a payment demand?
I think they should go full GDPR because it seems like a massive overreach to try and drag my brother into this. I'm assuming the parking company managed to get his details of DVLA in which case they've made a serious mistake.

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Wed Jun 27, 2018 8:55 am
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Parking companies and debt collectors will, I believe, try and stir things up by going after family members if they do not get a response. It may not be that they really expect your brother to pay but that they hope he'll ask your Mum and Dad what's going on and that will get them to respond. As I have found out, ignoring demands for money is the worst thing you can do.

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Fri Jun 29, 2018 10:58 am
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davrosG5 wrote:
However, last month my brother gets a letter from a parking company claiming he's liable for this parking charge. Now, my brother and Dad have the same first initial and surname but apart from that my brother has no connection to the vehicle - he's not (and never has been) the registered keeper and he wasn't on the insurance at the time the parking fine was issued so how the hell did they manage to get his address to send him a payment demand?

The parking company would get laughed out of court.

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Wed Jul 04, 2018 3:31 pm
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Ah the annual joy of checking gas and electricity prices beckons.
Looks like the best I can do is pay somewhere between £40 and £50 more than I'm currently paying for about the same usage. Naturally, the new version of my current deal is vastly more expensive (about £100 a year allegedly) and that's one that's only available through switching sites, the one they wanted to switch me to that's available from the directly is about £200 more a year :shock:
Also, the cheaper of my current supplier deals is also time limited so if I switched to it I'd lose out on about a month and a half of my current much cheaper deal.

Vampires/parasites/barstewards take your pick.

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Thu Jul 05, 2018 11:49 am
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You made sure to tick the box that shows the best deals rather than just ones you can 'switch to now'?

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Fri Jul 06, 2018 5:25 am
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I keep my annual meter readings in a spreadsheet that I've set up. Last year, I then use a switch site to see what the "best" tariffs were. There was a difference in what was available and what came up through the searches. I also found the "savings" were compared to standard tariffs rather than my current tariff, which was cheeky. I'd apparently save £400/yr by switching but this was based on me going to the standard tariff once my 12-month plan ended. When I entered the details into the spreadsheet, the savings were closer to £30-50/yr. But this is with the mainstream companies like eon, EDF, scottish power etc. There are larger savings to be had by smaller companies like bulb and octopus but I'm a bit wary of them mainly because they're less likely to have the resources to fix things if something goes wrong. But I plan to make the jump next year.

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Fri Jul 06, 2018 7:05 am
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l3v1ck wrote:
You made sure to tick the box that shows the best deals rather than just ones you can 'switch to now'?

Yup, show all available was indeed selected.

cloaked_wolf wrote:
I keep my annual meter readings in a spreadsheet that I've set up. Last year, I then use a switch site to see what the "best" tariffs were. There was a difference in what was available and what came up through the searches. I also found the "savings" were compared to standard tariffs rather than my current tariff, which was cheeky. I'd apparently save £400/yr by switching but this was based on me going to the standard tariff once my 12-month plan ended. When I entered the details into the spreadsheet, the savings were closer to £30-50/yr. But this is with the mainstream companies like eon, EDF, scottish power etc. There are larger savings to be had by smaller companies like bulb and octopus but I'm a bit wary of them mainly because they're less likely to have the resources to fix things if something goes wrong. But I plan to make the jump next year.

I also keep a track of my monthly usage with a spreadsheet so I know exactly how much I've been using and so I can get more accurate estimates come time to switch.
Yeah, I spotted the 'savings based on me being on the standard tariff thing' - not exactly helpful although I think it varies by site. Compare the Market was comparing with my current tariff which is why it didn't show anything offering an actual saving overall.
I've gone with smaller companies in the past. I'm quite happy to steer clear of the big six if there's a decent saving and the customer support has generally positive reviews but quite a lot of the smaller players don't do so well on customer service presumably because they don't have enough staff to handle a big influx of customers when they have a good deal.

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Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:02 am
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I use Martin Lewis (Money Savings Expert) Energy Club as you can put in your current tariff and it then looks at the market - far better than the normal comparison sites

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Fri Jul 06, 2018 11:59 am
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hifidelity2 wrote:
I use Martin Lewis (Money Savings Expert) Energy Club as you can put in your current tariff and it then looks at the market - far better than the normal comparison sites

Thanks for that. I've signed up.

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Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:22 pm
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On this issue? Is it true that it's a bitch to switch supplier if you have a smart meter?
Something I'd heard, but I've no idea if it's true.

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Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:43 am
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Actually a bit of googling answered that.
Quote:
Having a smart meter doesn’t affect your right to switch energy providers whenever you want. So if you’ve had a smart meter installed but you want to move to a new supplier, you will still be able to do so.

However, you may find your smart meter loses its functionality and reverts to being a traditional meter. If so, you might have to go back to giving regular meter readings to your new supplier. And if anything goes wrong, some suppliers may have to replace your smart meter with a standard meter because they’re not equipped to deal with your particular model of smart meter.

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pcernie wrote:
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Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:46 am
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l3v1ck wrote:
Actually a bit of googling answered that.
Quote:
Having a smart meter doesn’t affect your right to switch energy providers whenever you want. So if you’ve had a smart meter installed but you want to move to a new supplier, you will still be able to do so.

However, you may find your smart meter loses its functionality and reverts to being a traditional meter. If so, you might have to go back to giving regular meter readings to your new supplier. And if anything goes wrong, some suppliers may have to replace your smart meter with a standard meter because they’re not equipped to deal with your particular model of smart meter.

Yeah, that’s the main reason I refuse to have a smart meter. There’s no point until they’re interoperable between suppliers. It’s frankly appalling this wasn’t required from the start of the SM rollout.
Looks like the SMETS 2 meters have been delayed again (apparently meant to be mandatory from the middle of this month but now delayed for 3 more months).
Smart meters don’t really bother me - I take monthly readings so I know what I use and make sure I upload the details to my supplier so I don’t get estimated bills anyway.

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Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:18 am
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cloaked_wolf wrote:
I keep my annual meter readings in a spreadsheet that I've set up


WTAF? Someone has a lot of time of their hands :shock: :lol:

I've just opened and filed (on the bonfire) the last 6 months worth of post. And I only did that because I was unemployed and had some time on my hands

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jonbwfc wrote:
Caz is correct though


Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:39 pm
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Don't bills show you your usage for the last year these days?
I'm sure mine do.

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Wed Jul 11, 2018 12:44 pm
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l3v1ck wrote:
Don't bills show you your usage for the last year these days?
I'm sure mine do.

Yes they do but that assumes it's based on accurate meter readings.

oceanicitl wrote:
cloaked_wolf wrote:
I keep my annual meter readings in a spreadsheet that I've set up


WTAF? Someone has a lot of time of their hands :shock: :lol:

I've just opened and filed (on the bonfire) the last 6 months worth of post. And I only did that because I was unemployed and had some time on my hands

Each to their own. It really doesn't take much time to keep an eye out for your energy supplier trying to rip you off.
I usually take a meter reading (Gas, Electricity and Water) every month and it must take me a whole 5 minutes every month.

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Wed Jul 11, 2018 1:49 pm
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