I'd been with Grittish Bass for 20yrs (gas only) and never had any probs, so ignored all the warnings and went dual fuel with them in June this year. Disaster. :roll:

They messed up the direct debit so missed one payment (elect is only £15 a month based on 20yrs in the same property so pretty accurate).

After 2 months they decided I was in arrears (!) so wanted to increase the DD from £15 to £33. I phoned, the guy understood the problem and agreed it made no sense, said leave it at £15 and in 6months the review would sort it out. Great.

Today I got a letter saying the "twice yearly" review (the last one was in August and it's the second since June! :? ) says the DD is going up from £15 to £42/month.

I phoned an hour ago (still incandescent with rage as we speak :evil: ), the lady said there was nothing could be done, she could only offer to reduce it by 10% (to £37-80) or take me off DD altogether (which by the way then loses you the discounts, only she didn't bother to tell me that).

I asked why the rise, she said because people use more electricity in winter. I asked the status of my account, she said I was 21p in credit.

So having missed one DD in 6months due to their incompetence, and paid 5 installments of £15 after which I am in credit, they decide I need to almost treble my payments. You figure. :roll:

I am waiting for a call from someone who can deal with it, if that doesn't materialise PDQ it's off to another supplier no messing. These people cannot be tolerated, they must treat the customer better than that.

Re: house bills
 

Wish my dad had done this for me - lucky fellow! If you collect rent off the others and you will be sweet.

[/b]

its not as lucky as some might like to think in other ways

1, the house im currently in has a market value of around 450,000 i would imagine, lowest valuation was 375, highest was 580 i think. + my mum has won that in the divorce case and my dad has had to give her the house, plus all possesions minus a few things, and then now also has to pay 700 pound a month for my sister in child care for the next year or so(like it costs 700 a month to raise a a teen)

so now he has nothing,
so the house he will be buying will be for me and him to stay in when he is in the uk (he works abroad)

my girlfriend
her twin
her twins bf (also my best m8)
and me

are all on relativly low earning jobs/apprenchips so we are going to cover bills to start with and him the morgage, plus maybe rent out a room to help a bit also this way morgage should be paid off in about 5 years ish (dad works abroad so can manage to get some pretty high paid jobs but onyl cause hes good at what he does, project mnager oil and gas,)


so lucky in some ways yes, but divorce and losing a house completly id say was unlucky

Two bed town house, two inhabitants

Council Tax Band B £112 per mth over 10 mths, Band C £127 per month (Add a further £15 for each additional Band)

Buildings & Contents Insurance £28

Gas & Electric £40

Water (meter) £21

Cable Telephone & Broadband £60 (£30 through NTL for basic pack)

TV Licence £11

Contingency for Boilers etc £10



Total Per Month £282

more than i earn, thank god for rostered O/T

H

300 a month would probably cover your needs. My 4 bed house is currently costing about that a month. If you decrease in size though the cost doesnt go down dramatically. My 1 bed flat for when i'm working in london is about another 300 a month