Southern Water - sort yourselves out

[tigersaw]

So this morning I get 5 different letters from Southern Water.

1: statement of account, shows I am slightly in credit
2: invitation to pay by direct debit (I already do)
3: Thankyou for paying by direct debit, and confimring bank details
4: Confirmation that a direct debit of £0.00 has been set up each month. (Wonder if my bank statement will show a debit of £0.00 ?)
5: An apology for poor customer service and a cheque for £35

Talk about not knowing **** from elbow

Sounds a bit like Severn Trent where we got:

1: A statement that they didn't have any contingency plans for Mythe Treatment plant
2: A fine from Ofwat for being the only company to fail to meet the previous years leakage targets.
3: A statement that customers wouldn't be re-imbursed for water not received as rain is an act of god and therefore out of their control
4: A statement to the City that none of this would affect profitability for the shareholders, all still on track for £300 million this year.

Obviously outsourcing their accounts management to the clowns at British Gas.

I had 2 letters the same day, one thanking me for my payment, but saying they were unable to tie it to any account. The other, warning that if I didn't pay, they'd cut me off.

I temp'd at one of the above companies.
Not gonna say which cause i'm worried a non disclosure could come and bite me in the ass.
But i was dealing with a backlog of six months complaints.
Whoops.

British Gas HAVE to be the worst, been trying to set-up an account for five months with them now and they can't manage it!

Originally Posted by andyb

British Gas HAVE to be the worst, been trying to set-up an account for five months with them now and they can't manage it!

I couldnb't agree more when i first moved into my flat it took them 6 months to sort it out

Originally Posted by andyb

British Gas HAVE to be the worst, been trying to set-up an account for five months with them now and they can't manage it!

British Gas are indeed the worst, by quite some considerable margin. See Private Eye for bi-weekly updates on their ineptitude!

I won't describe the exact problem I had (as aside from being very boring, it's very very long indeed), but as a Database Administrator, I'd say the problems were symptomatic of inaccurate (or perhaps even non-existant) links between more than one database. It took literally months to sort out and ended up being resolved by my switching to another provider. They then rang me up,

"Just to let you know sir, all is arranged for your transfer to Swalec. Whilst of course you can switch, I've done some calculations and we can move you onto plan x and it will save you £6.50 a month over what you'd pay with Swalec."

"I'm sorry to say, my decision to switch has nothing to do with money. You could be giving electricity and gas away for free, I wouldn't be interested."

A friend has also had problems with them (he just sorted his out last night after 4 months of phone calls and letter) and essentially they have not only been incompetent, but downright deceptive- they have lied to him on at least 2 occassions. The person on the phone didn't try to deny this when he pointed it out.

[Sid Squid]

I'm sure that all the above mentioned companies are truly rubbish, but for sheer wanton ridiculous baffling stupidity NPower have got to take some beating.

If they were the one and only electricity supplier I'd buy candles.