Before I begin, I am going to write a formal letter of complaint tonight to send off tomorrow but need to vent now.
I moved into this house in early December. We arranged the power to be connected as we were with AGL at our previous property. There were some issues with connecting and I didn't get it sorted until mid december. When I connected I was discussing the rates and clearly remember discussing peak and off peak times and rates with the guy on the phone.
since then I have been staying up till after 11pm to run the washing machine and diswasher and doing another load if necessary when I get up at 4-5am to get the most of our off peak times. We don't have a clothes dryer so in winter I have been using an air conditioner/dehumidifier in one room of our house to dry the nappies and clothes every second night (after 11pm again).
I have been receiving the gas bill from AGL but hadn't received a power bill since we moved in. I called them.. it took them a while to figure out what was going on, then they tell me due to an error on their behalf, the power was never connected properly and is still billing to the previous provider so I'll probably get a bill from them someday. in the meantime AGL will connect the power properly.
Then a week later I receive 2 bills. one for $100.09 and one for $574.49 there is a letter saying due to a billing delay I'm receiving these bills now blah blah blah. if you have a problem paying call us.
I pay it all as I had budgeted for the power all along and had the money sitting there - no problem. I think it's all done and congratulate myself for my awesome budgeting.
then I receive another bill for $512.27. I notice that the previous amount was only for 3 months! and this new amount is the next 3 months that now brings us up to date.
this is twice what I had budgeted so I start looking closer at the bill...... well what do you know? no off peak charges.
I figure there must be a mistake.
I call AGL. their systems are down.
I call the next day - systems still down
I call the next day - systems STILL down
i wait the weekend
I call this morning, I was on hold for about 7 minutes - I figure they are busy due to the systems being down recently and so everyone is calling today.
A girl answers, I tell her my problem. she tells me I have no off peak meter so I don't get off peak charges and my bills are correct. I say that is not what I was told when I signed up and I would have noticed earlier if it wasn't for their billing delay so I want it ammended immediately. she says no and that I should have known that I was on a single meter (am I an electrician?). I ask to speak to her supervisor - she sighs and hangs up on me.
I call back and get a guy this time (after another 7 mins on hold). he says the same thing. puts me on hold. comes back to tell me that if I did have peak and off peak meters then I would be getting charged more for my gas water heating. As if that's supposed to make me say "oh well that's ok then, I win". He starts trying to explain power metering and charges and etc etc etc.
do these people think they can charge whatever the hell they want to and then when questioned just baffle the customer with jargon until they go away? I'm not stupid I'm just not trained in power metering - I chose a different career path.
I'm so angry. I'm not paying my damn bill.
If I had been told I was on peak charges from the start, I would not have signed the 2 year contract and would have looked at my other options and budgeted accordingly and would have gone to bed early instead of doing all my laundry and stuff in the middle of the god damn night!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRR
tell me how much you hate your power company.
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