Ignore the monkeys, find me the organ grinder!
Published: Mon, 06/26/17
I had a phone call the other day from Extra Energy. No, not a sales call this time. This call was from a manager calling to apologise to me and confirm that a particularly annoying loose end had finally been tied up.
The story began nearly 2 years ago when I was persuaded by a tele sales operative to change the supplier of electricity to the Stav Centre from British Gas to Extra Energy. It took a while for the transfer to go through but once it had I got a year of very cheap electricity, then the contract rolled over and the cost went back to the market rate, as it usually does in these cases. Then I ended the tenancy at 3 to 5 South Street and handed over to Hadyn Potts on the 1st of April. The business rates department at the council, water supply company and Extra Energy were all notified. Council and water company both responded in a couple of days, closed my account, transferred responsibility to Hayden and sent me final settlement bills. Extra Energy? Could not seem to accept that I had left and that there was a new tenant. We both sent in the final reading and Hadyn supplied a copy of his tenancy agreement. Yet still the bills kept
coming to me. The bill I received in April had also jumped from an average of £15 to £20 per month to nearly £150, which was a bit strange, more on that in a moment. I blocked the Direct Debit payment system at my end and got a call from the credit control company (debt collectors) used by Extra Energy, I said that I wasn’t paying anything until it was accepted that I was no longer the tenant. The debt collector said that this sounded perfectly reasonable and left me alone. In the meantime I wrote a letter to customer service, sent repeated emails and phoned up a couple of times. There was either zero response or I found myself talking to someone who said that my problem was nothing to do with them.
I could have just left it there and ignored bill reminders but I don’t like loose ends. A situation like this doesn’t just go away either, sooner or later the supply would probably be cut off which would be very inconvenient for the new tenant.
So, I googled the company and found the address for the registered office and the name of the CEO. Wrote a firm but polite letter to the CEO outlining the problem and asking that he get someone with the necessary brains and authority to sort it out. On previous form I wasn’t expecting much and next step would have been BBC Radio 4 You and Yours consumer programme, they love a good Extra Energy story and have run a few over the years.
As it turned out, two days later I got an email from the Managing Director of Operations apologising for the problem and promising a full investigation.
A couple of days after that the phone call, again apologising and assuring me that the matter was now resolved and the account transferred to the new tenant. Also (if I heard correctly) my total usage and payments have been reassessed and Extra Energy now reckon that they owe me money. Apparently I should receive a full and final settlement payment from them rather than the other way around.
Why share this? Partly because it has been bugging me for the past nearly 3 months and I wanted to tell someone. Also, because there is a useful lesson there, if you can’t get any sense out of the monkeys don’t be shy of going straight to the organ grinder. You won’t lose anything and, if the boss cares about their organisation at all, he or she should get a grip on the situation.
Only a month now until we move so settling with Extra Energy is one thing out of the way.
On Saturday we held the last course in Somerset I have scheduled for the time being. We had a good session and I am awarding two certificates of competence to teach the weapons side of Stav martial arts. Discussion of if and how Stav training can continue in Crewkerne continues and I will keep you posted.
Training opportunities that are scheduled:
Training with Ivar which will take place in Beverley in East Yorkshire on the 16th and 17th of September http://stavcamp.org/
Seminar hosted by Gallowglass Academy in Leaf River, Illinois, USA on the 30th September to 2nd of October http://iceandfire.org.uk/usasept17.html
Regards
Graham
PS I will be teaching Stav and leading seminars at three camps this summer
Druid Camp at the end of July http://www.druidcamp.org.uk/category/2017blog/ You can find me on the page about 5 Bios down
Spirit of Awen Camp first week of August https://spiritofawen.jimdo.com/workshops-talks/ This will be a new one for me although I do know a lot of the people involved.
Mercian Gathering first weekend of September, http://annafranklin.webplus.net/aboutus.html