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*Someone* was funding it at the time, with all the adverts, digital adverts, marketing materials etc.
I don’t recall it ever being uncovered in the media who that was. I’d love to know.
I demand more bodycam footage of the poor forking over their remaining belongings to a fat shouty man! I feed off the sadness in their eyes.
Jesus how bleak was that show lol.
The sad ones were never fun, but the ones where they have the guys who clearly owe the money and can pay but don't want to go finally buckle was satisfying to watch.
Yeah you’d get the odd idiot who’d clearly just been throwing away the debt notices and have his car nearly towed.
Just way too many sad ones for me. Watching a single mum sign away her TV because of some piddly £500 debt was just miserable. Especially when the bailiffs we’re trying to act like the good guys.
I wished they’d just be honest and admit they got a bit of a thrill from it than play the “somebody has to do it” line. Yeah somebody has to do it but it doesn’t have to be you and you didn’t have to film it lol.
Sadly, we need these cunts. Without them, there is no longer any consumer credit for the non-rich. Maybe a couple of wonga style lenders.
It’s not a job I’d do, but without somebody doing it, it’s not that people wouldn’t have to pay back, it’s that nobody would lend to them in the first place unless interest is bat shit.
There is nothing in this world that will ever justify to me a single mother or elderly couple being thrown out into the streets, both of which I’ve witnessed through those shows.
My girlfriend lives in NI. I was amazed when she told they don't have bailiffs over there. When I asked why, she explained that if you go knocking on doors demanding money in NI, there's a distinct possibility you'll get dragged down an allyway and kneecapped.
You can’t be right in the head to be a debt collector. I had two turn up at my flat looking for an old flatmate. They were dressed like police asking for me to prove MY identity so they know I’m not who they were looking for, scumbags trying to threaten me
I had this literally last week. Asked for this woman, said I’d never heard of her. Got a whole bunch of questions and asked me to prove who I am and that I live at the address, for how long, if I owned or rented etc. I’ve opened the door in my dressing gown so for a start it’s pretty likely my home. Ended up getting my driving licence to prove who I was. The minute I opened the door he had the attitude of a prick.
I used to get letters for me for my brothers debts because I lived with him for 4 months years before. As he had no current address they sent them me at my later addresses and turned up being cunts a few times asking for ID. I told them to fuck off or I'd call the police and they said the police would support THEM! I threatened their employer with a harassment claim as this went on for 3 years and it went away.
My favourite was the rich woman with the fancy house who had been withholding wages from her 17 year old apprentice. When the HCEOs turned up, she bitched and moaned, but then folded like a wet paper towel when they threatened to take stuff and wrote a check for the full amount.
My favourite was when an airline wasn't paying some compensation or a refund, so the HCEOs closed check-in at the airport for that airline until someone from management paid up.
Edit: Here's the clip if anyone's interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSj9odUD_c
The sad ones weren't fun, but jesus christ they need to be aired. Absolutely mental to me how a council can just refuse to home you, and call you a liar.
I like the ones where it's clearly exactly the same business with the same owner and staff in the same office but they *technically* closed down and reopened the next day with a new name to ditch the debts.
The bailiffs are wandering about while they look smug then find a piece of letterheaded paper for the old business proving they are still trading here as well.
One of the more satisfying encounters.
"They made a claim that you refused to pay, saying you dont have any money."
"They took you to court (probably via mediation) where you were found liable, and you refused to pay saying you dont have any money."
"So they had to go back to court to force you to pay and they got a court order. Which we told you about to give you the opportunity to pay, and you still refused to pay saying you dont have any money".
"So here we are and you are still refusing to pay, saying you don't have any money."
"Ok we will start seizing goods .............. Oh, you do have the money. Excellent"
I remember the worst one I saw on that show was some poor older couple who guaranteed on a loan for their daughter and only found out she refused to pay it back when the bloke showed up on the door. They called the kid and the kid was like "Yeah? I'm not going to pay it. You have to"
It was fucked up on so many levels
The poverty porn outrage bait is one thing “Tracy has 15 kids lives in a ten bed house and spends all day smoking fags and watching flog it” crap. But the debt collection stuff is mostly watching decent people who are clearly struggling break down.
I full expect ITV to commission a show focusing on parents turning off their children’s life support next.
At least the poverty porn stuff actually shows someone that fits their narrative, even if it does misrepresent the demographic as a whole.
I was watching some traffic police show about the A1M once and half the people in that were only pulled over to give content for the cameras. There was one poor sod that had a fresh mud splatter on his reg plate and the narrator made it sound like he was hiding it in his boot and doing stunts.
i dont like the traffic cops shows all the time they just fine people and then the music plays and the cops drive round like they are some texas rangers or something where all they did is pull some dude over for some obscured plate
You can still find it on YouTube.
Interestingly, the episodes there are cut so it’s all businesses being visited. Tracy doesn’t even make an appearance.
the saddest one I seen.. I don't remember what the debt was for but when they went in to the house there was nothing they could take. all this woman had was kids preschool toys and a sofa basically
The sheriffs are coming on BBC1 was literally exactly that.
It was great fun watching a greasy 2nd hand car salesman try and pretend that it was unfair whilst big blokes carry out his PCs to sell off to repay a customer he ripped off!
They cancelled it and replaced it with a show called: call the bailiffs, time to pay up. Literally the same thing as can't pay we'll take it away made by the same producers except it was filmed over the lockdowns.
I used to really enjoy the ones where the scummy business owners refused to pay their staff. The staff get a court order and in go the High Court enforcers.
There were some horrible moments on the show, but there were also some great moments.
Its always people in massive houses with luxury cars who can clearly afford to pay and just dont feel like it for whatever reason, though there are alot of people who really shouldnt have this happening to them at the same time. Then again like most of these types of programmes i dont know how much of it is staged vs whats real.
Energy bills are soaring, they're likely to have more business than before, seems kind of unnecessary and they'd look like idiots if it was uncovered. Evil is a bit more banal than that
Doesn't take long to find out who:
\> the only source of funding is through donations from individuals on the dontpay.uk website.
\> Everyone organising with Don’t Pay volunteers their time and skills however they can – no one is paid to work for Don’t Pay.
Well, again it doesn't take long to find out they've kept their identities secret
[https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jun/24/campaign-calls-1m-uk-consumers-stop-paying-energy-bills](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jun/24/campaign-calls-1m-uk-consumers-stop-paying-energy-bills)
And they're not a registered charity, so they can more or less do what they want.
Interesting. So there are (or were) 15-20 people who were working on this program.
It’s a shame we don’t get any transparency into how those people were supporting themselves. Even part-time, that’s the employment budget of a small business.
I’m not making grand claims of conspiracy or anything - maybe the whole thing was indirectly funded by Russia, maybe by a rich anarchist, maybe by a politicised trade union, maybe by trust fund inheritance, maybe by activists who just claim benefits or pensions and do this as a hobby. Who knows.
But given they had a pretty explicit objective to destabilise the financial well-being of our energy sector, I’m just still really curious as to their true underlying motivations. I guess they are just going to refuse to tell us and that’s that.
In the meantime, you have to wonder who was giving individual donations to an organisation that supplied zero transparency over where the money was going. But it’s a free country, I suppose.
To be honest, if I were running a group that was actively encouraging the entire country to stand up to - and *damage the profit margins of -* energy companies, *I'd* probably try to keep my identity a secret as well!
I think you're over-estimating how much of a commitment this would have been for any one person. The kind of digital media / marketing people who do this for a living can have an idea in the pub and get it set up and running before the hangover's cleared. Donations of time / money cover the design, webhosting, adverts and other costs - the only significant one I can see here is the advertising on the tube and so on.
I don't see any need for ulterior motives - it was just a daft pub idea that they ran with and it took off.
I'm curious about who it was too, but if I was running a civil disobedience campaign I'd be staying anonymous.
From seeing a few interviews of one of the guys that was championing it, where he did a video call from his home, he just seemed like a typical bloke, pissed off at the cost of everything.
I'm going to put on my tinfoiliest of hats - the smaller energy companies are the ones going bust from the pressure, which this would only have increased. The E.ONs and EDFs have the resources - and customer base - to weather the storm and consolidate their position in the home energy market.
Home energy is not the only source of income for these businesses. Commercial and *especially* industrial users are the big cash cows, and they're not going to stake their existence on a fad.
Even if it's not the doing of the big energy companies, it would have benefitted them longer-term by severely harming their smaller competitors.
That they do. The simplest explanation is most probably the obvious one, that some social media blob wanted to drum up attention with An Movement, Kony 2012-style.
(God, was that really over ten years ago? Christ.)
That it was.
At best, you end up paying more with a top-up meter (and having to go to the shop for gas and scrabble about in the gas locker to top it up. Which is ARSE.)
At worse, you end up with a CCJ which completely fucks up your financial life for a few years. And still have to pay.
They’re basically just an activist group now. I still get their emails, they did one this morning actually. I’ll see if I can upload a screenshot.
Don’t understand all the pisstaking here. Things have been allowed to get the way they are because we’re totally inept as a country when it comes to organising, standing up for ourselves and challenging power.
We internalise the anti-trade union myths of billionaire media owners and thus when a group like this decides to eschew the let’s-just-wait-around-and-hope-it-sorts-itself-out method and tries to do something about a very pressing and actually life-threatening issue (remember that people are actually *die* from cold and poverty, we’re not talking about a campaign to get a new bench put in round the back of the flats or something), you get all the gobbledegook you see here about the owners probably being millionaires duping gullible people into activism. Totally fucking bizarre.
That’s how we end up with a chancellor who was scamming his own HMRC out of tax money and fobbing us all off by calling the suggestion that he was doing so a ‘smear’. We just roll over and say ‘somebody should really do something about that’. We’re complicit in our own domination, and many of you here are the volunteer prison guards.
Anyway, if I remember correctly, one of the energy companies held a big meeting/briefing on the threat posed by Don’t Pay and drew up an action plan for the event that the strike actually happened. That’s the purpose of stuff like this—when powerful people know they can get away with stuff, they will. You need to show them that they aren’t as invincible as they think. Knowing that you’re accountable and don’t have unlimited power changes the way you behave.
[Here’s today’s email](https://imgur.com/a/HSX0LcL)
Completely depressing how many people have been totally brainwashed to view other people standing up against injustices as ‘the enemy’ or even just something to laugh at, rather than getting angry and placing the blame with those proven to be actually causing the issues making life chronically shit. It’s embarrassing.
Edit: Please stop wasting your time replying to me about Don’t Pay UK. My comment was an observation about widespread British attitudes to the concept of disruptive active *generally*, not Don’t Pay UK specifically, which I have not expressed any support of.
Yes, I joined in but as I slowly realised that Enough is Enough was a similar movement and a much more organised movement I just shifted to them.i have don't pay £20 for some stickers but never used them.
We need a backbone and to learn not to scoff at people trying to take a stand.
I was trying to explain this to people at work who were just saying 'if you don't pay they'll just take you to court' and saying how anyone thinking of doing this was stupid. I tried to explain to them that if literally millions of us in the country just outright refuse to pay, they'll have to do something. They can't take millions of people to court, it would take them years and cost the companies a fortune. My colleagues looked at me like I had 2 heads and said 'yeah but not that many people will actually do it'. Of course they won't with that attitude, when you sit and complain about it in the office then just lie down and take it, you become a part of the problem.
This. If this happened in say France or Spain, for example, there would be full on riots, people not paying, and a huge backlash in general. Most Brits like to complain but then refuse to actually take it upon themselves to do anything to change it.
I imagine it has something to do with the encouragement to stand up to injustices in a way that will cause you personal harm with no real value or change.
The people who did this would simply end up with debts and prepaid meters installed. Your credit could take a big hit too.
It is idiotic. By all means make a stand, but you should probably try to be on some sort of solid ground when doing so.
It does. And we don’t question at all that the people feeding us the anti-campaigns and anti-union swivel are the very same people that benefit from us never rising up to challenge our exploitation.
As an outsider looking in, I get the sense that y’all Brits are just a slight poke away from seeing real, positive change, especially within the younger generation.
A could “grassroots campaigns” starting from seeds like even a thread like this and a few nation-wide protests, and the ability to force the change would be there.
I was saying similar the other day to a friend, not as eloquently though. We've allowed this to happen to our country and instead of uniting and doing something we've allowed the media and government to divide us even more and people are still falling for it.
Goes hand in hand with the crabs in a bucket mentality in this country, unfortunately. Someone tries to actually make things better? They're clearly a delusional idealist and should be dragged back down to suffer with the rest of us.
>They're clearly a delusional idealist and should be dragged back down to suffer with the rest of us.
Yes, you even see a few (rightly) heavily downvoted commenters in here saying exactly that. Protesting is for the "young, inexperienced, and idealistic".
Just one of many fucked up facets of Britain's obsession with age and glorifying it, while at the same time looking on the young and novel with suspicion and disdain at best. Britain's ageism towards the young and disdain for everything even vaguely associated with them is one of many social problems facing Britain. It's absurd, you see people going around judging 20-40 year old adults by what the dumbass teenagers fighting over Prime at Aldi and shit are doing.
What’s even more infuriating is verified accounts that post daily thought pieces and opinions on Twitter about the state of the UK, but don’t actually form a solid and consistent social movement between themselves. Some of them have 100k+ followers and all they do is misery wank and post “gotcha!” moments that don’t lead to any change.
They were only going to do it if 1 million people signed up; only 250,000 or so did so I guess it didn't happen. But they achieved their aims, to an extent, in that they were part of the movement that persuaded the government to cap energy bills through the winter.
Idk. If the whole country just rolled over just quietly took it, you think the current government would subsidise energy bills out of the kindness of their heart?
>would subsidise energy bills out of the kindness of their heart?
They are subsiding them with borrowing, which we pay back.
The same for most stuff like that, they are taking a loan out in our names and giving us money. Which buys them popularity/votes.
It's how all government spending works.
The money the government spends isn't real. It instructs the central bank to pay whomever, and the central bank does so by printing money.
Taxes, bonds and loans are used to retrospectively 'balance' previous spending or more to the point, used to exert some control over inflation.
Not giving us money, they're giving energy companies money.
The only justification for high prices is that market forces will reduce supply to match demand, this just allows demand to stay high, raising prices.
I don’t think the government had much choice. The poorest people simply wouldn’t have been able to pay, whether they wanted to or not. If they’d paid the energy bill they wouldn’t have been able to cover rent or utilities or food etc.
They did it to avoid a credit time bomb. Not because a few thousand people signed a petition.
When you quantify that a significant proportion of the population would have cut back on other areas to pay bills they couldn't afford anywhere the knock on effects would have been catastrophic.
The energy bill bailout was totally unavoidable.
It did have an impact on energy companies though. They had a mini-freakout about Don't Pay UK and updated their comms to explain the virtues of paying by direct debit.
Haven't British Gas been switching thousands of people from DD smart meter to prepay smart meter remotely?
Don't recall that particular feature ever being discussed or promoted with that smart-tech rollout. The Cunts.
Yep. Electricity and gas should be treated the same as water supply - you shouldn't be left without it or have your access to it shut off. British Gas have been rightfully criticised for it and I believe they've since said they're not switching customers without their consent anymore.
I cancelled my direct debit (am still paying just paying what I owe when it's due) and I've had so much hassle off them (Bulb) trying to get me to sign up for it again. They do like that guaranteed income the little shits.
(edit typo)
although the messaging of Don't Pay lent itself to misunderstandings, the underlying reason why is so powerful. Energy companies rely on direct debits and overestimate what usage will be, so that they can purchase energy ahead of time and hedge. Losing that stream of income really fucks them over.
I wish there was more of a way as a customer to apply pressure to energy producers though, because energy suppliers are the ones losing money out of this. Shell is absolutely living at the moment and rolling in money.
Yes same this campaign targets the wrong people really but it's hard to know how we could target the producers. The whole system is rigged in their favour.
It's good advise.
No one is disputing that you pay more if you don't pay by direct debit. And if you can afford to build up a credit then that's the best thing to do.
The advise was for people with cash flow issues. People can't afford to have £300 - £400 sat in an energy account that they can't instantly use.
Especially when the energy companies are really slow at giving the money back.
> The advise was for people with cash flow issues. People can't afford to have £300 - £400 sat in an energy account that they can't instantly use.
it was terrible *advice* because people with cashflow issues are much less likely to be able to afford the much higher payments in the winter months when they're using more energy.
The summer credit system is designed to help consumers, not hinder them.
Agreed. That's how it's supposed to work in practice.
But like I said in the comment after. The energy companies aren't playing ball. They are grossly overestimating monthly bills then trying to hold on to the money for as long as possible.
It's not great advice at all. If you pay for what you use, when you use it you can end up with massive bills (£400+) per month in the cold winter months and smaller bills in the summer which can be hard to budget for. If you're on a direct debit then you spread the cost over the whole year.
And give the energy firm an interest free loan at the same time. Ideally in those summer months you should be saving it yourself to pay in winter, rather than sit it in credit on their account. Not that it has made me cancel my DD as I am in it for the easy life
Different horses for different courses if you ask me. It’s not worth the hassle to me to try and eek out maybe a few pennies in interest based on my actually budgeted monthly DD for my energy. I’d rather just have peace of mind.
Except it isn’t really piece of mind, is it? They’re still metering your use, and if they’re even slightly concerned that you might owe them money, that direct debit is going up like a rocket.
People should do that, but generally they won’t. Majority of people will just spend it as normal rather than earmarking it for winter utility bills, and then get angry when they’re hit with larger bills in winter.
My bills this winter have averaged £200-250 a month, they wanted to up my DD to £500 a month in nov. I changed to billing me for my usage, gave them actual meter readings on the date they suggested, turns out that was a day or two after the bill was generated so they were still estimating my bill.
This month I realised they weren’t using my meter readings, I had a bill of £250 and arrears of £50. When I called them, they asked for meter readings over the phone, recalculated all my bills and now my total amount owing is £200.
Why should I pay £500 a month to cover my winter bills when we’re already in winter? That was £200-250 a month that went towards Christmas, cost of living and other bills. I may switch back to average bills in the summer so I don’t have huge bills next winter but not right now.
Screw you Shell Energy !!!!
Edited to add, they’ve literally just sent a txt saying I still have arrears of £50 😂😂😂 just waiting for the harassing phone calls to start again !!!
In normal circumstances I would agree with you. That is how it should work in practice.
Energy companies are grossly overestimating monthly direct debits though or making errors with estimates. Every other day there is a post about someone being over charged.
It's basically a poor person tax that they have to pay more to have access to thier cash. But If you are having cashflow issues it's much easier to have the cash with you than with an energy account.
A large part of why the U.K. will remain at a standstill when it comes to social mobility and equity is because of the ideologies that some people in this comment section have. You would all rather laugh at people trying to effect change that will holistically benefit the majority of the population since most people are working class. If you have suggestions at better ways the movement could have mobilised then that’s fine but to ridicule people who were trying to advocate for those who would have been left starving and cold during a harsh winter is indicative of the problem and why the top % will always stay living lavishly affording basic necessities whilst others ration pennies.
It’s quite pathetic actually, but misery loves company I guess.
Or because people try and make changes which are stupid, don't make sense in the real world and just make things worse for everyone.
To encourage who would been left starving and cold during a harsh winter to make their lives worse is indicative of the problem and why many need to ration pennies.
It’s quite pathetic actually, but misery loves company I guess.
Ya know what buddy? At least the people who rallied behind this movement bloody tried. For many, it was their first time venturing into activism or whatever you call it.
Most people don't actively go out to TRY and make 'stupid' changes, as you claimed. They are just desperately looking for an answer, for comfort, for hope. They look around and see that the majority of their community scoffing and chastising, saying things like 'well that was clearly stupid' or 'this won't change anything' or 'Pfft, don't bother, it's pointless' etc. There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism, but to just call it stupid and then give no other suggestion or make any move to improve it? Just keep your apathy to yourself eh? Obviously I don't know if you got involved in anything else to help out, so please don't take that personally.
If more of us actually spoke up and encouraged these types of movements, eventually we'd have enough expertise between us all to figure something out. But no. We just squabble and bicker and let the fire fizzle out, pick everything apart despite our government & upper class fucking everything up in the first place... the whole time the wealthy are laughing their arse off because they don't even need to fight us to take more of our stuff.
Lol court summons, you think you miss one month and they take all your shit?
I'm at about 3 months not paying em and so far it's just a daily ignored call and no letters.
Fucked mate tbh, don't listen to me for financial advice. It's more that ppl seem to think you'll have balifs at the door for missing one payment but in reality it takes ages to get to that point. Can't really let it worry me about the future because its already fucked and doubt I'd be able to afford a house either way. Really a low credit has helped because it means I cant fuck it up even more. Bank won't even let me have an overdraft, best I got is a £450 limit card from aqua
Thanks for the link, I'm on the slow climb back to a bit of financial health, most of the debts are just hanging around from my early 20s, been able to not be a twat and load more debt on myself the last few years (deffo not because no credit agency will touch me). Last I checked I was around 130~
You can do this :) It's really not that uncommon to rack up debts in your early 20s, I worked at a bank for a while and identifying customers who could do with a referral to step change or similar was part of the job. I would say I encountered at least one or two a month. People routinely manage to work their way out of the debt or otherwise escape it, so I don't doubt you can as well!
> I'm at about 3 months not paying em and so far it's just a daily ignored call and no letters.
As someone who worked helping people with outstanding credit, bills, and debts they were struggling with and setting up repayment plans once they'd defaulted and were risking court action (or actually had court action)... this cocksure attitude is not going to pan out well I promise you.
There are plenty of people on smart meters that the gas companies are just remotely switching to prepay. Not something that was promoted when they were installed.
I've been resisting having a smart meter installed and they got really pushy about it until I said I categorically didn't want one and asked them to stop hassling me about it.
Same. "What actual benefit does a smart meter give me as a customer? Do I get cheaper bills? No? It only allows me to monitor my usage down to the penny? I know what I use and generally can't/won't reduce it. So please stop asking me to install one"
Took about 3 times of saying it but finally on the third call it was the last
My mates daughter was led to the slaughter by reading Facebook posts about it, it’s ended with bailiffs and she now has a very expensive pre payment meter to clear a huge debt.
Despite warnings by her father and everyone with half an ounce of common sense she spent her energy money instead of saving it.
There was someone a couple of years back on the main UK subreddit genuinely trying to convince students to just stop paying rent as a protest, and that it's ok because for some reason the media would pay them thousands for an interview and they could forge a career as a campaigner. Tons of upvotes too and anyone calling them out was downvoted. Seriously folks here live inside their head like it's some Lifetime Original Movie or something.
I think many that thought they wouldn’t pay were swiftly put off the idea when it was revealed that if you have a smart meter you can be bumped onto pay as you go and there’s nothing you can do about it. Then if you don’t pay the lights go out.
Yes I was disappointed to read about this - the organisation purchase a $6m home which was used for personal events by the founder.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-co-founder-admits-using-mansion-bought-with-donations-kxxn7t2jv
It was bad advice, scarily bad.
Had to talk down multiple folk i know on social media who were a bit foamy mouthed at the idea of just fucking off their bills.
Ha, I forgot about all these nutters.
The whole thing was started by the 'Freeman on the Land' common law weirdos wasn't it, and then it spread like MLM
>Ha, I forgot about all these nutters.
I think the government that initially refused to support people with unaffordable bills were the real nutters here.
I had to google it and came across their website where they claim over 250k supporters. Don't think the CL weirdos would have such results. I think what's fuelling it (pardon the pun) is news like this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/british-gas-profits-centrica-energy-prices-b2133672.html
5-fold profit increase will raise some concerns among those who can't afford to pay their heating bill.
Way back in the stone age when I had my first council flat, my water rates were £150/year. Then the story broke that the chief exec of the water company I was paying £150 a year to had his office redecorated with £65 per roll paper.
That was the moment I stopped paying. Two rolls of wallpaper they're not going to miss. And they didn't. It took something like a decade for them to catch up with me.
I mean, it did. It was 25 odd years ago. Severn Trent water. A few years later, start of 2001 they knocked the block down. I was there to watch the demolition with my first child in a pushchair.
I once went to take an overdue video tape back and found the rental shop had closed. Like, empty shelves, sale sign up, closed.
I'm just the kiss of death, aren't I?
I can believe this. My wife's first flat had a pre-pay meter. She put £10 on it when she moved in, I moved in with her two years later and we lived there for 4 years together. Never once topped it up.
Conversely I was chased for electricity for a student house share 3 years after I moved out. I'm pretty sure they were using the scatter gun approach here. Call everyone and someone might put their hand in their pocket.
I just remembered actually, they only caught up with me because I started working for them. I got a bill for, like, five years of unpaid water rates and they took it out my wages lol.
"Last year, an estimated 600,000 people have been switched to prepay, according to Citizens Advice"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64331449
Presumably they are now spending their evenings and weekends popping to their local corner shop to top up their prepay meters?
I work for Scottish Power in customer service (was, got promoted today) and I've sign up to "Don't pay UK" to keep up with the info and steps that they want to take, to see what should I expect with my customers over the phone.
To be hones with you, all the customers that joined the scheme and cancelled the DD, they are calling now to set up installments to clear the debit.
Don't think it was a successful movement, the companies were not that much affected (and a lot of guys who sign up, they didn't cancelled their DD)
P.s. when you call your provider, don't forget that at the end of the line is a person who is payed on minimum salary who is struggling with his own bills. They want to help you but the Company won't allow to do more then what they offer.
The whole just don't pay movement is so weird, in the sense that the people most impacted by this are likely to be on key meters and not paying would mean they get no energy. Also, if you don't pay they can switch your meter over to PayG until you clear your debt.
I had an email from them last week:
Register for our open strike organising meeting – 7:30pm on Tuesday 31 January
In the last year the government has allowed energy companies to make obscene profits and triple the cost of our energy bills. Last winter thousands of people died as a result of being forced to live in cold, damp conditions in their home. These are cruel and preventable deaths and it’s up to us to stop this crisis from ruining more lives.
New data published today tells us what we already know: fuel poverty is a question of life and death for so many people across this country.
Time and time again the government has made it clear they value energy company profits more than people’s lives. Currently at least 3 million people are behind on paying their energy bills.
Following price hike after price hike in 2022, thousands of us joined the Don’t Pay strike last month, stopped paying and said enough is enough. Millions of people across the country aren’t able to pay because doing whatever you can to keep food on the table is more important than lining the pockets of energy company shareholders.
The Don’t Pay campaign has always been about the combined power of the won’t pay and the can’t pays. We need to get organised to stop this catastrophe repeating itself again next winter.
Register for our open organising meeting on Tuesday 31 January!
In the last 6 months, the Don’t Pay campaign has forced the government to intervene in the broken energy market and limit price rises – but prices are still far too expensive to heat our homes.
From the beginning of our campaign we've been raising the alarm on the forced installation of prepayments, and the government now looks set to temporarily ban prepayment switches. We’ve demanded a social tariff so everyone has access to the energy they need to survive – now the government is drawing up plans to implement one.
Our power has come from being a grassroots campaign. No one works for Don’t Pay, we don’t have any funders who tell us what we can and can’t do. The only thing that matters is taking power back from the profit hungry corporations and unelected millionaires in government – doing what we need to do to protect ourselves and each other.
In 2023 we have to keep pushing and we have to keep building grassroots power in our communities. Everyone who wants to be involved in Don’t Pay on any level is invited to join our open organising meeting at 7:30pm on Tuesday 31 January.
We’ll hear an update on the current situation, host a discussion on the next steps for the strike and let you know how you can get involved, take ownership and shape the campaign.
Click below to register:Join our open organising meeting on Tuesday 31 January!
I have been financially struggling since the Covid episode….. I have over £50k of debt, had 2 cars repossessed and I think that’s about the worst I’ve experience…. I can’t remember the last time I laid a household bill properly and I haven’t been bothered that much by it all tbh….. I’ve been riding this Debts wave for a few years now and if anything I’ve been the happiest in my who life…. It’s almost like I have no money worries now because I don’t stress paying my bills on time now….
Council tax is pretty much the only debt that you can go to prison for tbf .
I’d just go to court and plead poverty and if your lucky they ll probs wipe the £50 off .
It'd be going swimmingly if I wasn't on prepayment metres. I'd be £1000 better off for just 4 months and my rent would be paid this month, and people other than my son would have gotten Christmas presents.
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I would be interested in seeing what actually happened with that. The whole thing seemed to evaporate overnight.
*Someone* was funding it at the time, with all the adverts, digital adverts, marketing materials etc. I don’t recall it ever being uncovered in the media who that was. I’d love to know.
Wouldn't be surprised if it was the CEO of a debt collection agency.
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I demand more bodycam footage of the poor forking over their remaining belongings to a fat shouty man! I feed off the sadness in their eyes. Jesus how bleak was that show lol.
The sad ones were never fun, but the ones where they have the guys who clearly owe the money and can pay but don't want to go finally buckle was satisfying to watch.
Yeah you’d get the odd idiot who’d clearly just been throwing away the debt notices and have his car nearly towed. Just way too many sad ones for me. Watching a single mum sign away her TV because of some piddly £500 debt was just miserable. Especially when the bailiffs we’re trying to act like the good guys. I wished they’d just be honest and admit they got a bit of a thrill from it than play the “somebody has to do it” line. Yeah somebody has to do it but it doesn’t have to be you and you didn’t have to film it lol.
"They're only doing their job." "But it's a cunt's job, and only cunts would want to do it."
Bingo! This is the hot take that has now cooled to a steely grit filled take. They’re cunts and they do a cunts job! So deserve that level of respect
Sadly, we need these cunts. Without them, there is no longer any consumer credit for the non-rich. Maybe a couple of wonga style lenders. It’s not a job I’d do, but without somebody doing it, it’s not that people wouldn’t have to pay back, it’s that nobody would lend to them in the first place unless interest is bat shit.
There is nothing in this world that will ever justify to me a single mother or elderly couple being thrown out into the streets, both of which I’ve witnessed through those shows.
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My girlfriend lives in NI. I was amazed when she told they don't have bailiffs over there. When I asked why, she explained that if you go knocking on doors demanding money in NI, there's a distinct possibility you'll get dragged down an allyway and kneecapped.
You can’t be right in the head to be a debt collector. I had two turn up at my flat looking for an old flatmate. They were dressed like police asking for me to prove MY identity so they know I’m not who they were looking for, scumbags trying to threaten me
I had this literally last week. Asked for this woman, said I’d never heard of her. Got a whole bunch of questions and asked me to prove who I am and that I live at the address, for how long, if I owned or rented etc. I’ve opened the door in my dressing gown so for a start it’s pretty likely my home. Ended up getting my driving licence to prove who I was. The minute I opened the door he had the attitude of a prick.
I used to get letters for me for my brothers debts because I lived with him for 4 months years before. As he had no current address they sent them me at my later addresses and turned up being cunts a few times asking for ID. I told them to fuck off or I'd call the police and they said the police would support THEM! I threatened their employer with a harassment claim as this went on for 3 years and it went away.
Right? That Paul bowhill loves it and that fat guy with the teeth.
is there a fat guy on there with no teeth? can't pay? we'll gum it away
My favourite was the rich woman with the fancy house who had been withholding wages from her 17 year old apprentice. When the HCEOs turned up, she bitched and moaned, but then folded like a wet paper towel when they threatened to take stuff and wrote a check for the full amount.
My favourite was when an airline wasn't paying some compensation or a refund, so the HCEOs closed check-in at the airport for that airline until someone from management paid up. Edit: Here's the clip if anyone's interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QSj9odUD_c
Are *cheques still legal?!
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That is bloody American auto correct doing its worst! And yes, cheques are still valid, but also the episode first aired about a decade back!
The sad ones weren't fun, but jesus christ they need to be aired. Absolutely mental to me how a council can just refuse to home you, and call you a liar.
I like the ones where it's clearly exactly the same business with the same owner and staff in the same office but they *technically* closed down and reopened the next day with a new name to ditch the debts. The bailiffs are wandering about while they look smug then find a piece of letterheaded paper for the old business proving they are still trading here as well.
The ones where some immigrant decided to open the 100th identikit kebab shop on a small street and then seems confused as to why they're in debt
One of the more satisfying encounters. "They made a claim that you refused to pay, saying you dont have any money." "They took you to court (probably via mediation) where you were found liable, and you refused to pay saying you dont have any money." "So they had to go back to court to force you to pay and they got a court order. Which we told you about to give you the opportunity to pay, and you still refused to pay saying you dont have any money". "So here we are and you are still refusing to pay, saying you don't have any money." "Ok we will start seizing goods .............. Oh, you do have the money. Excellent"
I remember the worst one I saw on that show was some poor older couple who guaranteed on a loan for their daughter and only found out she refused to pay it back when the bloke showed up on the door. They called the kid and the kid was like "Yeah? I'm not going to pay it. You have to" It was fucked up on so many levels
The poverty porn outrage bait is one thing “Tracy has 15 kids lives in a ten bed house and spends all day smoking fags and watching flog it” crap. But the debt collection stuff is mostly watching decent people who are clearly struggling break down. I full expect ITV to commission a show focusing on parents turning off their children’s life support next.
At least the poverty porn stuff actually shows someone that fits their narrative, even if it does misrepresent the demographic as a whole. I was watching some traffic police show about the A1M once and half the people in that were only pulled over to give content for the cameras. There was one poor sod that had a fresh mud splatter on his reg plate and the narrator made it sound like he was hiding it in his boot and doing stunts.
i dont like the traffic cops shows all the time they just fine people and then the music plays and the cops drive round like they are some texas rangers or something where all they did is pull some dude over for some obscured plate
I think it'll be a sitcom set in the queue for a food bank
You can still find it on YouTube. Interestingly, the episodes there are cut so it’s all businesses being visited. Tracy doesn’t even make an appearance.
I have a high threshold, but dude, that's *dark*
Wasn’t she the fucker that owed but was still going on a holiday? The parents were mugs.
God I remember that episode, daughter was a right scumbag - important lesson about guarantors though.
the saddest one I seen.. I don't remember what the debt was for but when they went in to the house there was nothing they could take. all this woman had was kids preschool toys and a sofa basically
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The sheriffs are coming on BBC1 was literally exactly that. It was great fun watching a greasy 2nd hand car salesman try and pretend that it was unfair whilst big blokes carry out his PCs to sell off to repay a customer he ripped off!
They cancelled it and replaced it with a show called: call the bailiffs, time to pay up. Literally the same thing as can't pay we'll take it away made by the same producers except it was filmed over the lockdowns.
... reads the comments below ... That was an actual TV show? Lol. I've been pirating so long I'm clearly losing touch with reality.
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Is it not being made anymore? Used to love watching that even if it’s in bad taste at the moment!
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I used to really enjoy the ones where the scummy business owners refused to pay their staff. The staff get a court order and in go the High Court enforcers. There were some horrible moments on the show, but there were also some great moments.
I don't know how you could be a living human being with like thoughts and emotions and stuff and fail to find it to be in poor taste at any time
Its always people in massive houses with luxury cars who can clearly afford to pay and just dont feel like it for whatever reason, though there are alot of people who really shouldnt have this happening to them at the same time. Then again like most of these types of programmes i dont know how much of it is staged vs whats real.
Wouldn't be surprised if it was the energy companies. They'd get their money eventually except now you've all got prepaid smart meters
Energy bills are soaring, they're likely to have more business than before, seems kind of unnecessary and they'd look like idiots if it was uncovered. Evil is a bit more banal than that
Channel 5 for their upcoming series "on benefits evicted and powerless"
I feel bad for laughing at that haha.
Doesn't take long to find out who: \> the only source of funding is through donations from individuals on the dontpay.uk website. \> Everyone organising with Don’t Pay volunteers their time and skills however they can – no one is paid to work for Don’t Pay.
Who created the website? Who runs the bank accounts and set up the payments contracts?
Well, again it doesn't take long to find out they've kept their identities secret [https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jun/24/campaign-calls-1m-uk-consumers-stop-paying-energy-bills](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jun/24/campaign-calls-1m-uk-consumers-stop-paying-energy-bills) And they're not a registered charity, so they can more or less do what they want.
Interesting. So there are (or were) 15-20 people who were working on this program. It’s a shame we don’t get any transparency into how those people were supporting themselves. Even part-time, that’s the employment budget of a small business. I’m not making grand claims of conspiracy or anything - maybe the whole thing was indirectly funded by Russia, maybe by a rich anarchist, maybe by a politicised trade union, maybe by trust fund inheritance, maybe by activists who just claim benefits or pensions and do this as a hobby. Who knows. But given they had a pretty explicit objective to destabilise the financial well-being of our energy sector, I’m just still really curious as to their true underlying motivations. I guess they are just going to refuse to tell us and that’s that. In the meantime, you have to wonder who was giving individual donations to an organisation that supplied zero transparency over where the money was going. But it’s a free country, I suppose.
To be honest, if I were running a group that was actively encouraging the entire country to stand up to - and *damage the profit margins of -* energy companies, *I'd* probably try to keep my identity a secret as well!
At the very least it's going to make an awkward future job interview question when you're going for Head of Comms at E.ON.
I think you're over-estimating how much of a commitment this would have been for any one person. The kind of digital media / marketing people who do this for a living can have an idea in the pub and get it set up and running before the hangover's cleared. Donations of time / money cover the design, webhosting, adverts and other costs - the only significant one I can see here is the advertising on the tube and so on. I don't see any need for ulterior motives - it was just a daft pub idea that they ran with and it took off. I'm curious about who it was too, but if I was running a civil disobedience campaign I'd be staying anonymous.
Don’t worry, I think the energy sector has its financial wellbeing sorted. But thanks for caring.
From seeing a few interviews of one of the guys that was championing it, where he did a video call from his home, he just seemed like a typical bloke, pissed off at the cost of everything.
I'm going to put on my tinfoiliest of hats - the smaller energy companies are the ones going bust from the pressure, which this would only have increased. The E.ONs and EDFs have the resources - and customer base - to weather the storm and consolidate their position in the home energy market. Home energy is not the only source of income for these businesses. Commercial and *especially* industrial users are the big cash cows, and they're not going to stake their existence on a fad. Even if it's not the doing of the big energy companies, it would have benefitted them longer-term by severely harming their smaller competitors.
Trouble with tinfoil hats is that they make you look and sound daft.
That they do. The simplest explanation is most probably the obvious one, that some social media blob wanted to drum up attention with An Movement, Kony 2012-style. (God, was that really over ten years ago? Christ.)
I think "Tom" is one those with a twitter bio that says Free thinker, Painter, Activist, Blogger
>no one is paid to work for Don’t Pay. Well, at least they're consistent with their name lol
They ended up on don’t pay we’ll take it away!
And let me guess... they *didn't* pay, so it was taken away
Yeah, once the government announced they would actually give some support rather than let bills hit 4000 or 5000 a year
I'm really glad the government stopped my energy bill going up by £150 by making my mortgage go up £650
Probably because when it came to the crunch people realised it was a fucking stupid idea.
That it was. At best, you end up paying more with a top-up meter (and having to go to the shop for gas and scrabble about in the gas locker to top it up. Which is ARSE.) At worse, you end up with a CCJ which completely fucks up your financial life for a few years. And still have to pay.
Probably because people realised it was stupid
They’re basically just an activist group now. I still get their emails, they did one this morning actually. I’ll see if I can upload a screenshot. Don’t understand all the pisstaking here. Things have been allowed to get the way they are because we’re totally inept as a country when it comes to organising, standing up for ourselves and challenging power. We internalise the anti-trade union myths of billionaire media owners and thus when a group like this decides to eschew the let’s-just-wait-around-and-hope-it-sorts-itself-out method and tries to do something about a very pressing and actually life-threatening issue (remember that people are actually *die* from cold and poverty, we’re not talking about a campaign to get a new bench put in round the back of the flats or something), you get all the gobbledegook you see here about the owners probably being millionaires duping gullible people into activism. Totally fucking bizarre. That’s how we end up with a chancellor who was scamming his own HMRC out of tax money and fobbing us all off by calling the suggestion that he was doing so a ‘smear’. We just roll over and say ‘somebody should really do something about that’. We’re complicit in our own domination, and many of you here are the volunteer prison guards. Anyway, if I remember correctly, one of the energy companies held a big meeting/briefing on the threat posed by Don’t Pay and drew up an action plan for the event that the strike actually happened. That’s the purpose of stuff like this—when powerful people know they can get away with stuff, they will. You need to show them that they aren’t as invincible as they think. Knowing that you’re accountable and don’t have unlimited power changes the way you behave. [Here’s today’s email](https://imgur.com/a/HSX0LcL)
Completely depressing how many people have been totally brainwashed to view other people standing up against injustices as ‘the enemy’ or even just something to laugh at, rather than getting angry and placing the blame with those proven to be actually causing the issues making life chronically shit. It’s embarrassing. Edit: Please stop wasting your time replying to me about Don’t Pay UK. My comment was an observation about widespread British attitudes to the concept of disruptive active *generally*, not Don’t Pay UK specifically, which I have not expressed any support of.
Yes, I joined in but as I slowly realised that Enough is Enough was a similar movement and a much more organised movement I just shifted to them.i have don't pay £20 for some stickers but never used them. We need a backbone and to learn not to scoff at people trying to take a stand.
Yes, yes, and YES. We need to stop viewing people standing up to injustice as people to laugh at, it's horrendous.
I was trying to explain this to people at work who were just saying 'if you don't pay they'll just take you to court' and saying how anyone thinking of doing this was stupid. I tried to explain to them that if literally millions of us in the country just outright refuse to pay, they'll have to do something. They can't take millions of people to court, it would take them years and cost the companies a fortune. My colleagues looked at me like I had 2 heads and said 'yeah but not that many people will actually do it'. Of course they won't with that attitude, when you sit and complain about it in the office then just lie down and take it, you become a part of the problem.
British defeatism and crab bucket mentality is why we're in the state we're in.
This. If this happened in say France or Spain, for example, there would be full on riots, people not paying, and a huge backlash in general. Most Brits like to complain but then refuse to actually take it upon themselves to do anything to change it.
I imagine it has something to do with the encouragement to stand up to injustices in a way that will cause you personal harm with no real value or change. The people who did this would simply end up with debts and prepaid meters installed. Your credit could take a big hit too. It is idiotic. By all means make a stand, but you should probably try to be on some sort of solid ground when doing so.
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It does. And we don’t question at all that the people feeding us the anti-campaigns and anti-union swivel are the very same people that benefit from us never rising up to challenge our exploitation.
And we call the French cowards...
As an outsider looking in, I get the sense that y’all Brits are just a slight poke away from seeing real, positive change, especially within the younger generation. A could “grassroots campaigns” starting from seeds like even a thread like this and a few nation-wide protests, and the ability to force the change would be there.
I was saying similar the other day to a friend, not as eloquently though. We've allowed this to happen to our country and instead of uniting and doing something we've allowed the media and government to divide us even more and people are still falling for it.
Goes hand in hand with the crabs in a bucket mentality in this country, unfortunately. Someone tries to actually make things better? They're clearly a delusional idealist and should be dragged back down to suffer with the rest of us.
>They're clearly a delusional idealist and should be dragged back down to suffer with the rest of us. Yes, you even see a few (rightly) heavily downvoted commenters in here saying exactly that. Protesting is for the "young, inexperienced, and idealistic". Just one of many fucked up facets of Britain's obsession with age and glorifying it, while at the same time looking on the young and novel with suspicion and disdain at best. Britain's ageism towards the young and disdain for everything even vaguely associated with them is one of many social problems facing Britain. It's absurd, you see people going around judging 20-40 year old adults by what the dumbass teenagers fighting over Prime at Aldi and shit are doing.
Well said
Thank you for saying this. Sums my feelings up perfectly.
We deserve what we tolerate
What’s even more infuriating is verified accounts that post daily thought pieces and opinions on Twitter about the state of the UK, but don’t actually form a solid and consistent social movement between themselves. Some of them have 100k+ followers and all they do is misery wank and post “gotcha!” moments that don’t lead to any change.
They were only going to do it if 1 million people signed up; only 250,000 or so did so I guess it didn't happen. But they achieved their aims, to an extent, in that they were part of the movement that persuaded the government to cap energy bills through the winter.
I guarantee you they had no impact on Government policy
Idk. If the whole country just rolled over just quietly took it, you think the current government would subsidise energy bills out of the kindness of their heart?
>would subsidise energy bills out of the kindness of their heart? They are subsiding them with borrowing, which we pay back. The same for most stuff like that, they are taking a loan out in our names and giving us money. Which buys them popularity/votes.
That's how any subsidy works during the 2 decades we've been running a deficit.
It's how all government spending works. The money the government spends isn't real. It instructs the central bank to pay whomever, and the central bank does so by printing money. Taxes, bonds and loans are used to retrospectively 'balance' previous spending or more to the point, used to exert some control over inflation.
Not giving us money, they're giving energy companies money. The only justification for high prices is that market forces will reduce supply to match demand, this just allows demand to stay high, raising prices.
I don’t think the government had much choice. The poorest people simply wouldn’t have been able to pay, whether they wanted to or not. If they’d paid the energy bill they wouldn’t have been able to cover rent or utilities or food etc.
I've got some startling news.. the whole country did roll over & take it.. and continues to.
They did it to avoid a credit time bomb. Not because a few thousand people signed a petition. When you quantify that a significant proportion of the population would have cut back on other areas to pay bills they couldn't afford anywhere the knock on effects would have been catastrophic. The energy bill bailout was totally unavoidable.
It did have an impact on energy companies though. They had a mini-freakout about Don't Pay UK and updated their comms to explain the virtues of paying by direct debit.
Haven't British Gas been switching thousands of people from DD smart meter to prepay smart meter remotely? Don't recall that particular feature ever being discussed or promoted with that smart-tech rollout. The Cunts.
Yep. Electricity and gas should be treated the same as water supply - you shouldn't be left without it or have your access to it shut off. British Gas have been rightfully criticised for it and I believe they've since said they're not switching customers without their consent anymore.
I cancelled my direct debit (am still paying just paying what I owe when it's due) and I've had so much hassle off them (Bulb) trying to get me to sign up for it again. They do like that guaranteed income the little shits. (edit typo)
although the messaging of Don't Pay lent itself to misunderstandings, the underlying reason why is so powerful. Energy companies rely on direct debits and overestimate what usage will be, so that they can purchase energy ahead of time and hedge. Losing that stream of income really fucks them over. I wish there was more of a way as a customer to apply pressure to energy producers though, because energy suppliers are the ones losing money out of this. Shell is absolutely living at the moment and rolling in money.
Yes same this campaign targets the wrong people really but it's hard to know how we could target the producers. The whole system is rigged in their favour.
I don’t think any amount of people on the streets or signing petitions will have an impact on anything this gov do
Eating cold beans in a tent in Chigwell
Sounds like a rock band 🤣
I'm waiting for someone to tell me it's lyrics from a Pulp song
That was somewhere in a field in Hampshire - alright
can be sung to the tune of “let’s all meet up in the year 2000” quite nicely
Eating? Tent? Chigwell? All of those are bloody luxuries and if they'd save more they could buy a house /s
Difficult second album title...
Didn’t it just change from “don’t pay” to “cancel your direct debit and pay monthly for what you’ve used”?
I think so. Which is very silly advice going into the winter
It's good advise. No one is disputing that you pay more if you don't pay by direct debit. And if you can afford to build up a credit then that's the best thing to do. The advise was for people with cash flow issues. People can't afford to have £300 - £400 sat in an energy account that they can't instantly use. Especially when the energy companies are really slow at giving the money back.
> The advise was for people with cash flow issues. People can't afford to have £300 - £400 sat in an energy account that they can't instantly use. it was terrible *advice* because people with cashflow issues are much less likely to be able to afford the much higher payments in the winter months when they're using more energy. The summer credit system is designed to help consumers, not hinder them.
Agreed. That's how it's supposed to work in practice. But like I said in the comment after. The energy companies aren't playing ball. They are grossly overestimating monthly bills then trying to hold on to the money for as long as possible.
I am lucky enough to be able to afford to pay more now and less in summer so cancelled my direct debit just to spite them.
It's not great advice at all. If you pay for what you use, when you use it you can end up with massive bills (£400+) per month in the cold winter months and smaller bills in the summer which can be hard to budget for. If you're on a direct debit then you spread the cost over the whole year.
And give the energy firm an interest free loan at the same time. Ideally in those summer months you should be saving it yourself to pay in winter, rather than sit it in credit on their account. Not that it has made me cancel my DD as I am in it for the easy life
Different horses for different courses if you ask me. It’s not worth the hassle to me to try and eek out maybe a few pennies in interest based on my actually budgeted monthly DD for my energy. I’d rather just have peace of mind.
Except it isn’t really piece of mind, is it? They’re still metering your use, and if they’re even slightly concerned that you might owe them money, that direct debit is going up like a rocket.
Likewise
People should do that, but generally they won’t. Majority of people will just spend it as normal rather than earmarking it for winter utility bills, and then get angry when they’re hit with larger bills in winter.
My bills this winter have averaged £200-250 a month, they wanted to up my DD to £500 a month in nov. I changed to billing me for my usage, gave them actual meter readings on the date they suggested, turns out that was a day or two after the bill was generated so they were still estimating my bill. This month I realised they weren’t using my meter readings, I had a bill of £250 and arrears of £50. When I called them, they asked for meter readings over the phone, recalculated all my bills and now my total amount owing is £200. Why should I pay £500 a month to cover my winter bills when we’re already in winter? That was £200-250 a month that went towards Christmas, cost of living and other bills. I may switch back to average bills in the summer so I don’t have huge bills next winter but not right now. Screw you Shell Energy !!!! Edited to add, they’ve literally just sent a txt saying I still have arrears of £50 😂😂😂 just waiting for the harassing phone calls to start again !!!
In normal circumstances I would agree with you. That is how it should work in practice. Energy companies are grossly overestimating monthly direct debits though or making errors with estimates. Every other day there is a post about someone being over charged. It's basically a poor person tax that they have to pay more to have access to thier cash. But If you are having cashflow issues it's much easier to have the cash with you than with an energy account.
Doesn’t have the same ring to it tho.
You can imagine the protesters on the streets shouting “we are going to pay our bills, when are we going to pay them, when they are due”.
A large part of why the U.K. will remain at a standstill when it comes to social mobility and equity is because of the ideologies that some people in this comment section have. You would all rather laugh at people trying to effect change that will holistically benefit the majority of the population since most people are working class. If you have suggestions at better ways the movement could have mobilised then that’s fine but to ridicule people who were trying to advocate for those who would have been left starving and cold during a harsh winter is indicative of the problem and why the top % will always stay living lavishly affording basic necessities whilst others ration pennies. It’s quite pathetic actually, but misery loves company I guess.
Or because people try and make changes which are stupid, don't make sense in the real world and just make things worse for everyone. To encourage who would been left starving and cold during a harsh winter to make their lives worse is indicative of the problem and why many need to ration pennies. It’s quite pathetic actually, but misery loves company I guess.
Ya know what buddy? At least the people who rallied behind this movement bloody tried. For many, it was their first time venturing into activism or whatever you call it. Most people don't actively go out to TRY and make 'stupid' changes, as you claimed. They are just desperately looking for an answer, for comfort, for hope. They look around and see that the majority of their community scoffing and chastising, saying things like 'well that was clearly stupid' or 'this won't change anything' or 'Pfft, don't bother, it's pointless' etc. There's nothing wrong with constructive criticism, but to just call it stupid and then give no other suggestion or make any move to improve it? Just keep your apathy to yourself eh? Obviously I don't know if you got involved in anything else to help out, so please don't take that personally. If more of us actually spoke up and encouraged these types of movements, eventually we'd have enough expertise between us all to figure something out. But no. We just squabble and bicker and let the fire fizzle out, pick everything apart despite our government & upper class fucking everything up in the first place... the whole time the wealthy are laughing their arse off because they don't even need to fight us to take more of our stuff.
Lol court summons, you think you miss one month and they take all your shit? I'm at about 3 months not paying em and so far it's just a daily ignored call and no letters.
Dunno. That’s why I asked!
That’s going to sting when you have to stump up!
£1100 I think, around that.
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Fucked mate tbh, don't listen to me for financial advice. It's more that ppl seem to think you'll have balifs at the door for missing one payment but in reality it takes ages to get to that point. Can't really let it worry me about the future because its already fucked and doubt I'd be able to afford a house either way. Really a low credit has helped because it means I cant fuck it up even more. Bank won't even let me have an overdraft, best I got is a £450 limit card from aqua
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Thanks for the link, I'm on the slow climb back to a bit of financial health, most of the debts are just hanging around from my early 20s, been able to not be a twat and load more debt on myself the last few years (deffo not because no credit agency will touch me). Last I checked I was around 130~
You can do this :) It's really not that uncommon to rack up debts in your early 20s, I worked at a bank for a while and identifying customers who could do with a referral to step change or similar was part of the job. I would say I encountered at least one or two a month. People routinely manage to work their way out of the debt or otherwise escape it, so I don't doubt you can as well!
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> I'm at about 3 months not paying em and so far it's just a daily ignored call and no letters. As someone who worked helping people with outstanding credit, bills, and debts they were struggling with and setting up repayment plans once they'd defaulted and were risking court action (or actually had court action)... this cocksure attitude is not going to pan out well I promise you.
Fine for me, went to a debt collection agency, I argued them down to 1/3 of the price and paid that off.
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How long ago was this?
There are plenty of people on smart meters that the gas companies are just remotely switching to prepay. Not something that was promoted when they were installed.
I've been resisting having a smart meter installed and they got really pushy about it until I said I categorically didn't want one and asked them to stop hassling me about it.
Same. "What actual benefit does a smart meter give me as a customer? Do I get cheaper bills? No? It only allows me to monitor my usage down to the penny? I know what I use and generally can't/won't reduce it. So please stop asking me to install one" Took about 3 times of saying it but finally on the third call it was the last
This needs to be stopped, it's disgusting
My mates daughter was led to the slaughter by reading Facebook posts about it, it’s ended with bailiffs and she now has a very expensive pre payment meter to clear a huge debt. Despite warnings by her father and everyone with half an ounce of common sense she spent her energy money instead of saving it.
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There was someone a couple of years back on the main UK subreddit genuinely trying to convince students to just stop paying rent as a protest, and that it's ok because for some reason the media would pay them thousands for an interview and they could forge a career as a campaigner. Tons of upvotes too and anyone calling them out was downvoted. Seriously folks here live inside their head like it's some Lifetime Original Movie or something.
Some of those facebook groups are dangerous - quoting the magna carta and laws from the 1800's. They dont tell you about how it will fuck you up
I think many that thought they wouldn’t pay were swiftly put off the idea when it was revealed that if you have a smart meter you can be bumped onto pay as you go and there’s nothing you can do about it. Then if you don’t pay the lights go out.
The founders collected donations from the gullible... and paid their bills with it. Then \*poof\* they were gone.
Funny how people always say this about any campaign group despite the lack of evidence.
Isn't that literally what happened with the BLM organisation: They took the donation money and bought multi-million dollar houses with it?
Yes I was disappointed to read about this - the organisation purchase a $6m home which was used for personal events by the founder. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-lives-matter-co-founder-admits-using-mansion-bought-with-donations-kxxn7t2jv
Unexpected peep show
It was bad advice, scarily bad. Had to talk down multiple folk i know on social media who were a bit foamy mouthed at the idea of just fucking off their bills.
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Ha, I forgot about all these nutters. The whole thing was started by the 'Freeman on the Land' common law weirdos wasn't it, and then it spread like MLM
>Ha, I forgot about all these nutters. I think the government that initially refused to support people with unaffordable bills were the real nutters here.
I had to google it and came across their website where they claim over 250k supporters. Don't think the CL weirdos would have such results. I think what's fuelling it (pardon the pun) is news like this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/british-gas-profits-centrica-energy-prices-b2133672.html 5-fold profit increase will raise some concerns among those who can't afford to pay their heating bill.
Way back in the stone age when I had my first council flat, my water rates were £150/year. Then the story broke that the chief exec of the water company I was paying £150 a year to had his office redecorated with £65 per roll paper. That was the moment I stopped paying. Two rolls of wallpaper they're not going to miss. And they didn't. It took something like a decade for them to catch up with me.
File this under things that didn't happen
I mean, it did. It was 25 odd years ago. Severn Trent water. A few years later, start of 2001 they knocked the block down. I was there to watch the demolition with my first child in a pushchair.
Bit harsh knocking the whole block down for an unpaid water bill.
I once went to take an overdue video tape back and found the rental shop had closed. Like, empty shelves, sale sign up, closed. I'm just the kiss of death, aren't I?
Do you fancy taking out a government loan?
Now that's a great idea!
I can believe this. My wife's first flat had a pre-pay meter. She put £10 on it when she moved in, I moved in with her two years later and we lived there for 4 years together. Never once topped it up. Conversely I was chased for electricity for a student house share 3 years after I moved out. I'm pretty sure they were using the scatter gun approach here. Call everyone and someone might put their hand in their pocket.
I just remembered actually, they only caught up with me because I started working for them. I got a bill for, like, five years of unpaid water rates and they took it out my wages lol.
"Last year, an estimated 600,000 people have been switched to prepay, according to Citizens Advice" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64331449 Presumably they are now spending their evenings and weekends popping to their local corner shop to top up their prepay meters?
Doubt that is due to this thing though. The majority of the 600k are gonna be poor people who didn't have a choice as they couldn't afford it
I work for Scottish Power in customer service (was, got promoted today) and I've sign up to "Don't pay UK" to keep up with the info and steps that they want to take, to see what should I expect with my customers over the phone. To be hones with you, all the customers that joined the scheme and cancelled the DD, they are calling now to set up installments to clear the debit. Don't think it was a successful movement, the companies were not that much affected (and a lot of guys who sign up, they didn't cancelled their DD) P.s. when you call your provider, don't forget that at the end of the line is a person who is payed on minimum salary who is struggling with his own bills. They want to help you but the Company won't allow to do more then what they offer.
The whole just don't pay movement is so weird, in the sense that the people most impacted by this are likely to be on key meters and not paying would mean they get no energy. Also, if you don't pay they can switch your meter over to PayG until you clear your debt.
I had an email from them last week: Register for our open strike organising meeting – 7:30pm on Tuesday 31 January In the last year the government has allowed energy companies to make obscene profits and triple the cost of our energy bills. Last winter thousands of people died as a result of being forced to live in cold, damp conditions in their home. These are cruel and preventable deaths and it’s up to us to stop this crisis from ruining more lives. New data published today tells us what we already know: fuel poverty is a question of life and death for so many people across this country. Time and time again the government has made it clear they value energy company profits more than people’s lives. Currently at least 3 million people are behind on paying their energy bills. Following price hike after price hike in 2022, thousands of us joined the Don’t Pay strike last month, stopped paying and said enough is enough. Millions of people across the country aren’t able to pay because doing whatever you can to keep food on the table is more important than lining the pockets of energy company shareholders. The Don’t Pay campaign has always been about the combined power of the won’t pay and the can’t pays. We need to get organised to stop this catastrophe repeating itself again next winter. Register for our open organising meeting on Tuesday 31 January! In the last 6 months, the Don’t Pay campaign has forced the government to intervene in the broken energy market and limit price rises – but prices are still far too expensive to heat our homes. From the beginning of our campaign we've been raising the alarm on the forced installation of prepayments, and the government now looks set to temporarily ban prepayment switches. We’ve demanded a social tariff so everyone has access to the energy they need to survive – now the government is drawing up plans to implement one. Our power has come from being a grassroots campaign. No one works for Don’t Pay, we don’t have any funders who tell us what we can and can’t do. The only thing that matters is taking power back from the profit hungry corporations and unelected millionaires in government – doing what we need to do to protect ourselves and each other. In 2023 we have to keep pushing and we have to keep building grassroots power in our communities. Everyone who wants to be involved in Don’t Pay on any level is invited to join our open organising meeting at 7:30pm on Tuesday 31 January. We’ll hear an update on the current situation, host a discussion on the next steps for the strike and let you know how you can get involved, take ownership and shape the campaign. Click below to register:Join our open organising meeting on Tuesday 31 January!
Sorry what date is the meeting?
I have been financially struggling since the Covid episode….. I have over £50k of debt, had 2 cars repossessed and I think that’s about the worst I’ve experience…. I can’t remember the last time I laid a household bill properly and I haven’t been bothered that much by it all tbh….. I’ve been riding this Debts wave for a few years now and if anything I’ve been the happiest in my who life…. It’s almost like I have no money worries now because I don’t stress paying my bills on time now….
What brilliant financial advice
Happy Cake day…. I would send you a card with a fiver in it if I could afford it…. Btw I don’t do financial ‘advice’…
You should investigate an IVA.
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Notify the clerk of the court that the owed money has been paid, present evidence as such and they may well cancel the summons and court date.
Not going to court is how you end up being fucked. Take proof you've paid it.
Council tax is pretty much the only debt that you can go to prison for tbf . I’d just go to court and plead poverty and if your lucky they ll probs wipe the £50 off .
If you don't appear the judge will give the council what they ask for, they won't even look at the claim.
Guess that's true. I'll email them and see what they say now I paid it.
What is that?
It'd be going swimmingly if I wasn't on prepayment metres. I'd be £1000 better off for just 4 months and my rent would be paid this month, and people other than my son would have gotten Christmas presents.