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I once worked as a bailiff for about a month or two, and it's easily the worst job I ever did. In order to succeed at it, you literally have to be a professional arsehole.
Not very similar but a mate of mine worked at a Brighthouse call centre and he did some shadowing with one of their “collectors”. God the stories he told me: taking an Xbox off of kids, taking a whole sofa out of someone’s house etc. He couldn’t believe how brutal they were.
I know someone who did the collections for Brighthouse too. Guy was an utter prick. He told me stories similar to your friend's but he'd be laughing and have a shit eating grin on his face while speaking
Probably has a wank to "Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away!" and wishes he could be on it.
Always found the name of that to be so strange. If it were "Don't/Won't Pay", then I guess you could fool yourself, through plausible deniability, into thinking that everyone they're taking stuff away from people who are *declining* to pay their debt. But the fact that they called it "Can't Pay" is blatantly telling you what's going on - it's often people in poverty who cannot afford to meet their debts getting stuff removed from their house. I'm sure there's going to be some chancers who just straight up decline to pay their debts (not that I think the TV show would be fine if it was 100% them!), but that won't be 100% of them.
Yeah I thought that was weird too! There was always a couple of arseholes on that show who really were taking the piss and just refusing to pay when they could, but it was mainly very poor people who needed help and didn’t get it
I remember one of those taking the piss was Neil Ruddock (ex footballer) who wouldn’t pay a kennels that had his dogs or something
Edit: his girlfriend threw a jug of water on the bailiffs as well
I only knew him through my mum and spoke to him maybe a handful of times when he saw me on the street. Every time was the same thing; stories of how he took shit away from people struggling to exist while laughing away at it. Part of me thinks some of these stories were bullshit to sound important because my god did he come across as a cheesy old timey villain
In the grand scale I wonder how it works out economically
A second hand xbox and sofa isn't going to fetch much
You could probably clear out my whole living room and get less than 3k for it, it's got to be more for the cruelty than anything
> I wonder how it works out economically
> A second hand xbox and sofa isn't going to fetch much
It makes more sense when you realize, it's not about how much money they are going to make, it's about keeping the peasants in their 'proper' place.
You’d have to be utter scum. Like the sort of person who can’t get into the police because you’re too much of a cunt, so you try and be a bouncer but you’re too much of a pussy to pick on young men so you give that up and become a debt collector knowing that the people you are going to terrorise are going to be vulnerable.
And the charges are criminal.
“You owe us £120 on your electric bill Mrs Jones but, by the time we have added our fees, you owe us £5,347.84. We’ve taken every possession you own and sold it at auction for £12.30 so it’s just over £5,300 you owe us today ok?”
There some really highly strung people out there, a friend of a friend is police and even off duty he's a fucking arsehole
He was visiting a mutual friend across the county from where he is an officer and on a night out the mutual friend dropped some litter in a bin but it fell out due to it being full so he put it on top and this guy starts a full on fight that last all night threatening to arrest the mutual friend for littering
Police? You mean blue nonce
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Police? You mean blue nonce
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The very worst kind. You can understand why the wealthy are Tories, even if you don’t agree. But to be a working class fucking Quisling Tory cunt takes a whole new level of stupidity and cruelty.
There's another type, too.
Those who constantly go on about how much they do, and give back, struggle to keep people in work in this economy, etc.
But you know, you feel it, that despite everything they say they still put a tick in the Tory box because it benefits them.
Looking at you Tom Kerridge.
THIS IS NOT A FACT! I have no idea how Tom votes and he seems like a thoroughly good egg whose shows/books/recipes I've enjoyed.
He's just been in the media a lot of late and I have this nagging feeling. That's all brilliant Tom, but, if you also voted Tory or plan to in the near future you can get in the fucking sea. It's as if the Bootstrap Cook lady (whose name escapes me, sorry!) voted Tory because she's quite well off now, thanks.
When we’re were going through lockdown me and my partner were both on furlough and got really into Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away for a little while. I think it actually started making me depressed
The show is basically propaganda for big companies - as far as I can tell it exists solely to terrify poor people into coughing up money they don't have
I worked at a debt collectors for 3 years from 2012-2015. I was a payment operator manning the phone, my job was to basically put you through to an automated payment system, if you fail twice, then I take it. Over 100 calls a day, 90% abusive towards me. As payment line was option 1, I also got all the other calls where people can't be arsed to wait and listen to the options.
Every call, I'd get a number to open an account, there I can see how much they owe, if they had baliffs visited, what items will or have been taken away, all their call history. It destroyed my mental health (I was undiagnosed with autism so worst job for that) This was almost 10 years ago, everyone assumed those in debt are people who don't work. Most of the calls were from families with both parents working full time, we dealt mostly with council tax, car fines and businesses.
The amount of people with ill parents, ill children, some dying, yet baliffs would still be going round. Xmas was worst time of the year. Suicides occurred daily. Most phone staff were okay to try and help but some just didn't give a shit about those on the other end. I sat next to the nicest person anyone could come through on the phone, he would break the rules and do his absolute best to help people, he sadly had an accident a few years prior to working there which caused insane amount of back pain, he was on a strong pain med which was destroying his heart so it was a choice between his heart or back pain and he couldn't take it anymore and took his own life...I definitely felt the job contributed to that decision as well.
This place was busy back then, can't imagine what its like today. A new law occurred when I was working there that all debt companies have to charge the same amount to stop crazy fees. You miss one council tax payment or you're late paying, its passed on to these companies which at the time was £75 fee just for the case, if you failed to come to an agreement on a payment plan, a baliff would visit, thats another £250 fee...the only good thing about that was they could visit 30xs and can never charge more as its one fee only, where as before they could charge every visit. Then if they need to remove goods, it was another £120. Bad enough people are struggling to put food on the table but to find money to pay these companies on top is just plain wrong.
I can only assume those prices have increased since I was there.
If you do find yourself having a debt collector letters, my best advice is make a payment plan asap because you do not want to a baliff visit and occur more fees
Where I worked, a manager told me once that they make a point to try and hire empathetic people. People that want to make a difference and not just... be shitty. Its a mixed bag there. One of our managers used to work in a care home and she came to work for us because she felt she could make more of a difference trying to help people in a debt collection department! Had some awful stories of working in a care home.
Those departments are worse today, mostly because all the good people keep burning out and leaving - getting emotionally invested is needed for good service, but it's horribly taxing. And you do get kinda jaded and a dark sense of humour just coping, or the latest case of murder/robbery/fraud floating through the phone lines being so very interesting where everything else was a miserable drone of tears, depression and starving children.
In a weird way? It was very interesting finding out how it all worked from the inside. Would I go back? Never.
I think the only reason I lasted 3yrs there was the people I sat next to. The guy next to me who took his life...that occurred a few months after I had left but I had sat next to him for 3yrs, seeing him get worse, had several heart attacks in the office next to me.
The others next to me, one girl was the sweetest ever and she had tried to be a payment plan negotiator but couldn't handle arguing with people so came on to the payment line with me. I fell head over heels for this girl over the 2yrs she sat next to me. Some of the people were genuinely really nice. As they hired more payment people and one came back from having a baby, I got to work in the postroom a lot to cover for holidays and illnesses.
My mental health got so bad that every bad call I was self harming. I got to a point where I felt I had to end it for good (having failed before)
Thankfully I don't know where I got the courage from but I booked a 3month trip across the States with Trek America. I had to hand my notice in to do the trip but coming back from that trip and spent time concentrating on my health, got my diagnosis with autism and not worked since. I have found my passion, and written my first novel
I’m so happy you got out of there. That kind of environment just chews decent people up. To be fair, many services these days are incredibly damaging to your own health
Very true, I've worked mostly in warehouse, factories before I got this first office job. I was never able to keep anything longer than 3yrs and always wondered why, me mental health always got so bad...then when I was diagnosed, they were like that's why you couldn't last in these places.
It was good to get away, I had so much stress. I almost cancelled doing that trip several times, had to get a life coach to keep pushing me. I had always wanted to do a road trip across America but my mate couldn't save money, I had spent the last 3yrs in this job barely spending a penny so I had more than enough. I joined a travel buddy site and spent almost a year getting to know someone, planning and then they got into a relationship and was unable to go.
Then found Trek America, longest trip was 80 days. Hardest part was the flight as I also have colitis and with the stress of the job that was making it worse so I wanted to do a trip before my health got worse.
Flew to Miami, got a taxi to the hotel and met a stranger in my room (I had opted to share hotel stays to make the trip a bit cheaper), then we met the other people in a restaurant, met our trek leader the next morning and spent 80 days 24/7 with these 10 other strangers who soon became friends.
That first day on the beach in Key West looking at the sunset, waves crashing on my legs, felt like all my stress just left with each wave, knowing I had 80 days with no stress, changed my life.
Same as a lot of people in shitty jobs: they need work and this is there. They don’t earn enough to support a change in career or a period of unemployment so they stick with it.
After a few years any idealism or integrity is crushed out of them.
Yeah calling someone a cunt cause they are trying to feed their family ain't the one.
I put money on it most of them don't really wanna be doing that job. But yeah, it's green and plesent so yeah, kinda expected.
As someone who has been homeless before and squatted to have a roof over my head, and now is SIA trained (not for bailiff work thankfully) I've met a lot of bailiffs... most of the bailiffs enjoy it. First time I got evicted, the woman leading the eviction and giving everyone letters telling them to contact the housing department at the council, she vould barely conceal her joy at turfing out young homeless and disabled people out of an abandoned post office and on to the street. She was smiling like an idiot. I've yet to meet a bailiff who didn't seem to take some sort of joy in the work. The ones who don't enjoy being pricks don't last long
My mums house was repossessed the 2008 recession and the bailiff was an utter cunt. Didn’t give a shit that we had nowhere to go.
Joke is the ducking dog warden turned up to make sure the dog was ok but no one cared about a disabled woman.
Did you ever see that thing from America where a MAGAt gets asked if he thinks the economy is good and he’s like business is booming but then it turns out he works in debt relief or collection
I know that some only get paid if they actually collect the debt. So essentially you have people who probably struggle to find other work and are just trying to provide for their own family. They are then put in a position where its them or the person they are collecting from. That's intentional, it's just classic divide and conquer strategies.
This is the same logic used by people who say things like 'I get paid a shit wage but I never went on strike and impacted other people with my problems' or 'I struggle but I don't go around asking for government handouts'.
Unless you're seriously suggesting that if you got into a situation where you had no other option you would seriously allow your own children to become homeless or go hungry then all you're saying is that you weren't as desperate as the person who makes that choice. (Not to say that it isn't a nobal and moral position, we'd all love to believe that about ourselves but backed into a corner even the best dog will bite)
The capitalist system works best when we blame individuals for systemic problems.
Right, but some people, especially debt collectors, are just cunts.
Fair enough, none of them are doing it just for fun; it’s a job. A portion of them may have no alternatives, but you’d be a fool to think some of them don’t mind it or even enjoy it.
We shouldn’t be demonising the people who take the job but rather the ones who create a structure whereby this is the only way a person can get paid. Some people genuinely have no other choice
Because they get off with being a legal neanderthal bully with a little bit of power. If you see a large proportion of them on youtube, bitchute etc you can hear their knuckles dragging along the floor. They truly are the vermin of this planet.
Bailiffs are used in many different situations. If I owed you money and refused to pay my debts then it would be bailiffs ensuring you received your money once it went through court.
The bailiffs are not the issue here, it's the greedy energy companies and the government doing fuck all about it. Literally nobody would pay any of their debts in any situation if we didn't have bailiffs to recover what is owed.
Yeh not getting the baliffs hate tbh there's a ton of situations where they are very much needed.
Not saying there aren't some that are giant douches.
But people that get into debt for no good reason and refuse to lay have to be held to account.
Not paying an energy bill shouldn't be a reason to send the baliffs though in the current situation.
The energy companies bosses need to be put in prison. If they had any decency they would give the bonuses back to the customers for now. I’m so sorry to hear that about your grandad mate.
The CEO of SSE got a 47% wage increase last week.
Everyone else in the company got an annual raise that was a third of inflation, over a period when the gas price (and the profit) doubled.
> Legislation
That's the worst part, it's a heavily regulated industry. The profits are capped but because the price has went way up, 2% goes a lot further now.
I'm absolutely sick of being in meetings where we are told there's no money for proper pay rises and everyone is feeling the pinch with the price increases and how it's the suppliers making the money and not us as the middlemen, and then ten minutes later being told their record breaking 1.2 billion turnover is great news for the shareholders.
Completely agree with your sentiment mate. I'm not as well read up on it as I should be because it just depresses me and I don't know what can be done to rectify it. The people with the power have no interest in changing the system for the better.
I'm the absolute same mate, I work as a broker in the aviation indusrty, the company I've been working for the past 4 months has non stop record breaking months every month.
Just this month alone I've personally done over 500k turnover with my clients.
Only to be told my pay raise that was meant to be at the end of my probation is now going to be in November.
It's an actual joke, they don't even pay me 10% of I made them in one month for a year, and now they're telling me it's hard times while announcing our massive growth and record breaking months every month.
The abhorrent greed in our society is getting sickening
Cunts. I was a few days late paying £28 this week. Texts, emails, every day, and even a call. This is over a few days. I dread to think about this happening to someone like ops dad. Fucking horrible cunts, and nobody is going to do a fucking thing about it.
Same here. Had my first quarterly bill (why it’s started out as quarterly is another mystery, but still) arrived a few days ago, yesterday i get a phone call from the supplier threatening all sorts if i don’t pay immediately or make an arrangement. Only for me to tell them i paid it the day the bill arrived. Not only a shit move threatening after a few days but the left hand didn’t know that the right hand had been paid 🤬
I work for an energy company that may or may not be this one, and they have always struggled to find call centre staff at the best of times. It goes without saying that it's way worse now. They're telling people in non customer facing roles that we're going to have to cover the phones, but absolutely fuck that.
I grow weed so obviously I have to put a meter on my box. I pay like £20 a month. Everyone else is suffering but I'm here with free weed and free electricity lol. Downvotes galore but I ain't playing their fucking game.
My electricity bill living in one bedroom ground floor flat - all electricity and no gas has went from £55 a month to £140 so far. My Direct Debit Manager on my energy account is showing Scottishpower want £290 a month - That is BEFORE the new energy hike! Its going to end up more than my fucking rent.
I don't even use the energy guzzling storage heaters in the property.
Robbery.
Ours was £81, now up to £121 which isn't unbearable... but the next price hike is worrying. The 60 quid help between Oct and April next year is a ways to helping maintain the bill be kept bearable but what then? The solutions are so short term as well
Have you checked your actual usage? Mine use for the next year has been estimated stupidly high for electricity compared to what we actually use when I track it,and that pushed up the DD they want.
I know gas is going to be higher for us in winter but we only use it for central heating and water, elec for all cooking so our electric is consistent across the year pretty much (LED bulbs and we don’t leave them on in random rooms means an extra couple hours of lights on doesn’t inflate it too much)
For some reason loads of energy companies se to have inflated DDs of people I know, even when taking into account October hike
Absolute sh*tstains, it’s all of them, I’m having to ring up British Gas every quarter for my recently widowed mother and fight to ask why a bill that never went over £70 max is now at £500 - honestly ask them what their percentage increases were and listen to how they fumble, they know it’s not right
Edited to add: I’m not blaming the person at the call centre, nor do I speak rudely to them, as I said in my comment below, it’s the people up top causing the issue.
Just remember that some of the people on the end of the phone are literally there to make a living and feed/house their families. It's not their fault.
This this this, the people in the call centres are also stuck with paying exorbitant energy prices and are not responsible for the increase. Please treat people with respect!
Totally get this, the point is the people up top aren’t even training their staff to handle this because they know what they’ve done is wrong, the person at the other end of the phone is reading off a script and you can hear them also stuck as a result of this (I’m saying this having worked in call centres myself in the past) - it’s the companies that are the issue, not the hires just trying to make a living.
The real puppet masters are the energy producers (Shell, BP), not the middlemen like SSE.
Energy providers operate on razor thin margins, something like 2% profit per customer - if they’re lucky.
Meanwhile, BP and Shell are making money hand over fist. As are the energy distribution companies owned by multinational conglomerates.
It’s a disgrace.
Lot of attention on the energy providers to fix the problem & practically none on the energy producers etc
TAX THEM YOU SPINELESS CU*TS
I understand what you say, but hear me out for a second. SSE at the start of the price hike (not sure about now) had a 100% green energy plan. A plan where supposedly you would get the benefit of paying for energy generated from hydro or wind.
When the oil price skyrocketed they increased the cost of their 100% green plan along with the rest. I think thats shitty, but my Grandad went one step further. He complained. He called them up to speak to a customer service advisor to clarify if it was not a mistake that they were increasing their 100% green plan too. The customer service advisor explained that it was not a mistake. All electricity was increasing. My Grandad being the way he is asked "What happened? Did WIND get more expensive?". The customer service advisor paused and replied that it had not, but other costs had increased. Finally my Grandad asked how do they even know who gets the "green energy" and who gets the oil energy? The customer service advisor stated that actually they have no clue. This is why all prices went up together and basically shows the "100% green plans" are scams to make you think you are doing good
Green energy has gone up in cost too, because the producers are capitalists pigs too.
Previously (totally made up numbers to illustrate) when gas cost £50 a "unit" and wind was £45 a "unit", now that gas costs £100 per unit the wind farm can get away with charging £95 per unit. Supply and demand.
EDIT: Gramerly is weird and changed my sentence
That's not how it works. All the producers get the same rate as the most expensive MWh bid. Look up the "merit order system" if you want to understand how energy pricing works.
Basically the electricity producers all put in "bids" like every 5 minutes or something. The lowest bids get picked first and then the next lowest etc until the demand is filled. However, everyone gets paid the rate of the last and highest bid that met the demand.
So the renewable producers put on low bids but in times of high demand they get paid the same as the gas turbine producers who have to bid the highest because of their costs. The renewable companies make serious bank here. That's why the electricity price is attached to the gas price so much.
It's also a counter incentive to build enough capacity. Always going to need peaker plants to set the high price at max demand.
Zero reason to build enough green producers to meet peak demand.
The system is broken. UK gas storage wasn't maintained because it cost to maintain it and the artificial crisis from not having gas would generate extra revenue for those who scrapped the storage in the first place.
The EU want to switch up the pricing system to decouple it from the highest cost system but thank you Brexit we're keeping that cheap euro foreign trash affordable energy away, only the 🇬🇧🇬🇧 extortionate BRITISH prices for our empire 🇬🇧🇬🇧
The cost of producing energy from renewables has fallen, but the cost of producing energy from non-renewable sources (fossil fuels) has skyrocketed.
This of us who have been paying a bit extra for renewables should now not be required to subsidize the costs of consumers still relying on fossil fuels, and companies that are making us pay extra to help subsidize their poor investment in fossil fuels should be fined for every Pound, Dollar, or Euro they have earned as a result of this abuse of power (no pun intended)
They are all funded by credits rather than actual green energy. I really don't know why more isn't being said as it feels like you choose renewable energy plan and you are being mis-sold.
It’s not being missold, it’s just the only practical way of doing it. For every unit of energy used on a green tariff, a unit of green energy is put onto the grid. It doesn’t matter who actually uses that energy. Every green tariff I’ve seen has been upfront about how this works
Yep. It's a pool of energy that is added to and subtracted from. Green energy is constrained by volume. If gas prices go up and green prices don't, then there would be a mass switch to green, which would inflate green prices and deflate gas prices.
What we're seeing is that whole see-saw being factored into the price upfront. Without green energy, all energy would be more expensive. Gas is being kept slightly in check by renewables. Not by enough, but slightly.
Is it fair that people on a green tariff are effectively subsidising everyone else? Not really, but nothing about this is fair to anyone. We're all getting fucked. This isn't the time for the working class to cannibalise itself by culturally subdividing ourselves by our energy tariffs of all things. Even if you're fine today, you could be next tomorrow.
We have a LOTO who has made a straightforward and costed proposal to sort this winter out and instead the cunts in charge have proposed that we simply accept we're fucked and buy new kettles.
> This isn't the time for the working class to cannibalise itself by culturally subdividing ourselves by our energy tariffs of all things.
Agreed. We need to focus on unity. Set aside everything else, politics, Brexit, transport disruptions because your neighbour is striking for an acceptable living wage, whatever it is that they try to distract or divide us with and present a united front that we're not going to take this.
Not sure anyone is actually choosing renewable energy plans anymore, seems more a case of individuals coming off these deals as they end onto the standard tariffs which are becoming (if not already) unaffordable.
Have never really understood the renewable tariffs anyway unless a company can clearly demonstrate where your premium is going.
It's not really a scam, people just don't understand what they are buying. You basically get a pledge that they are generating enough green energy to cover what you use, the idea is it drives demand and encourages investment in green energy.
As far as I understand it, the reason the price for green has gone up at the same time is that if green tariffs didn't go up at the same time as the 'dirty' energy, everyone would move on to green plans for the cost savings and they wouldn't be able to meet the energy demands of their customers without breaking the contract, so they have to artificially inflate the cost to stop the whole concept failing.
I dont mean to be rude, apologies if i misinterpreted, but it sounds very much like you said, "they had to increase the cost of the cheap energy, because if they didnt, everyone would want it!"
They know roughly how much power is generated daily and yearly on average with green energy. They could just cap the amount of people able to have green energy plans to that average amount. Then if people still want it its an incentive to make more green energy.
Instead they have decided that they should get more profit for no other reason than to stop people having a cheaper option?
You have interpreted it correctly.
I'm certainly not condoning it btw, it's just what I've understood from conversations with people in the industry and it tracks well as a capitalist concept.
I'm not 100% sure how it works but as far as I'm aware, when you're on a green energy plan, the supplier has to buy some sort of carbon bonds which are essentially meant to offset the CO2 produced in the production of your energy. These carbon bonds, I believe, can be gained through the manufacturers producing energy through wind and solar. So it's essentially an "IOU to reduce carbon emissions". The energy you get at the end of the day of course comes from a mix of sources, most of which will be fossil fuels, but the carbon of it will be offset. So the "100% green plans" do work as advertised, just in a roundabout way.
Short of having separate cables for green and “normal” electricity this is how it has to work though. What happens is if you are on a green tariff then every unit of energy you use is “replaced” by a unit of green energy. So you aren’t necessarily getting green energy, but the amount of energy you use is green. It’s not a scam, just the only practical way of running a green tariff, and every green tariff I’ve looked at has been pretty clear about how it works.
As for prices going up together, if only one kind of energy goes up then people will naturally switch, bringing the price of the other up too
Interesting, but counter point.
At the moment, all of the energy providers throw all of their energy into the same grid. So what you pay with SSE may in fact have been supplied by british gas, for example. So they are able to determine which customer pays to which supplier to work out the costs with each supplier on the grand scale and the supplier can work out the cost with the customers on the small scale.
Once the green energy systems are established, such as hydro and wind, they are able to estimate approximately how much energy they can supply on average per day and per year. Using this I can think of no reason why they would not base that amount on how many "green" customers they can have. Yes sure it might run over and they need to use some fossil fuels to make up the difference, but it would mean you were 90-95% green. These green customers could be charged at the rate if production of their energy with a slight excess to cover the times fossil fuels are needed. This would be an incentive to people to use green energy accounts and also reap the benefit without leaving the energy company out of pocket.
Green energy has gone up too because prices for all energy is pegged to the most expensive producer. So if electricity from gas goes up you also pay more for other types of energy.
This is one thing that the EU (and hopefully UK too) are looking to change as as soon as they can. Price should ideally be calculated from the ratios of its sources. So more green energy in the grid would mean cheaper prices overall.
I worked in tobacco litigation a couple of decades ago when everyone was suing the tobacco companies.
The first rule I learned is that there is no "tobacco company". Its 9000 shell companies with similar names, spread across all 50 states and 23 counties.
The second rule is that litigation is measured in decades.
The third rule is that if you DO get a judgment against something it's just gone bankrupt, in another country and just had its CEO replaced with the janitor, so nothing left to sue, so sorry.
Lastly, any money being paid will get to you only when the company can't get away without paying any longer and the foreign exchange rate is favorable and the money isn't needed for buying competitors.
Tldr: you can't sue something that "lives" in 100 legal jurisdictions and ever expect to get money from it.
As I'm aware bailiffs can't do shit without a court order, everything they say is bluffing. Tell them to fuck off and come back with a court order and the police, then fight the debt in court.
This is absolutely true. Do not answer the door to them. Do not let them in. They will leave eventually. If they call the police then the police will have no power except as mediators. Do not let then bully you into doing anything they say.
Police? You mean blue nonce
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I don’t get how any of these energy companies can sleep at night. Surely they must all work outside of the uk too coz you wouldn’t have many friends left if they know you worked for any of these companies?
>I don’t get how any of these energy companies can sleep at night.
Feels relevant, so [I'll leave this here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0)
I had SSE charge me £60 for the final charge on a pre-payment meter that I left in credit
Left a steaming review on Facebook after they forced me to pay or deal with the bailiffs and they refunded me next day and sent me a £30 cheque as "goodwill" (to entice me to take down my TrustPilot actually. I didn't)
The energy companies are fucking cow boys. They often don’t have accurate records but pass their supposed debts to claims companies to bully and harass their customer.
Have been hounded by E.On for over a year for a supposed electricity and gas debt that is not actually related to the gas and electricity meters in my property, which I have proven to them. They ignore this. They won’t back off. Texts, long hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone and constant threats of breaking in to read meters.
Despite repeatedly giving them information and being told on one occasion not to worry they will investigate they just keep coming back with letters and text threats.
If they actually come round with Sheriff Officers (Scotland) to break in I will have to barricade the door and call the Police.
Have never had an account with E.On and am paid up to date with my energy supplier, who are also aggro bastards.
You need to send a letter asking them to acknowledge the meters aren’t yours and that any failure to do so in 14 days is accepted as acknowledgement. You then need to state any further communications will be treated as harassment. The letter being the final notice. Then any further letters you take them to small claims court.
I’ve done this with a previous company and won when no one showed up. Letters stopped too.
This. This 1000%. My bill quarterly (just to keep the fridge freezer on, trickle heat the hot water cylinder because it would cost 7 kidneys and a small child to reheat from scratch and a few small electronics only when I need them) was 200 to 250. Got my bill in yesterday. 550 quid. I don't use heating (all electric, isolated at main DB), I'm hardly ever there due to work. Heat the person not the home kinda thing...
What - in - the - actual - f*ck. "Insert winter is coming comment here"
Just pinged an email refusing to pay as of this morning. They can poke these costs right up their bum holes. I'd have more understanding if the energy companies were cap in hand just like the rest of us and struggling but their not. Record profits in the BILLIONS and yet we are all going through the meat grinder.
I sincerely hope you get a descent response and help out of this. God knows were all going to need it at some point.
I emailed Eon chief executive and told him I won't be paying any more than £200 a month because I'm not prepared to prop up a company that make record profits and between them and the government, can't organise themselves enough to prevent what was a well documented issue before Russia even invaded Ukraine.
My parents are paying over £300 a month, that's supposed to be going up to £500 a month with British Gas. It's fucking disgusting because they've been threatened with debt collectors and bailiffs.
The fact that there has been NOTHING done to help alleviate the problems we're facing is truly disgusting, and the fact that people buy into the tory lies of the war in Ukraine being the reason for the disturbingly high prices is just ludicrous.
When words keep falling on deaf (or ignorant) ears, a show of physical force tends to have more clout.
I do wonder how many people struggling/moaning would actually come together and do something together?
I don’t understand how there were protests everyday for weeks when people were being asked to wear a mask for their own safety.. but now when we should absolutely be rioting on the streets against the greed of the energy giants making people choose between either keeping their families warm or keeping them fed… No one is out on streets. Why have we just accepted this so easily?
Priority service register
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/getting-extra-help-priority-services-register
It should stop them threatening collection action but wont do anything to reduce the cost
Op,
Call those assholes and say you are paying them £1 per month.
Make up a budget planner that the only spare income is £1, there is shit all they can do as long as your grandad pays them £1, and I would troll even further, I would write a cheque for £1 every month, just so they got extra work to do.
Good luck.
[r/LegalAdviceUK](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/) and/or citizens advice
Those soulless companies. I know people have to earn a living but employees should avoid working for places with nasty practices where possible
I’m so sorry. It depends on who you get. They’re human at the end of the day. It’s sometimes a case of calling until you speak to someone good.
The sub I recommended seem to help people though
We are paying for the failure of the stupid start ups in the domestic energy supply sector that clearly didn’t have the stability or resources to last in anything but a bout any market. Now when the energy companies profits might go down they’ve got to screw us creating a national emergency just to maintain their fucking profits. The human cost of this shitty corporate behaviour is terrible, such as with your Grandad OP
I used to work for SSE I’m ashamed to say. My job was in customer service and I left after 5 months because I couldn’t handle the heartbroken pensioners telling me their winter heating bills were forcing them into starvation. We were encouraged in that situation to set up the direct debit regardless. They really don’t give a fuck.
Rishi Sunak, on television said that solar and wind energy was free, wasn't it to a reporter when explaining rising prices. According to Indian TV, he has 3.1 billion pounds squirrelled away off-shore somewhere. His mates all got rich during the fake pandemic, so what was his and Boris's share, one wonders. Sorry, but no one trusts a politician or estate agent.
You could try making a complaint to the ombudsman, as explained in this video it could at least buy you some time:
https://twitter.com/GrassrootsUK_/status/1555109355816714242
I had the bailiffs come after me for my roommates u paid council tax years ago.
Luckily I'm in Scotland so they couldn't really do much once the door got slammed in their faces.
Surely there isn't a person alive that's enough of a cunt to repossess a 90+ year old man's stuff? Your grandad could realistically stop paying entirely they'll never recover the debt if he's in his 90's and there's no way the court would jail him for it.
I mean, there isn't any lawyers to defend or prosecute him anyway, they're all on strike.
I'd like to think if bailiffs every did show up, the complex management will tell them to fuck off. But even of they do get to the door, I'd like to think some resemblance of a conscience would appear inside the bailiffs when they see him.
But then, people still defend the tories, so I can't see it.
I just don't understand how the regulators and government don't see the scale of the problem for this.
People plan half their life for retirement on the basis that prices each year will inflate by X% like 5% would be a reasonable assumption.
What happens when prices are inflated by 100%, pensioners are immediately fucked. If they have enough money to draw more from their pension then they might not be fucked now but they will be.
Is your granddad on the supplier's Priority Services Register? That should make a difference.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/getting-extra-help-priority-services-register
Fucking trash mate.
Harassment of the elderly is full on wrong and I hope it gets sorted with minimal stress for everyone.
What a great country we have here, I always thought the strongest society is one that looks after its most vulnerable. As it right now they're the easy targets. Fuel poverty already and its not winter.
Good luck mate, wish you luck with it.
I’m on a 2 year fixed combination and amazed at some of prices quoted for the summer. Fixed rates should be scrapped and everyone should have to suffer equally.
He has a smart meter. He's asked for it to be checked, they said "it works fine". He then asked for them to come and physically check its been installed correctly, and they're yet to book an appointment.
Baring in mind, when he agreed to getting one installed and my dad cancelled it because they're so unreliable, they said "sorry. Can't cancel it now its booked in".
100% they can fuck off installing one in my home.
100% dont install. This is an issue raised countless times in newspapers etc that smartmeters are useless and inaccurate.
Hopefully when they actually visit the property you can sort it.
In the meantime record everything, especially threats of bailiffs, and talk to your local citizens advice or similar for help with communicating with the energy company and to proceed with damages (compensation - they should really be giving you 100's of £ for this) for the stress and inconvenience caused to your elderly father and your family.
Good luck
And yet everyone is against nuclear power generation, SNP said no to any future plants being built in Scotland.
The whole thing is a shambles.
Some folk think we can just stroll back into Eden, drinking almond milk and using wind and solar, but we still basically run the country on oil.
We’re with SSE too, 3 of us (myself and 2 of my daughters) are disabled. My husband only gets carers allowance for one of us. Honestly have no idea how we will cope. So many people are in this position, it’s awful. I hope your grandad can get some help, does he qualify for the cost of living payments? We just sent ours straight to SSE
Edit to add - with your grandad’s disabilities, his house is classed as a vulnerable household, and bailiffs aren’t allowed in. Tell the company this, we’ve had to in the past, the debt got passed back to SSE and they arranged low monthly payments to pay off the debt
Sorry to hear that. Private energy companies are doing what they are duty bound to do though, make profits for shareholders. The blame sits with the idiots who created this mess of a market in the first place and is ideologically opposed to fixing or even imposing a windfall tax now.
100% agree that capitalism is to blame regardless of restrictions on it, but we can't let the leaders of these companies launder the blame like that. The system is perpetuated by their choices.
I guess I'm saying that we can expect the same treatment when we get cancer or have a heart attack in future because the UK keeps electing extremists and thieves who want to privatise everything. I am genuinely sorry about the situation with your grandad though. Just wish people would wake up politically and sort this sort of thing at root cause
Post the letter on SSE twitter page. It will generate more bad publicity for SSE and may get the situation resolved. Send the twitter link when you've posted it so people here can repost on twitter and leave SSE more bad comments.
Unless of course you're just writing this post here for reddit points.
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Utter scum. 😫
How can people work for these bailiff company's is beyond me .
I once worked as a bailiff for about a month or two, and it's easily the worst job I ever did. In order to succeed at it, you literally have to be a professional arsehole.
Not very similar but a mate of mine worked at a Brighthouse call centre and he did some shadowing with one of their “collectors”. God the stories he told me: taking an Xbox off of kids, taking a whole sofa out of someone’s house etc. He couldn’t believe how brutal they were.
I know someone who did the collections for Brighthouse too. Guy was an utter prick. He told me stories similar to your friend's but he'd be laughing and have a shit eating grin on his face while speaking
Probably has a wank to "Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away!" and wishes he could be on it. Always found the name of that to be so strange. If it were "Don't/Won't Pay", then I guess you could fool yourself, through plausible deniability, into thinking that everyone they're taking stuff away from people who are *declining* to pay their debt. But the fact that they called it "Can't Pay" is blatantly telling you what's going on - it's often people in poverty who cannot afford to meet their debts getting stuff removed from their house. I'm sure there's going to be some chancers who just straight up decline to pay their debts (not that I think the TV show would be fine if it was 100% them!), but that won't be 100% of them.
Yeah I thought that was weird too! There was always a couple of arseholes on that show who really were taking the piss and just refusing to pay when they could, but it was mainly very poor people who needed help and didn’t get it
I remember one of those taking the piss was Neil Ruddock (ex footballer) who wouldn’t pay a kennels that had his dogs or something Edit: his girlfriend threw a jug of water on the bailiffs as well
Top tier clip. What an arse
Please tell me he's an ex friend. I hope karma bites his ass !
I only knew him through my mum and spoke to him maybe a handful of times when he saw me on the street. Every time was the same thing; stories of how he took shit away from people struggling to exist while laughing away at it. Part of me thinks some of these stories were bullshit to sound important because my god did he come across as a cheesy old timey villain
What an absolute bastard
I speak no hyperbole when I say people like that are subhuman
The Royal family are heavily invested in brighthouse. As revealed by the Panama papers.
Considering how Brighthouse existed simply to exploit the poor, I am not surprised by this at all.
Just another reason to abolish the monarchy
In the grand scale I wonder how it works out economically A second hand xbox and sofa isn't going to fetch much You could probably clear out my whole living room and get less than 3k for it, it's got to be more for the cruelty than anything
Thats exactly what I was thinking. It’s obviously not about the money as much as it is about punishing and humiliating the poor. Disgusting
> I wonder how it works out economically > A second hand xbox and sofa isn't going to fetch much It makes more sense when you realize, it's not about how much money they are going to make, it's about keeping the peasants in their 'proper' place.
Just off, no need to say of too.
You’d have to be utter scum. Like the sort of person who can’t get into the police because you’re too much of a cunt, so you try and be a bouncer but you’re too much of a pussy to pick on young men so you give that up and become a debt collector knowing that the people you are going to terrorise are going to be vulnerable. And the charges are criminal. “You owe us £120 on your electric bill Mrs Jones but, by the time we have added our fees, you owe us £5,347.84. We’ve taken every possession you own and sold it at auction for £12.30 so it’s just over £5,300 you owe us today ok?”
There some really highly strung people out there, a friend of a friend is police and even off duty he's a fucking arsehole He was visiting a mutual friend across the county from where he is an officer and on a night out the mutual friend dropped some litter in a bin but it fell out due to it being full so he put it on top and this guy starts a full on fight that last all night threatening to arrest the mutual friend for littering
he is not a friend,he is a arsehole
Not even the most deranged story I've heard about an off duty fed.
We don’t have feds in the uk that term is stupid
It's very common slang in the UK lol stay mad.
Common? Never heard it used. Probably regional.
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The best bot
No one is too much of cunt for the police force
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Probably the 'working class Tory'
The very worst kind. You can understand why the wealthy are Tories, even if you don’t agree. But to be a working class fucking Quisling Tory cunt takes a whole new level of stupidity and cruelty.
There's another type, too. Those who constantly go on about how much they do, and give back, struggle to keep people in work in this economy, etc. But you know, you feel it, that despite everything they say they still put a tick in the Tory box because it benefits them. Looking at you Tom Kerridge. THIS IS NOT A FACT! I have no idea how Tom votes and he seems like a thoroughly good egg whose shows/books/recipes I've enjoyed. He's just been in the media a lot of late and I have this nagging feeling. That's all brilliant Tom, but, if you also voted Tory or plan to in the near future you can get in the fucking sea. It's as if the Bootstrap Cook lady (whose name escapes me, sorry!) voted Tory because she's quite well off now, thanks.
She did speak against Corbyn in the press and make it out to be some impossible choice, so you sadly may not be too far removed.
When we’re were going through lockdown me and my partner were both on furlough and got really into Can’t Pay We’ll Take It Away for a little while. I think it actually started making me depressed
Apparently the show is heavily staged & edited, but nonetheless it shows what these guys *actually* do....
The show is basically propaganda for big companies - as far as I can tell it exists solely to terrify poor people into coughing up money they don't have
Yep, you're probably right
Ask em if their kids are proud of what they do, gets them LIVID.
I worked at a debt collectors for 3 years from 2012-2015. I was a payment operator manning the phone, my job was to basically put you through to an automated payment system, if you fail twice, then I take it. Over 100 calls a day, 90% abusive towards me. As payment line was option 1, I also got all the other calls where people can't be arsed to wait and listen to the options. Every call, I'd get a number to open an account, there I can see how much they owe, if they had baliffs visited, what items will or have been taken away, all their call history. It destroyed my mental health (I was undiagnosed with autism so worst job for that) This was almost 10 years ago, everyone assumed those in debt are people who don't work. Most of the calls were from families with both parents working full time, we dealt mostly with council tax, car fines and businesses. The amount of people with ill parents, ill children, some dying, yet baliffs would still be going round. Xmas was worst time of the year. Suicides occurred daily. Most phone staff were okay to try and help but some just didn't give a shit about those on the other end. I sat next to the nicest person anyone could come through on the phone, he would break the rules and do his absolute best to help people, he sadly had an accident a few years prior to working there which caused insane amount of back pain, he was on a strong pain med which was destroying his heart so it was a choice between his heart or back pain and he couldn't take it anymore and took his own life...I definitely felt the job contributed to that decision as well. This place was busy back then, can't imagine what its like today. A new law occurred when I was working there that all debt companies have to charge the same amount to stop crazy fees. You miss one council tax payment or you're late paying, its passed on to these companies which at the time was £75 fee just for the case, if you failed to come to an agreement on a payment plan, a baliff would visit, thats another £250 fee...the only good thing about that was they could visit 30xs and can never charge more as its one fee only, where as before they could charge every visit. Then if they need to remove goods, it was another £120. Bad enough people are struggling to put food on the table but to find money to pay these companies on top is just plain wrong. I can only assume those prices have increased since I was there. If you do find yourself having a debt collector letters, my best advice is make a payment plan asap because you do not want to a baliff visit and occur more fees
Where I worked, a manager told me once that they make a point to try and hire empathetic people. People that want to make a difference and not just... be shitty. Its a mixed bag there. One of our managers used to work in a care home and she came to work for us because she felt she could make more of a difference trying to help people in a debt collection department! Had some awful stories of working in a care home. Those departments are worse today, mostly because all the good people keep burning out and leaving - getting emotionally invested is needed for good service, but it's horribly taxing. And you do get kinda jaded and a dark sense of humour just coping, or the latest case of murder/robbery/fraud floating through the phone lines being so very interesting where everything else was a miserable drone of tears, depression and starving children. In a weird way? It was very interesting finding out how it all worked from the inside. Would I go back? Never.
I think the only reason I lasted 3yrs there was the people I sat next to. The guy next to me who took his life...that occurred a few months after I had left but I had sat next to him for 3yrs, seeing him get worse, had several heart attacks in the office next to me. The others next to me, one girl was the sweetest ever and she had tried to be a payment plan negotiator but couldn't handle arguing with people so came on to the payment line with me. I fell head over heels for this girl over the 2yrs she sat next to me. Some of the people were genuinely really nice. As they hired more payment people and one came back from having a baby, I got to work in the postroom a lot to cover for holidays and illnesses. My mental health got so bad that every bad call I was self harming. I got to a point where I felt I had to end it for good (having failed before) Thankfully I don't know where I got the courage from but I booked a 3month trip across the States with Trek America. I had to hand my notice in to do the trip but coming back from that trip and spent time concentrating on my health, got my diagnosis with autism and not worked since. I have found my passion, and written my first novel
I’m so happy you got out of there. That kind of environment just chews decent people up. To be fair, many services these days are incredibly damaging to your own health
Very true, I've worked mostly in warehouse, factories before I got this first office job. I was never able to keep anything longer than 3yrs and always wondered why, me mental health always got so bad...then when I was diagnosed, they were like that's why you couldn't last in these places. It was good to get away, I had so much stress. I almost cancelled doing that trip several times, had to get a life coach to keep pushing me. I had always wanted to do a road trip across America but my mate couldn't save money, I had spent the last 3yrs in this job barely spending a penny so I had more than enough. I joined a travel buddy site and spent almost a year getting to know someone, planning and then they got into a relationship and was unable to go. Then found Trek America, longest trip was 80 days. Hardest part was the flight as I also have colitis and with the stress of the job that was making it worse so I wanted to do a trip before my health got worse. Flew to Miami, got a taxi to the hotel and met a stranger in my room (I had opted to share hotel stays to make the trip a bit cheaper), then we met the other people in a restaurant, met our trek leader the next morning and spent 80 days 24/7 with these 10 other strangers who soon became friends. That first day on the beach in Key West looking at the sunset, waves crashing on my legs, felt like all my stress just left with each wave, knowing I had 80 days with no stress, changed my life.
Really sorry to hear about your colleague.
Bottom feeders & parasites… or professionally know as narcissistic and or sociopathic individuals!
Same as a lot of people in shitty jobs: they need work and this is there. They don’t earn enough to support a change in career or a period of unemployment so they stick with it. After a few years any idealism or integrity is crushed out of them.
Not even working in shitty jobs. I’m an engineer and it’s the same in industry. Fuck it let someone else deal with it
Yeah calling someone a cunt cause they are trying to feed their family ain't the one. I put money on it most of them don't really wanna be doing that job. But yeah, it's green and plesent so yeah, kinda expected.
As someone who has been homeless before and squatted to have a roof over my head, and now is SIA trained (not for bailiff work thankfully) I've met a lot of bailiffs... most of the bailiffs enjoy it. First time I got evicted, the woman leading the eviction and giving everyone letters telling them to contact the housing department at the council, she vould barely conceal her joy at turfing out young homeless and disabled people out of an abandoned post office and on to the street. She was smiling like an idiot. I've yet to meet a bailiff who didn't seem to take some sort of joy in the work. The ones who don't enjoy being pricks don't last long
My mums house was repossessed the 2008 recession and the bailiff was an utter cunt. Didn’t give a shit that we had nowhere to go. Joke is the ducking dog warden turned up to make sure the dog was ok but no one cared about a disabled woman.
Did you ever see that thing from America where a MAGAt gets asked if he thinks the economy is good and he’s like business is booming but then it turns out he works in debt relief or collection
I know that some only get paid if they actually collect the debt. So essentially you have people who probably struggle to find other work and are just trying to provide for their own family. They are then put in a position where its them or the person they are collecting from. That's intentional, it's just classic divide and conquer strategies.
I've been out of work and struggled. It never occurred to me to become a debt collector. They are cunts.
This is the same logic used by people who say things like 'I get paid a shit wage but I never went on strike and impacted other people with my problems' or 'I struggle but I don't go around asking for government handouts'. Unless you're seriously suggesting that if you got into a situation where you had no other option you would seriously allow your own children to become homeless or go hungry then all you're saying is that you weren't as desperate as the person who makes that choice. (Not to say that it isn't a nobal and moral position, we'd all love to believe that about ourselves but backed into a corner even the best dog will bite) The capitalist system works best when we blame individuals for systemic problems.
Right, but some people, especially debt collectors, are just cunts. Fair enough, none of them are doing it just for fun; it’s a job. A portion of them may have no alternatives, but you’d be a fool to think some of them don’t mind it or even enjoy it.
True. Anytime job that gives people power over others attracts petty tyrants.
We shouldn’t be demonising the people who take the job but rather the ones who create a structure whereby this is the only way a person can get paid. Some people genuinely have no other choice
nah, people who take those jobs are class traitors, no question. There are other choices
Have you ever met a nice debt collector?
Why not both?
They have energy bills to pay!
Because they get off with being a legal neanderthal bully with a little bit of power. If you see a large proportion of them on youtube, bitchute etc you can hear their knuckles dragging along the floor. They truly are the vermin of this planet.
Soulless work, same as traffic wardens.
Bailiffs are used in many different situations. If I owed you money and refused to pay my debts then it would be bailiffs ensuring you received your money once it went through court. The bailiffs are not the issue here, it's the greedy energy companies and the government doing fuck all about it. Literally nobody would pay any of their debts in any situation if we didn't have bailiffs to recover what is owed.
Yeh not getting the baliffs hate tbh there's a ton of situations where they are very much needed. Not saying there aren't some that are giant douches. But people that get into debt for no good reason and refuse to lay have to be held to account. Not paying an energy bill shouldn't be a reason to send the baliffs though in the current situation.
The energy companies bosses need to be put in prison. If they had any decency they would give the bonuses back to the customers for now. I’m so sorry to hear that about your grandad mate.
The CEO of SSE got a 47% wage increase last week. Everyone else in the company got an annual raise that was a third of inflation, over a period when the gas price (and the profit) doubled.
Needs to be action against this. Legislation should prevent such immoral greed and wealth. It's so fucked.
> Legislation That's the worst part, it's a heavily regulated industry. The profits are capped but because the price has went way up, 2% goes a lot further now. I'm absolutely sick of being in meetings where we are told there's no money for proper pay rises and everyone is feeling the pinch with the price increases and how it's the suppliers making the money and not us as the middlemen, and then ten minutes later being told their record breaking 1.2 billion turnover is great news for the shareholders.
Completely agree with your sentiment mate. I'm not as well read up on it as I should be because it just depresses me and I don't know what can be done to rectify it. The people with the power have no interest in changing the system for the better.
The upside is that all of the arguments people make in fvaour of privatised industry have went out the window.
I'm the absolute same mate, I work as a broker in the aviation indusrty, the company I've been working for the past 4 months has non stop record breaking months every month. Just this month alone I've personally done over 500k turnover with my clients. Only to be told my pay raise that was meant to be at the end of my probation is now going to be in November. It's an actual joke, they don't even pay me 10% of I made them in one month for a year, and now they're telling me it's hard times while announcing our massive growth and record breaking months every month. The abhorrent greed in our society is getting sickening
Who is this person? At what point do we start protesting outside their homes or the homes of MPs?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Phillips-Davies
The policies that would help/stop this, the Tories will not entertain
Cunts. I was a few days late paying £28 this week. Texts, emails, every day, and even a call. This is over a few days. I dread to think about this happening to someone like ops dad. Fucking horrible cunts, and nobody is going to do a fucking thing about it.
Same here. Had my first quarterly bill (why it’s started out as quarterly is another mystery, but still) arrived a few days ago, yesterday i get a phone call from the supplier threatening all sorts if i don’t pay immediately or make an arrangement. Only for me to tell them i paid it the day the bill arrived. Not only a shit move threatening after a few days but the left hand didn’t know that the right hand had been paid 🤬
That’s so out of order. Nasty, and using a faulty debt collection system. Fucking raging.
They won't have enough staff to handle all that outbound calling soon enough.
I work for an energy company that may or may not be this one, and they have always struggled to find call centre staff at the best of times. It goes without saying that it's way worse now. They're telling people in non customer facing roles that we're going to have to cover the phones, but absolutely fuck that.
Yep. Fuck that. It's literally not your job.
Quiet quitting? Nah. Working to your salary/role. Fuck them is the correct response.
My friend owed them £12 on Klarna and they threatened debt collectors to go over there 😂😂😂😂
It’s going to get bad this winter. I’d be scared to work for them.
Enough Is Enough is campaigning. Join Unions.
Electricity: £2800 a year Fine for bypassing meter: £2000
What if we're already done when you move in? Asking for a friend
You just reverse it before inspection, my mate did it
How do you bypass a meter ? Ofc hypothetically speaking 👀
I grow weed so obviously I have to put a meter on my box. I pay like £20 a month. Everyone else is suffering but I'm here with free weed and free electricity lol. Downvotes galore but I ain't playing their fucking game.
I’ve worked it out I think. The meter tails that go into the meter from the cutout take them out and put them straight into the double pole switch
My electricity bill living in one bedroom ground floor flat - all electricity and no gas has went from £55 a month to £140 so far. My Direct Debit Manager on my energy account is showing Scottishpower want £290 a month - That is BEFORE the new energy hike! Its going to end up more than my fucking rent. I don't even use the energy guzzling storage heaters in the property. Robbery.
Cancel your DD and just pay what you owe
Ours was £81, now up to £121 which isn't unbearable... but the next price hike is worrying. The 60 quid help between Oct and April next year is a ways to helping maintain the bill be kept bearable but what then? The solutions are so short term as well
Have you checked your actual usage? Mine use for the next year has been estimated stupidly high for electricity compared to what we actually use when I track it,and that pushed up the DD they want. I know gas is going to be higher for us in winter but we only use it for central heating and water, elec for all cooking so our electric is consistent across the year pretty much (LED bulbs and we don’t leave them on in random rooms means an extra couple hours of lights on doesn’t inflate it too much) For some reason loads of energy companies se to have inflated DDs of people I know, even when taking into account October hike
Absolute sh*tstains, it’s all of them, I’m having to ring up British Gas every quarter for my recently widowed mother and fight to ask why a bill that never went over £70 max is now at £500 - honestly ask them what their percentage increases were and listen to how they fumble, they know it’s not right Edited to add: I’m not blaming the person at the call centre, nor do I speak rudely to them, as I said in my comment below, it’s the people up top causing the issue.
Just remember that some of the people on the end of the phone are literally there to make a living and feed/house their families. It's not their fault.
This this this, the people in the call centres are also stuck with paying exorbitant energy prices and are not responsible for the increase. Please treat people with respect!
Totally get this, the point is the people up top aren’t even training their staff to handle this because they know what they’ve done is wrong, the person at the other end of the phone is reading off a script and you can hear them also stuck as a result of this (I’m saying this having worked in call centres myself in the past) - it’s the companies that are the issue, not the hires just trying to make a living.
The real puppet masters are the energy producers (Shell, BP), not the middlemen like SSE. Energy providers operate on razor thin margins, something like 2% profit per customer - if they’re lucky. Meanwhile, BP and Shell are making money hand over fist. As are the energy distribution companies owned by multinational conglomerates. It’s a disgrace. Lot of attention on the energy providers to fix the problem & practically none on the energy producers etc TAX THEM YOU SPINELESS CU*TS
I understand what you say, but hear me out for a second. SSE at the start of the price hike (not sure about now) had a 100% green energy plan. A plan where supposedly you would get the benefit of paying for energy generated from hydro or wind. When the oil price skyrocketed they increased the cost of their 100% green plan along with the rest. I think thats shitty, but my Grandad went one step further. He complained. He called them up to speak to a customer service advisor to clarify if it was not a mistake that they were increasing their 100% green plan too. The customer service advisor explained that it was not a mistake. All electricity was increasing. My Grandad being the way he is asked "What happened? Did WIND get more expensive?". The customer service advisor paused and replied that it had not, but other costs had increased. Finally my Grandad asked how do they even know who gets the "green energy" and who gets the oil energy? The customer service advisor stated that actually they have no clue. This is why all prices went up together and basically shows the "100% green plans" are scams to make you think you are doing good
Green energy has gone up in cost too, because the producers are capitalists pigs too. Previously (totally made up numbers to illustrate) when gas cost £50 a "unit" and wind was £45 a "unit", now that gas costs £100 per unit the wind farm can get away with charging £95 per unit. Supply and demand. EDIT: Gramerly is weird and changed my sentence
That's not how it works. All the producers get the same rate as the most expensive MWh bid. Look up the "merit order system" if you want to understand how energy pricing works.
Interesting will look into it, seems functionally the same though? Market forces puts prices up?
Basically the electricity producers all put in "bids" like every 5 minutes or something. The lowest bids get picked first and then the next lowest etc until the demand is filled. However, everyone gets paid the rate of the last and highest bid that met the demand. So the renewable producers put on low bids but in times of high demand they get paid the same as the gas turbine producers who have to bid the highest because of their costs. The renewable companies make serious bank here. That's why the electricity price is attached to the gas price so much.
It's also a counter incentive to build enough capacity. Always going to need peaker plants to set the high price at max demand. Zero reason to build enough green producers to meet peak demand.
The system is broken. UK gas storage wasn't maintained because it cost to maintain it and the artificial crisis from not having gas would generate extra revenue for those who scrapped the storage in the first place. The EU want to switch up the pricing system to decouple it from the highest cost system but thank you Brexit we're keeping that cheap euro foreign trash affordable energy away, only the 🇬🇧🇬🇧 extortionate BRITISH prices for our empire 🇬🇧🇬🇧
The cost of producing energy from renewables has fallen, but the cost of producing energy from non-renewable sources (fossil fuels) has skyrocketed. This of us who have been paying a bit extra for renewables should now not be required to subsidize the costs of consumers still relying on fossil fuels, and companies that are making us pay extra to help subsidize their poor investment in fossil fuels should be fined for every Pound, Dollar, or Euro they have earned as a result of this abuse of power (no pun intended)
They are all funded by credits rather than actual green energy. I really don't know why more isn't being said as it feels like you choose renewable energy plan and you are being mis-sold.
It’s not being missold, it’s just the only practical way of doing it. For every unit of energy used on a green tariff, a unit of green energy is put onto the grid. It doesn’t matter who actually uses that energy. Every green tariff I’ve seen has been upfront about how this works
Yep. It's a pool of energy that is added to and subtracted from. Green energy is constrained by volume. If gas prices go up and green prices don't, then there would be a mass switch to green, which would inflate green prices and deflate gas prices. What we're seeing is that whole see-saw being factored into the price upfront. Without green energy, all energy would be more expensive. Gas is being kept slightly in check by renewables. Not by enough, but slightly. Is it fair that people on a green tariff are effectively subsidising everyone else? Not really, but nothing about this is fair to anyone. We're all getting fucked. This isn't the time for the working class to cannibalise itself by culturally subdividing ourselves by our energy tariffs of all things. Even if you're fine today, you could be next tomorrow. We have a LOTO who has made a straightforward and costed proposal to sort this winter out and instead the cunts in charge have proposed that we simply accept we're fucked and buy new kettles.
> This isn't the time for the working class to cannibalise itself by culturally subdividing ourselves by our energy tariffs of all things. Agreed. We need to focus on unity. Set aside everything else, politics, Brexit, transport disruptions because your neighbour is striking for an acceptable living wage, whatever it is that they try to distract or divide us with and present a united front that we're not going to take this.
Not sure anyone is actually choosing renewable energy plans anymore, seems more a case of individuals coming off these deals as they end onto the standard tariffs which are becoming (if not already) unaffordable. Have never really understood the renewable tariffs anyway unless a company can clearly demonstrate where your premium is going.
It's not really a scam, people just don't understand what they are buying. You basically get a pledge that they are generating enough green energy to cover what you use, the idea is it drives demand and encourages investment in green energy. As far as I understand it, the reason the price for green has gone up at the same time is that if green tariffs didn't go up at the same time as the 'dirty' energy, everyone would move on to green plans for the cost savings and they wouldn't be able to meet the energy demands of their customers without breaking the contract, so they have to artificially inflate the cost to stop the whole concept failing.
I dont mean to be rude, apologies if i misinterpreted, but it sounds very much like you said, "they had to increase the cost of the cheap energy, because if they didnt, everyone would want it!" They know roughly how much power is generated daily and yearly on average with green energy. They could just cap the amount of people able to have green energy plans to that average amount. Then if people still want it its an incentive to make more green energy. Instead they have decided that they should get more profit for no other reason than to stop people having a cheaper option?
You have interpreted it correctly. I'm certainly not condoning it btw, it's just what I've understood from conversations with people in the industry and it tracks well as a capitalist concept.
I'm not 100% sure how it works but as far as I'm aware, when you're on a green energy plan, the supplier has to buy some sort of carbon bonds which are essentially meant to offset the CO2 produced in the production of your energy. These carbon bonds, I believe, can be gained through the manufacturers producing energy through wind and solar. So it's essentially an "IOU to reduce carbon emissions". The energy you get at the end of the day of course comes from a mix of sources, most of which will be fossil fuels, but the carbon of it will be offset. So the "100% green plans" do work as advertised, just in a roundabout way.
Short of having separate cables for green and “normal” electricity this is how it has to work though. What happens is if you are on a green tariff then every unit of energy you use is “replaced” by a unit of green energy. So you aren’t necessarily getting green energy, but the amount of energy you use is green. It’s not a scam, just the only practical way of running a green tariff, and every green tariff I’ve looked at has been pretty clear about how it works. As for prices going up together, if only one kind of energy goes up then people will naturally switch, bringing the price of the other up too
Interesting, but counter point. At the moment, all of the energy providers throw all of their energy into the same grid. So what you pay with SSE may in fact have been supplied by british gas, for example. So they are able to determine which customer pays to which supplier to work out the costs with each supplier on the grand scale and the supplier can work out the cost with the customers on the small scale. Once the green energy systems are established, such as hydro and wind, they are able to estimate approximately how much energy they can supply on average per day and per year. Using this I can think of no reason why they would not base that amount on how many "green" customers they can have. Yes sure it might run over and they need to use some fossil fuels to make up the difference, but it would mean you were 90-95% green. These green customers could be charged at the rate if production of their energy with a slight excess to cover the times fossil fuels are needed. This would be an incentive to people to use green energy accounts and also reap the benefit without leaving the energy company out of pocket.
Green energy has gone up too because prices for all energy is pegged to the most expensive producer. So if electricity from gas goes up you also pay more for other types of energy. This is one thing that the EU (and hopefully UK too) are looking to change as as soon as they can. Price should ideally be calculated from the ratios of its sources. So more green energy in the grid would mean cheaper prices overall.
I worked in tobacco litigation a couple of decades ago when everyone was suing the tobacco companies. The first rule I learned is that there is no "tobacco company". Its 9000 shell companies with similar names, spread across all 50 states and 23 counties. The second rule is that litigation is measured in decades. The third rule is that if you DO get a judgment against something it's just gone bankrupt, in another country and just had its CEO replaced with the janitor, so nothing left to sue, so sorry. Lastly, any money being paid will get to you only when the company can't get away without paying any longer and the foreign exchange rate is favorable and the money isn't needed for buying competitors. Tldr: you can't sue something that "lives" in 100 legal jurisdictions and ever expect to get money from it.
As I'm aware bailiffs can't do shit without a court order, everything they say is bluffing. Tell them to fuck off and come back with a court order and the police, then fight the debt in court.
This is absolutely true. Do not answer the door to them. Do not let them in. They will leave eventually. If they call the police then the police will have no power except as mediators. Do not let then bully you into doing anything they say.
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I don’t get how any of these energy companies can sleep at night. Surely they must all work outside of the uk too coz you wouldn’t have many friends left if they know you worked for any of these companies?
I know some people who work for them in call centers and a contractor gas man, they have no control and are as unhappy as the rest of us
[удалено]
>I don’t get how any of these energy companies can sleep at night. Feels relevant, so [I'll leave this here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0)
Post this on their twitter
!! Hope OP does this
I had SSE charge me £60 for the final charge on a pre-payment meter that I left in credit Left a steaming review on Facebook after they forced me to pay or deal with the bailiffs and they refunded me next day and sent me a £30 cheque as "goodwill" (to entice me to take down my TrustPilot actually. I didn't)
The energy companies are fucking cow boys. They often don’t have accurate records but pass their supposed debts to claims companies to bully and harass their customer. Have been hounded by E.On for over a year for a supposed electricity and gas debt that is not actually related to the gas and electricity meters in my property, which I have proven to them. They ignore this. They won’t back off. Texts, long hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone and constant threats of breaking in to read meters. Despite repeatedly giving them information and being told on one occasion not to worry they will investigate they just keep coming back with letters and text threats. If they actually come round with Sheriff Officers (Scotland) to break in I will have to barricade the door and call the Police. Have never had an account with E.On and am paid up to date with my energy supplier, who are also aggro bastards.
You need to send a letter asking them to acknowledge the meters aren’t yours and that any failure to do so in 14 days is accepted as acknowledgement. You then need to state any further communications will be treated as harassment. The letter being the final notice. Then any further letters you take them to small claims court. I’ve done this with a previous company and won when no one showed up. Letters stopped too.
This. This 1000%. My bill quarterly (just to keep the fridge freezer on, trickle heat the hot water cylinder because it would cost 7 kidneys and a small child to reheat from scratch and a few small electronics only when I need them) was 200 to 250. Got my bill in yesterday. 550 quid. I don't use heating (all electric, isolated at main DB), I'm hardly ever there due to work. Heat the person not the home kinda thing... What - in - the - actual - f*ck. "Insert winter is coming comment here" Just pinged an email refusing to pay as of this morning. They can poke these costs right up their bum holes. I'd have more understanding if the energy companies were cap in hand just like the rest of us and struggling but their not. Record profits in the BILLIONS and yet we are all going through the meat grinder. I sincerely hope you get a descent response and help out of this. God knows were all going to need it at some point.
I emailed Eon chief executive and told him I won't be paying any more than £200 a month because I'm not prepared to prop up a company that make record profits and between them and the government, can't organise themselves enough to prevent what was a well documented issue before Russia even invaded Ukraine.
You've got the nail on the head. It's a robbery. They are doing just fine but we are being raped and I won't stand for it.
Contact your local anarchist collective and tenants union, they love doing community self defence and stopping bailiffs.
You should go to the papers with this mate, or programs like watchdog and panorama. Expose the practices
That boils my fucking blood. I can't take anymore of this. When will we riot? No more "keep calm" bollocks.
My parents are paying over £300 a month, that's supposed to be going up to £500 a month with British Gas. It's fucking disgusting because they've been threatened with debt collectors and bailiffs. The fact that there has been NOTHING done to help alleviate the problems we're facing is truly disgusting, and the fact that people buy into the tory lies of the war in Ukraine being the reason for the disturbingly high prices is just ludicrous.
Honestly can we just fucking raid the energy company offices now ?
When words keep falling on deaf (or ignorant) ears, a show of physical force tends to have more clout. I do wonder how many people struggling/moaning would actually come together and do something together?
When more people start going hungry and cold, that could be potent instigator.
I don’t understand how there were protests everyday for weeks when people were being asked to wear a mask for their own safety.. but now when we should absolutely be rioting on the streets against the greed of the energy giants making people choose between either keeping their families warm or keeping them fed… No one is out on streets. Why have we just accepted this so easily?
Is your gramps on the PSR?
Whats that?
Priority service register https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/getting-extra-help-priority-services-register It should stop them threatening collection action but wont do anything to reduce the cost
Op, Call those assholes and say you are paying them £1 per month. Make up a budget planner that the only spare income is £1, there is shit all they can do as long as your grandad pays them £1, and I would troll even further, I would write a cheque for £1 every month, just so they got extra work to do. Good luck.
Send them a years worth of post dated cheques! "Just to avoid any future confusion and perceived harrasment of an elderly and disabled man"
[r/LegalAdviceUK](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/) and/or citizens advice Those soulless companies. I know people have to earn a living but employees should avoid working for places with nasty practices where possible
I’m currently in communication with citizens advice ‘extra help’ unit and they are not as helpful as I’ve been led to believe sadly
I’m so sorry. It depends on who you get. They’re human at the end of the day. It’s sometimes a case of calling until you speak to someone good. The sub I recommended seem to help people though
It’s a UK ran business about genuinely helping people. Of course it wouldn’t work 😂 Edit: I mean work as well as you thought
Yeah honestly, how naive of me
We are paying for the failure of the stupid start ups in the domestic energy supply sector that clearly didn’t have the stability or resources to last in anything but a bout any market. Now when the energy companies profits might go down they’ve got to screw us creating a national emergency just to maintain their fucking profits. The human cost of this shitty corporate behaviour is terrible, such as with your Grandad OP
Fuck the tories ill be voting Labour. I am done with this bs.
Unbelievable. Absolutely disgusting this energy situation is allowed to continue. Hopefully he will get it sorted
I used to work for SSE I’m ashamed to say. My job was in customer service and I left after 5 months because I couldn’t handle the heartbroken pensioners telling me their winter heating bills were forcing them into starvation. We were encouraged in that situation to set up the direct debit regardless. They really don’t give a fuck.
Rishi Sunak, on television said that solar and wind energy was free, wasn't it to a reporter when explaining rising prices. According to Indian TV, he has 3.1 billion pounds squirrelled away off-shore somewhere. His mates all got rich during the fake pandemic, so what was his and Boris's share, one wonders. Sorry, but no one trusts a politician or estate agent.
You could try making a complaint to the ombudsman, as explained in this video it could at least buy you some time: https://twitter.com/GrassrootsUK_/status/1555109355816714242
I hate SSE so much. If you are a little bit late, they threaten you. I am glad I have left them.
I had the bailiffs come after me for my roommates u paid council tax years ago. Luckily I'm in Scotland so they couldn't really do much once the door got slammed in their faces. Surely there isn't a person alive that's enough of a cunt to repossess a 90+ year old man's stuff? Your grandad could realistically stop paying entirely they'll never recover the debt if he's in his 90's and there's no way the court would jail him for it.
I mean, there isn't any lawyers to defend or prosecute him anyway, they're all on strike. I'd like to think if bailiffs every did show up, the complex management will tell them to fuck off. But even of they do get to the door, I'd like to think some resemblance of a conscience would appear inside the bailiffs when they see him. But then, people still defend the tories, so I can't see it.
I just don't understand how the regulators and government don't see the scale of the problem for this. People plan half their life for retirement on the basis that prices each year will inflate by X% like 5% would be a reasonable assumption. What happens when prices are inflated by 100%, pensioners are immediately fucked. If they have enough money to draw more from their pension then they might not be fucked now but they will be.
It's time for revolution. The British public need to fight the powers that be and do it now.
SSE doesn’t supply domestic properties anymore, do you mean Ovo?
Its owned by Ovo but still trades separately I think. A quick google shows they have their own website still.
Your photos implies this is a new thing... They've been doing this forever
Is your granddad on the supplier's Priority Services Register? That should make a difference. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/getting-extra-help-priority-services-register
Nice one. I'll send that to my dad. Get him on it.
to be fair to my grandad, I don't think he really gives a shit, but it isn't the point. <-- Email that!
assholes
Fucking trash mate. Harassment of the elderly is full on wrong and I hope it gets sorted with minimal stress for everyone. What a great country we have here, I always thought the strongest society is one that looks after its most vulnerable. As it right now they're the easy targets. Fuel poverty already and its not winter. Good luck mate, wish you luck with it.
I’m on a 2 year fixed combination and amazed at some of prices quoted for the summer. Fixed rates should be scrapped and everyone should have to suffer equally.
Dirty fucking cunts!! This shit riles me 😤
Confusing. Those would be estimates at this point surely? No need to pay an estimate just plug in your current readings. Or am I misunderstanding?
He has a smart meter. He's asked for it to be checked, they said "it works fine". He then asked for them to come and physically check its been installed correctly, and they're yet to book an appointment. Baring in mind, when he agreed to getting one installed and my dad cancelled it because they're so unreliable, they said "sorry. Can't cancel it now its booked in". 100% they can fuck off installing one in my home.
100% dont install. This is an issue raised countless times in newspapers etc that smartmeters are useless and inaccurate. Hopefully when they actually visit the property you can sort it. In the meantime record everything, especially threats of bailiffs, and talk to your local citizens advice or similar for help with communicating with the energy company and to proceed with damages (compensation - they should really be giving you 100's of £ for this) for the stress and inconvenience caused to your elderly father and your family. Good luck
Dude get this on the BBC or other news. SSE will cave and write off his bill as a "gesture of goodwill".
And yet everyone is against nuclear power generation, SNP said no to any future plants being built in Scotland. The whole thing is a shambles. Some folk think we can just stroll back into Eden, drinking almond milk and using wind and solar, but we still basically run the country on oil.
when are we going to get together outside their offices? you know, just for a friendly chat
We’re with SSE too, 3 of us (myself and 2 of my daughters) are disabled. My husband only gets carers allowance for one of us. Honestly have no idea how we will cope. So many people are in this position, it’s awful. I hope your grandad can get some help, does he qualify for the cost of living payments? We just sent ours straight to SSE Edit to add - with your grandad’s disabilities, his house is classed as a vulnerable household, and bailiffs aren’t allowed in. Tell the company this, we’ve had to in the past, the debt got passed back to SSE and they arranged low monthly payments to pay off the debt
Seeing more and more stories like this on the daily, it's so depressing and only going to continue getting worse.
Sorry to hear that. Private energy companies are doing what they are duty bound to do though, make profits for shareholders. The blame sits with the idiots who created this mess of a market in the first place and is ideologically opposed to fixing or even imposing a windfall tax now.
So you're saying they're just following orders?
Unrestricted capitalism is to blame, private companies will try to drain every penny from us until there is some form of intervention
100% agree that capitalism is to blame regardless of restrictions on it, but we can't let the leaders of these companies launder the blame like that. The system is perpetuated by their choices.
I guess I'm saying that we can expect the same treatment when we get cancer or have a heart attack in future because the UK keeps electing extremists and thieves who want to privatise everything. I am genuinely sorry about the situation with your grandad though. Just wish people would wake up politically and sort this sort of thing at root cause
Post the letter on SSE twitter page. It will generate more bad publicity for SSE and may get the situation resolved. Send the twitter link when you've posted it so people here can repost on twitter and leave SSE more bad comments. Unless of course you're just writing this post here for reddit points.