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Post by bormes on Jun 25, 2014 20:44:15 GMT -1
Today a man came to read our meteres and it had me thinking, Gas is down almost forty percent and Electricity is down almost thirty percent, yet there are NO DISCOUNTS passed to the consumer despite all the media and government lies about how prices would drop when wholesale prices drop!! Well as usual we are being ripped off.
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Post by notanimby on Jun 25, 2014 21:07:25 GMT -1
Today a man came to read our meteres and it had me thinking, Gas is down almost forty percent and Electricity is down almost thirty percent, yet there are NO DISCOUNTS passed to the consumer despite all the media and government lies about how prices would drop when wholesale prices drop!! Well as usual we are being ripped off. Shirley not, I don't believe it for a minute. Those masters of customer service and suppliers of gas n electricity are beyond reproach, the next best thing to a charity they are. I mean they are only a baw hair from going under, so they ur......
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2014 1:08:12 GMT -1
They're all in it together! Christ, talk about price-fixing? The merest upward fluctuation in wholesale energy prices means we are hammered within what, a week or two of the alleged rise? Yet when wholesale prices go down, well.. ahem... has ANYONE here seen a reduction in bills? I know the answer to that already THIS,IN ENERGY-RICH SCOTLAND, where people are regularly paying out huge percentages of their income for the sheer luxury of heating their homes in winter. This coming winter I've decided I'm going militant oh yes. I have two open chimneys and I'm gonna burn every single bit of marketing paperwork (and the four page bills!) I get from energy companies. I'm also gonna chuck all the other junk mail I get on the fire. I will also burn logs, sticks and anything else burnable that I can find in the environs and the smokeless coal rule (at a fiver a bag) can get tae. I'll be putting tinfoil behind my radiators and yeah, who isn't helluva tempted to do that thing we did as students (drill through the top of the meter then thread a guitar string down to stop the dial in its tracks.) Time to get down and dirty and fight back against those who'd exploit us... energy resources belong to us all and should NOT be used to make obscene profits for global conglomerates... Oh, don't START me, Bormes...
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Post by ozneil on Jun 26, 2014 1:52:47 GMT -1
Have you tried a magnet on the meter.... that works a treat
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Post by bormes on Jun 26, 2014 12:23:38 GMT -1
Oz!! Oz!! Oz!! You spent far, far too long in Glasgow!! New digital metres prevent that nowadays.!!
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Post by notanimby on Jun 26, 2014 13:58:04 GMT -1
Have you tried a magnet on the meter.... that works a treat You could also ( gap permitting) slide an acetate sheet down the back of the meter casing, this slowed the wee wheel down too. Or drill a small ( very) hole in top/bottom of meter casing and stick a lengthy needle or similar up/down it for the same efect - this dodge was easily spotted by meter readers shining their torch up/down into the meter and seeing the light come out As B says, modern meters are unable to be "got at" in the same manner - hence the rise in tapping into yer neighbours supply or bypassing meter altogether
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 17:42:52 GMT -1
Have you tried a magnet on the meter.... that works a treat You could also ( gap permitting) slide an acetate sheet down the back of the meter casing, this slowed the wee wheel down too. Or drill a small ( very) hole in top/bottom of meter casing and stick a lengthy needle or similar up/down it for the same efect - this dodge was easily spotted by meter readers shining their torch up/down into the meter and seeing the light come outThat was pretty much the principle of the guitar string dodge, Nota Except if wasn't as fallible as the above. Let me explain Drill wee hole in top of meter. Insert thick guitar string down through hole to stop the meter going round. But crucially, you would tie a long piece of thread to the top bit of the string sticking out the top of the meter and attach the other end to a small hook on the inside wall of the meter cupboard. Thus, when the meter reader came to call, before letting him in, you'd pull on the thread, which removed the string and made it fly up into the roof of the cupboard, while, PRESTO! the meter started to turn normally. Of course, this was in student days. Us upstanding citizens would never do such a thing now, mugs that we are
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Post by ozneil on Jun 27, 2014 21:33:54 GMT -1
Oz!! Oz!! Oz!! You spent far, far too long in Glasgow!! New digital metres prevent that nowadays.!! MMM that explains why my electricity bill have shot up
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Post by notanimby on Jun 28, 2014 19:47:38 GMT -1
Gas meters could be reversed to, so it went backwards, that was easily solved by making sure the threading on the inlet/outlet pipes were different. In the mid 1990s a voluntary organisation of my acquaintance had a fire in the electrical cupboard. It was were the mains distribution box was, it had grown arms and legs over the years (best part of a hundred) and no one really had much idea of what did what any more. Anyways the fire brigade got called out and they contacted the utility company to send an engineer out to make it safe, luckily the engineer was an ex-member of this organisation, it was discovered that the electric heating system ad shorted out BUT it had been installed " incorrectly" (in the 1960s) and it had bypassed the meter. So this mistake was then fixed and correctly installed As the premises hadn't had the meter read for years( it was only opened at night) it had been getting by on estimated bills for donkeys years, so a new meter was installed and a correct bill was issued This showed that they had been getting overestimated for years and the utility company had to pay back hundreds of pounds in over charges......... Moral of story is every cloud as a silver lining ( especially if no one is any the wiser to anything)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2014 20:31:56 GMT -1
Well you have to be sharp as a tack to play utility companies at their own game I find. I do the Direct Debit option so I pay a fixed amount throughout the year to gas and leccy. But they get all above themselves and only send out meter readers about once a year. Then send over inflated *estimates'three quarters of the year... I freely admit I drag myself to the meter box everytime I get an *estimate* then do the reading and send them it. Pretty much 100% of the time, they have to pay me money back. OK, it's only a couple of hundred quid over the year, sure, but I want it in MY bank account, earning interest, NOT THEIRS I'm having a wee bonfire of all my junk mail tonight. Well toasty hereabouts, on a chilly summer evening!
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Post by ozneil on Jun 28, 2014 21:00:55 GMT -1
Our meters and switchboards are in a box outside the house. The meter readers dont need to get in.
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