I think that threats often do work. I have a landlord, who uses a letting agent that we pay for our utilities. The letting agent stinks, and our electricity bill just trebled from the spring quarter into the summer quarter. Summer is warmer and brighter than spring—I would expect my bill to decrease by at least 5%.
So far, so bad, except that I was away for six weeks of that quarter, and most of my housemates were travelling for at least 2 weeks—my bill should have halved on top of this 5% decrease. There’s a disparity of an expected 47.5% of my previous bill with the observed 300% actual bill (or, being more conservative and taking us all as having been travelling for 2 weeks each, 80% of my previous bill). This isn’t credible, and I’m not going to pay it.
My landlord likes the letting agent (presumably they’re cheap). I expect shortly to be threatened with late-payment charges or even eviction. This expectation of a threat has already made two of my housemates pay the obviously unfair bill, despite us all being agreed that we do not owe the amount demanded.
I recently changed mobile telephone provider, despite being on contract with my previous provider ([blanked]) for another three months. I was told I must pay the balance of the contract, and told them to go whistle for it. Apparently their SOP is to just tank the customer’s credit rating.
If I had been told this, the [blanked] would have easily been less valuable to me than my good credit rating. I wasn’t told by $_PROVIDER, who now will not respond to my contacting them, but intend to pursue them to ensure that they don’t do this. If they had threatened me, I would definitely have paid.
In a lot of places, people use more electricity in the summer because they use air conditioning more. That doesn’t seem to be the cause of your situation, though.
I think that threats often do work. I have a landlord, who uses a letting agent that we pay for our utilities. The letting agent stinks, and our electricity bill just trebled from the spring quarter into the summer quarter. Summer is warmer and brighter than spring—I would expect my bill to decrease by at least 5%.
So far, so bad, except that I was away for six weeks of that quarter, and most of my housemates were travelling for at least 2 weeks—my bill should have halved on top of this 5% decrease. There’s a disparity of an expected 47.5% of my previous bill with the observed 300% actual bill (or, being more conservative and taking us all as having been travelling for 2 weeks each, 80% of my previous bill). This isn’t credible, and I’m not going to pay it.
My landlord likes the letting agent (presumably they’re cheap). I expect shortly to be threatened with late-payment charges or even eviction. This expectation of a threat has already made two of my housemates pay the obviously unfair bill, despite us all being agreed that we do not owe the amount demanded.
I recently changed mobile telephone provider, despite being on contract with my previous provider ([blanked]) for another three months. I was told I must pay the balance of the contract, and told them to go whistle for it. Apparently their SOP is to just tank the customer’s credit rating.
If I had been told this, the [blanked] would have easily been less valuable to me than my good credit rating. I wasn’t told by $_PROVIDER, who now will not respond to my contacting them, but intend to pursue them to ensure that they don’t do this. If they had threatened me, I would definitely have paid.
Threats seem effective.
EDIT: Deleted some personal information.
In a lot of places, people use more electricity in the summer because they use air conditioning more. That doesn’t seem to be the cause of your situation, though.
Not in the UK. Only server farms and cubicled offices have air-con here.