Outfox the Market disputing readings

Outfox the market are disputing meter readings for my final bill, this is despite me taking the first reading off my Smart Meter In
Home Display which was previously supplied by British Gas, I was on their free time tariff and took the reading off the total In Home Display (IHD) as this only displayed the total.

For the first 3 months I never got a bill, even though they said billing was monthly, when I contacted them my first month was £255 then following months were £42 and £47 respectively. I had done nothing to get a first months bill of £255 so complained, OFTM were basically saying it must be, that was until July 2018 when the person I spoke to at customer service said to press 9 on the meter, only I didn't have a keypad on the meter, so he said press button B and to email him the readings from the meter.

I eventually work out how this thing called a Smart Meter worked and that after going through it I got three readings, ACT 1, ACT 2 and the TOTAL reading. I email this person and give them the three readings. I thought even they could not get it wrong now, how wrong I was they put in the free time reading as the reading on the reading, they take the meaning of IDIOT to a whole new level. 

For a few months I put in the free time readings but tell them they have the readings wrong as according to the British Gas the opening reading should be 7906 and all bills should be calculated from the ACT 1 reading, but no they still used the ACT 2 reading but the ACT 1 reading for the bills and payments.If they added the free time units then I don't know.

This company should not be selling gas and electric if they don't know every supplier is offering their utility and how someone switching to their service might be effected with all the different free time or reduced rates on offer at certain times, why not just the total and that's it all this smart meter shit is too confusing for most people.

The FUCK UP that's outfox the market

At the beginning of the year, 2018, I moved energy supplier from British Gas (BG) to Outfox The Market. The price they quoted for electric and gas made it too good an offer to turn down, even though I could have waited 6 weeks and switched free of charge as I would be within the leaving period where they are not supposed to charge customers, but the prices seemed too good to miss out on. As I was on the free time package, even I couldn't believe the quote they gave £32.07
I moved on the 4/1/18, paying BG £40 for the privilege of leaving them. Move on to 2/2/18 I send in my meter reading from the IHD I put them in and press send they aren't accepted, I think little of it. I didn't get a bill and no money went out of the on-line account but on the 4th another £32.07 went out of the bank account and my utility account went up to £64.14 and the same the following month no bill and the utility account went up to £96.21. At the end of March I am a bit annoyed so go onto the web chat and contact them, 10 minutes later someone answers, in the end he takes the meter reads and that's when it started. I should have known when he asked when the reading was taken and I told him the first one was at 09:15 on the day of the move, he then said they would sort out the bills and that's when I got the shock of the first bill a week later, the best part of £260 for January.
I start emailing them and eventually a few months later I find that I should have given the ACT ! reading, that's if I had known how to access all the meter readings. I am eventually told how to get the readings by pressing button B then scrolling through but this is July and I been with them 7 months. In that time I have been told my opening reading was 7906 and not the 9776 I gave when I contacted them that is how I ended up with a £260 bill that should have been for about £37, I get the readings put right but it doesn't last long as I have put in a meter read from the IHD and that is going to put the bill back up as it was before so I fire off another email asking that they take off the free time reading but instead they call me and ask for photo's of the meter readings, this is when I find out how to get the readings of all the readings on the meter. Even now it still reads two readings one for 160 hours, and one for an 8 hour period that was the free time from BG.  I ask them to take off the free time reading used when I was with BG.
I have put in a total reading of 11151 just before I found out about multi meter readings

Paedo tax (TV License) and spare bedroom tax

Since Jan 2017 I have been paying the bedroom tax for the spare bedroom I now have since I kicked the drug using and dealing family member out.
Although I am only paying £50 a month it is £50 that would be better in my pocket than the councils pocket. I personally think that those who want to move should not pay but those who don't or refuse to move should pay for spare bedrooms, it's not as if they are going to use them.
Why should people who would move if the right property came up be penalised because of those who refuse to move no matter what?

Why do I say only those that refuse to move should pay? Well, they're some who look on that privately, or council rented home as their own home, in a way it is but after the children grow up and move out then the remaining parents might want somewhere smaller and also some savings, if they had bought a large home, as they move from a two, three or even four bedroom place to a one bedroom place, and put the rest in the bank. It's a sort of you made your bed now you lie in it ultimatum to the kids who have left home. 

What do I hold responsible for the state of the housing? Well, it's one previous Conservative Leader, Margarate "The Milk Snatcher"  Thatcher and her right to buy, a policy that caused chaos as people who rented thought I know with the large discounts on offer I will buy the place then sell in a few years time. Some of the houses or flats went for as little as £4000. It leads to a spiralling circle where they try to constantly move up the property ladder and with lenders offering 105% mortgages people overstretched themselves and found themselves back in the council's hands and those properties were sold at auction, sometimes for a fraction of their value and the person was then chased for the remaining value of the property. So far I have had just one person seriously interested in my place on a swapping site but I need ground floor because of disability and they have a second-floor place so that isn't on unless they can find a person for their place and do a three-way swap.

Now on to the Paedo tax, AKA TV License, a couple of years ago I cancelled the Paedo tax because I found I never watched the thing. I was paying £145.50 plus £20 for BT TV I heard they were putting the price up again so waited for my notification of their intention but it never came, I just got the monthly bill with the increases on. What did I do? Exactly what they did, I moved to a cheaper provider. They tried to get nearly £220 out of me for leaving so I contacted the name on the letters by email after I got the bill but no joy. So I contact the CEO of BT and within 14 days the bill for leaving is reduced to just £2 and as they had taken nearly 28 days to sort it out and the CEO got the same email as the person on the contact emails or letters, with a few minor changes.
All I really ask for that I would have asked them to provide the court with was a copy of the said letter with proof of postage and receipt. I knew they could provide a copy of the letter but the proof of postage and receipt were what I got them with because even if they got a proof of postage I hadn't signed for any letter so they had no proof of receipt. This is one thing I tell everyone to do who says that a company sent them a letter. Copy of letter with proof of postage and proof of receipt. This works extremely well with the likes of DWP or any company if they just pop it in the mail can they prove they posted it and more to the point can they prove you received it? If a court expects us to believe they sent the letter, what would the defence say if we say we contacted them? Can you prove you contacted us? My answer is always YES because I only use email.

 The first line is: Your No License Needed claim expires soon. Please get in touch. 
Why should I? There has been no change in my watching Paedo funded material. I would rather listen on the radio to the same content, at least they try and make it sound interesting when you would rather be asleep and you don't need a Paedo License. 
The letter then goes on to say; Almost two years ago, you told us you didn't need a TV License at this address. As we mentioned at the time, we now need to check if your circumstances have changed. 
Like feck it has! When it changes I will be 75 them the Paedo company can pay my license fee or the government until then I will not watch the Paedo channels. 
On another point, the Paedo channels had a chance to go to a subscription only channel by the end of 2012 but they didn't I have a question, WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T THEY? The answer; they would have been loads who thought feck it I will just watch what is free and nothing else. Plus before the digital TV switchover, the Paedo company wisely positioned it's two channels right between the other free to air channels that relied on adverts for their funding. 
That brings up another question adverts on the Paedo channel, you say it's advert free think again! They have adverts for the RADIO TIMES and also other programmes that will be shown either after the one they are about to show or later in the week. they can take up to 5 minutes off the programme so your 29-minute programme is now 24 minutes long. So advert free MY FUCKING ARSE!! 

The letter goes on to say;
What you should do now. 
I know what I should do now file it in the bin, the letter even had TV Licensing on the front of the envelope, I just didn't notice until I opened it. I might have put return to sender if I had noticed the Logo on the front of the envelope 

Please get in touch so we can update our records. It only takes a few minutes to do one of the following: 
Tell us you don't need a TV License.
Tell us you do need a TV License.

Why the fuck should I tell the paedo protectors anything? I might tell you of a change like you're, or rather the government are paying my Paedo tax now, but other than that you can go fuck yourselves. 

This was signed with the fictitious name of Jackie Garswood, a customer service Manager. They are as real as Jake Hales and all the other works of fiction they put on their threat-o-grams. 
So until the next instalment, it's goodbye from me.


 
  

Trouble with new gas & electric supplier

Well, I have been with my new utility supplier for just over 4 months. What I thought would be a simple move has turned out to be anything but.
First off my monthly statements were not put on my account for me to read even though I had given them the monthly readings every month.

Secondly, they had used a far lower reading for my electric than the total that was taken from my smart meter, British gas had only given them, or so it appeared, the reading for the electric used Monday to Saturday and not added the free-time units to the total reading, or they had given them the two figures and someone at the new supplier had just taken the higher figure as my meter reading and not added the 1900 units of free-time used, so when they actually got my bills up and running the first months reading had nearly 1900 units that were used as a free-time  user when with British Gas.
That along with the monthly reading I had submitted gave me a monthly bill of £250. I downloaded all the monthly statements then went to my old supplier and got a copy of my final bill and to my horror, they had the bill as to separate units, free-time and non-free-time, giving readings of 7900 and 1900, that added together was within about 30 units of the reading I had given the person on the day I moved, 30 units I can live with but 1900 I will query, I knew there must have to be something wrong when I gave them the reading over web chat, he asked when I took the reading when I had taken the reading, which was only 30 minutes before I gave it to him.
Then the new supplier had upped my monthly fee from £8.99 to £11.99 but kept my monthly direct debit at just £32 a month.

I contacted them about the 1900 units and enclosed a screen capture of the readings from my final bill. I got an email asking me to call them, I don't know why as all the info was in the email I sent them then I get another email about a week after calling them asking for a photo of the meter readings if they meant a reading of the two unit amounts then even a smart meter is not that smart it only keeps readings of your present units used so the supplier can work out the bill, anyway I sent
the photo of the present reading which had now gone up to 10,750, approx, and now the unit in the kitchen is on the blink as the thing only says trying to connect to the smart meter, I cannot get any more meter readings. The meter is in an awkward place to see the unit.
It is seven days since I sent them the reading on the meter and they said it would take about fourteen days so they have at least seven days left, although I will give them at least twenty-eight days. But, how hard could it be to email British Gas and ask them for a total of the final readings? If they cannot then I will ask for a letter of deadlock and contact the energy regulator, I bet they see it as an easy case just like I do, it's a case of the total units used against the previous suppliers reading used by my new supplier. I think they sent a copy of my readings as they put them on my final bill, 7900 and 1900 free-time and the new supplier, https://outfoxthemarket.co.uk/How-it-works.aspx
just read the top reading, but I have one question? How do I use over half my yearly usage in one month, then in extremely cold weather only use a quarter of the amount, moneywise, the following month? Unless you are using the amount of electric of a small club there is no way you can use nearly £250 of electric in one month. I hope they sort it out because this time I chose the cheapest supplier overall and that is one thing I swore I would never do, I could have saved about £40 less with one or two other suppliers but this offer was just too good so I tried it. Besides I was getting regular repayments from British gas who I was paying £56 a month for their service, over 12 months I got over £240 back, even so, that still makes it cheaper than British Gas.

  

New Electric and Gas company

There is a new utility company that's just come on the market a few months ago, I say few months it started around September. They are cheaper than any of the main 6 UK company's in that they don't make a profit on the utilities they sell. Instead, they charge a monthly fee depending on how much you use, from £6.99 for a low user, under 2399Kwh to £13.99 for users of more than 6000Kwh, that's just £167.88 then your gas and electric usage on top.
As an example British Gas wanted me to pay £705 for the year that was nearly £59 per month but this new company will charge me just £32.07 a month although a check just before writing this and the same figures gave a price of £37.84 per month but are I bothered as they have given me a quote on how much I will pay each month and how much each unit costs. I have about 1000 units to play with in my price bracket before my monthly membership fee would go up so am not really bothered as I am saving about another 50p per day just switching the TV/blu-ray/ DVD/games consoles off at the socket when not in use.

Want to know who this company is? I bet you do they are outfox the market and I have saved £80 plus before I looked at the tariff, which for me is 10.45p and 3.25p with a £8.99 fee on the electric which is £107.88 rather than my suppliers 26.1p per day, or £190.53 standing charge per year.

Now the update on the outfox the market as I moved to them on 4/1/18.
Until I contacted them about not getting monthly statements at the beginning of April it took about two weeks to get the statements added to the account. When I look at them I got a shock, as I was on British Gas free time before the move the statements had an opening meter reading of 7906 but my meter reading is taken at around 09:30 AM was 9776,  some 1870 difference to the reading I gave them at 09:00AM. Of I go to my old BG account to see if there is anything from the account still there, luckily there were the final meter readings so I took a screen capture and cut it down to just the readings. It had two readings for the electric, the units used Monday to 09:00am Sunday & the free time units used since I moved on to the scheme added together the 7906 and the free time units of 1844 gave a reading of 9750 a lot closer to the reading I took at around 09:30. I should have known when I contacted them with the first meter reading when I was asked when I took the reading after I gave them it.

Today I called them 27/4/18 and told them I had been asked to call in regards to my email. they got my email up and the attachment then said they would query it with my old supplier.
They told me it would take a couple of weeks, this was done in just under 4 minutes on the phone

Beating the DWP at their own game, ESA related

Well just imagine you receive ESA, support group or WRAG, and you receive a letter asking you to attend a F2F assessment what would you do?
First of all, don't panic, make a note of the date and time, sometimes they expect the claimant to travel miles when you have an assessment centre closer to home, maybe in your home city or town, call them and tell them you have an assessment centre there and require an assessment in your home town/city. If they refuse don't just give up go to ceomail.com and look up the CEO of the assessment company and tell them how your journey will affect you it could be that the cheapest option, a bus might take hours to get there. The DWP require that you look for work no more than 90 minutes travel from your home, so try that by listing each part of the journey and how long it will take, do the whole journey not just up to the 90 minutes it would take you. This is a trick used by the DWP and assessment company to see how you follow instructions and directions. Use your worst day as an example, not your best or average day, do you know how you will be on that day?

When they say to contact the 0800 number and tell them just the basics, they will possibly have been contacted by the PA of the CEO with your email detailing everything so no need to go through it again.
Once you get the assessment at the centre closest to your home, this will possibly be at a different time and date to the one on the letter, write it down as they will say they will send you a letter with the date and time on, they sometimes don't but just in case write it down. 48 hours before the time, or a bit longer call them and ask for the assessment recording. It's your right to have it recorded as Chris Grayling said on 1/2/12 " Those who wish to have their assessment recorded may do so."
This might involve another cancellation or change of date as you have called them about 48 hours before to ask for the assessment recording.
When you do eventually get there ask for the travel expenses form, then ask if the recording equipment is there once you have the form. They might say yes without moving or they might go and check. Then ask them if it is complete and in full working order! again they might have to go and check but they will more than likely just say Yes.
Once you are called into the assessment, take your time it's not a race, don't forget if it is not your worst day, act it. They cannot prove it isn't your worst day and as I say if they assume you are putting it on then it is only their opinion and I say ASSUMPTION IS THE MOTHER OF ALL FUCK UPS! 
Look at the equipment it should be a duel tape or CD and there should be two boundary mics, if these are not there decline the assessment on the grounds that the equipment is not complete and in full working order SEE HERE for the reply to an FOI request about the recorders, it clearly states that boundary mics are required. If they are not present decline and under no circumstances continue.
The downside of this is that your assessment rate or benefit is stopped. My advice to this is to issue court papers against the assessment company and the DWP for reinstatement of the benefit, assessment or other rate be it support group or WRAG Plus compensation, they have lied and the DWP have taken their lies as Gospel that the claimant, you, didn't turn up. If you have your own recording, and I always advise doing your own covert recording, then you can type this up not only as proof you turned up but that the DWP didn't ask for an explanation on form BF223 as to why you, the claimant , didn't turn up because if they did you could inform them that you did turn up but the recording equipment was not complete and in full working order. If they then say this was not a good enough excuse you then bring the prosecution against both of them the assessment company and the DWP. This would be a case they could not win because your covert recording is proof you turned up.
Under no accounts should you sign anything that says you will not discuss this or divulge any information to any third party, i.e. the media or a blog, even your facebook page? You could even prosecute them again for failure to pay you, the claimant, the compensation awarded to you and ask for more compensation for the stress it has caused you. You would more than likely be awarded a token amount and your costs, but it is better than nothing. 

Save energy and costs on other things

How to give energy and utility company's the finger and other company's too

The energy and other utility company's will hate me for telling this but as I always say SOD 'EM. I was spending £165 a month on just gas and electric a few years ago. The son, now long gone, used to leave everything on and even grow drugs in the bedroom. So with the permission of a friend and the use of his BLOGGER account I have their permission to post this. 

Well, first the water! How you may ask when they do it on a rateable value? The simple answer is getting a water meter fitted although some properties cannot have them fitted you might be able to get the bill reduced to an estimated or if all the tenants in a block are single see if they all agree as you maybe just have the one feed coming into the block? This could be a help if all the residents are elderly as you might save overall. What is the point of paying £450 plus a year if you only use £250 including standing charges? A block who learn to turn off taps instead of run water continually could save considerably. Shower instead of taking a bath, does your hair need washing every day? No, it doesn't, not even those expensive dry shampoos. 5 minutes or less in a shower is ok and will use a fraction of the water that a bath uses, seconds to heat up wet yourself with water lather up and rinse off job done, get out and dry yourself.

Now the real culprit of overspending GAS & ELECTRIC it may seem like only pennies a day but pennies turn into pounds and one pound turns into five, ten, twenty and so on. It is very little you need to have on 24/7. They would be the fridge and freezer and the washing machine on standby as pulling it out to access the plug just isn't on, the only other thing would be the broadband router. Everything else, unless for medical use can be turned off. 

TV, DVD player, surround sound equipment, do you really need that massage bed or chair that has many positions,  NO! There's a saving already, hundreds of pounds. Buy a fleece dressing gown, gloves, hot water bottle, flask, Halogen oven, I recommend the Andrew James 1300W for £41.99 delivered  You get a load of accessories including a spare bulb and it's just 4 screws to change the bulb. Be careful as the last screw out, first one back can cut into the wires if you trap it and need to send it off for repair, cheaper to buy a new oven.

Who has the TV and DVD player on 24/7 I used too and that was around £50 a year including the surround sound as I hardly ever watch the TV preferring NETFLIX so over 50% of the TV license saved there. Over the years I have built up a collection of DVD's that will keep me going for the rest of my life.

In the really cold weather I put on the fleece dressing gown and gloves sod the heating until my free day for the electric then just about everything I need to do is done in that one day cooking washing everything that needs electricity the cooker is on all day electric fire radiator (electric of course), It's just reheating meals, you could do some prep work the night before and put it in cold water overnight.

Now the hot water bottle cost to fill a hot water bottle is around 2p per fill with a 3KW kettle, you might need a towel around the bottle to squeeze the excess air out gently. You want the top of the bottle to just have water coming out of the partly closed top, the last thing you want is to squeeze hard as you WILL burn yourself. 

Next the flask it's a bit like a teapot you warm it first with hot water it could be just hot tap water or from the kettle if you like. Don't add milk or sugar get them as you need them, or drink it without as towards the end you may need to use a microwave to heat the drink up unless you like it just warm. 

The gloves are an old pair I cut the inners out of, they were just far too warm with the inners plus after washing them I couldn't get the inners back in. I also have a shower that day 1 of the 4 I have through the week and as the electric is free until mid-2018 it is a long shower as the others are just fresheners to keep me clean.

I cook enough to keep me well fed for more than a week, then I reheat stuff throughout the week from the frozen cost of this is just around 5p per meal. Not bad to say I did the majority of the cooking when the electric was free, the downside is the larger daily charge for both gas & electric 26.1p per day compared to 15.1p on the standard rate. They expect the average of about 80p per week to be used in the 8 hours but I use about £1.35 on free time then a few hours outside like the first wash load as I wouldn't get it all done otherwise. But a few pence to do a load overnight is pennies. It must be the only day of the week I use the cooker instead of the halogen oven and slow cooker.

When looking for the best deals don't look at just what the savings sites say you can save go into the standing charge and price per unit then multiply that daily charge by 365 and divide by 100 to get the yearly charge in pounds and pence. Sometimes changing to the cheapest supplier might not be the best option, you could be locked into a set period, or even worse, any time you choose to leave a fee to leave their plan unless it's another service provided by them. But let's say you move and they charge you £30 to leave once you are hooked they can increase their fees, they normally wait a few months, nobody checks the pence per unit or the Kwh, who understands the Kwh conversion anyway. It's multiply by this, divide by that. Then add the standing charge for 90 plus days then divide by 100 and multiply by 105 to get the cost of the bill.