British Gas are now well and truly top of my 'I-hate-you' list.

I moved here what, 6 weeks ago?  And when I did so the lettings agent took gas/electricity meter readings and passed those on, along with my details, to whoever the suppliers are.

This morning I get not one but TWO angry letters from British Gas demanding details with the threat of assuming the property is empty and cutting off the electricity supply if they don't hear back within 7 days.

Great. 

What's even better is that the letters say "we sent you this letter on 4th April 2007".  Today is the 13th.  The post office may be crap, but it DOES NOT take them 9 days to deliver a letter, and it's even less likely that TWO letters would get lost in the post for the same amount of time... (incidently the one letter goes on about gas readings despite saying that they're supplying the electric.  okay then.

So this morning I phoned, armed with a meter reading.  Sat on hold for quarter of an hour then gave up because I had to go to work.

I've just spent another 44 minutes on hold, and now their 'customer support' phoneline is closed.  Excellent. That's really fucking fantastic.  Now I'm going to have to waste half my Saturday also sitting on hold again because otherwise they're going to be twats about everything and I'll have no power.

44 minutes ago I was feeling normal and mostly relaxed.  Now I am very stressed and angry and could kill things.  In fact, I might.  Also quite hungry as I would have liked to have had my tea about half an hour ago.

I do feel sorry for call centre monkeys, to a point - but they can't expect people to not be incredibly pissed off after 44 minutes of crap hold musak (in this case a weird and horrible midi mix of Coldplay and Tears for Fears) and patronising energy saving tips.  At least I have speaker phone so I can leave the phone on the desk and get on with other stuff.

Especially annoying because I know for a fact that they already have my details because I have spoken to the person in the lettings agents who made the phone call and told them.  Fucking hell.  How useless can you be?!

tags: grr stress