A Parting Gift
Posted By Judith on 6th April 2016
Regular readers will know about our long running battle with NPower our gas/electricity supplier and the fact that, at long last, we decided to change to SSE, who have been supplying our power from April 1st.
During the switch over period, which to be fair has been trouble free so far, we received a parting gift from NPower in the form of a letter saying they needed access to our gas meter for an URGENT safety check.
The letter went on to say that their agents had tried to contact us about this several times but had been unable to elicit a responce, even though they had visited and put cards through the door.
Not surprisingly this is rubbish. We’ve barely left the house since the turn of the year, have had no visits, cards, emails or phone calls.
Trying to rise above this obvious lie and assuming that the ‘agent’ would probably inspect for a range of energy suppliers, not just NPower, we decided to ring the number as requested and arrange a convenient time for their operative to call.
After a lengthy phone call an appointment was made for them to inspect the meter on Tuesday morning. It didn’t occur to me until after I’d put the phone down, ‘why did we need to be present?’ the gas meter is on the outside wall.
To be honest, we didn’t really expect anyone to turn up, but at around 10.30am a lady arrived.
To cut a long story short, her hand-held digital gizmo told her our gas meter was located in a cupboard indoors, hence the need for the appointment, it’s actually our electric meter that’s in the cupboard, so just 100% wrong then.
After the initial confusion had been sorted out I accompanied her to the gas meter. As she took note of the meter number and amended her ‘gizmo’ to show it’s true location, I attempted some small-talk.
I mentioned that the supply had only been installed 2 years ago, so I didn’t think it was likely that the meter would be dangerous in any way. The reply I received was surprising to say the least.
It seems that there are 2 main areas of incompetence at work here. Firstly the digital gizmo only provides her with a name, address, and location of the meter, (and as we’ve seen they couldn’t even get that right) it doesn’t actually tell her why she is calling!
Secondly, she has no ‘gas’ expertise whatsoever. The training only covers reading a meter (I can do that). By her own admission she wouldn’t be able to tell if a meter was dangerous or not. So much for an urgent SAFETY check.
What if we’d bought a house with an existing gas supply and an old meter? It was only in February this year that a man died in a suspected gas explosion at a house near York. Makes you think doesn’t it?
I hope you’ll all sleep more soundly in your beds tonight knowing that the power industry is working hard to keep us all safe.
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