Refusing to pay energy bills

[shoulders]

Yeah I got one from Bulb that was very transparently like BY THE WAY WE NOW UPHOLD THE RIGHT TO PERFORM CREDIT OR BACKGROUND CHECKS ON ANY CUSTOMER AND IF YOU STOP PAYING YOUR BILLS FOR SOME REASON WE WILL MAKE YOU PAY THE ACCUMULATED DEBT BACK IN FULL, SO DON'T FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT PAL this morning.

Perform credit or background check from a landfill site after we've hired a digger and reduced your call centre and hub of operations to rubble you rent seeking parasitic cunts.

[Zero Gravitas]

they got a guy round from the eletric and he couldn't explain the surges either and reluctantly conceded that yeah it was probably ghosts.

Was the guy Welsh too?

[Cuellar]

You know what I don't know. I think he was.

[Dr Rock]

What would happen if you put a very powerful magnet on your smart-reader?

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=What+would+happen+if+you+put+a+very+powerful+magnet+on+your+smart-reader%3F

[touchingcloth]

What would happen if you put a very powerful magnet on your smart-reader?

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=What+would+happen+if+you+put+a+very+powerful+magnet+on+your+smart-reader%3F

I'd rig a microwave up so it could run with the door open and plonk it in front of the meter on defrost.

This once helped me get a new laptop when work's IT policy said I wasn't due a replacement unless my laptop stopped working. A couple of short spins along with my dinner sorted that. 

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'd rig a microwave up so it could run with the door open and plonk it in front of the meter on defrost.

This once helped me get a new laptop when work's IT policy said I wasn't due a replacement unless my laptop stopped working. A couple of short spins along with my dinner sorted that. 

Lol my dad did similar with a zerostat gun on the ports.

[touchingcloth]

Lol my dad did similar with a zerostat gun on the ports.

I bought a cheap external hard drive docking station off eBay a few years back, and its USB data connection was via a USB-A female port, so it was provided along with a male-male cable. I've always been tempted to hook something up to a mains phone charger with it.

[Armed Traffic Warden]

I listened to a podcast once where a house in Wales kept getting huge electric bills and they were insistent it was ghosts doing it, and they got a guy round from the eletric and he couldn't explain the surges either and reluctantly conceded that yeah it was probably ghosts.

Can't remember if they ended up having to pay or not, but it could be worth a try.

I've got werewolves, what will they knock off the bill for that? If pushed I may be able to offer a zombie? I'll need a couple of weeks for the zombie, mind.

[jamiefairlie]

[Hat FM]

so, this latest increase taking place in October, is that another that has been forced by the wholesalers putting their prices up?

in my experience the little man never wins. if mass amounts of people didn't pay their bills all that would happen is that those customers that did pay would see their bills become even more expensive covering that loss.

i'm presuming that it is illegal for those that dont pay to be cut off and blacklisted from signing up with another energy provider?

[Dr Rock]

if mass amounts of people didn't pay their bills all that would happen is that those customers that did pay would see their bills become even more expensive covering that loss.

Serves the scabs right

[Alberon]

The average energy bill is expected to be close to £4000 a year by the end of the next price hike in early 2023. That's about £333 per month or over triple what we were paying at the beginning of the year.

This is untenable. I can afford that, but not much more. But many people can't.

[Dr Rock]

I've been paying fuck all for a year and nothing's happened yet

[shoulders]

so, this latest increase taking place in October, is that another that has been forced by the wholesalers putting their prices up?

in my experience the little man never wins. if mass amounts of people didn't pay their bills all that would happen is that those customers that did pay would see their bills become even more expensive covering that loss.

i'm presuming that it is illegal for those that dont pay to be cut off and blacklisted from signing up with another energy provider?

Mass non-payment would force the companies into a position where they couldn't even administrate that level of debt recovery and a liquidity situation that could shut some of them down in weeks, others months.

[H-O-W-L]

Gonna steal all the leccy and pump it into my disused X-COM flying suit so I can start fucking punching Chryssalids in half and whatnot. Fuck em.

[shiftwork2]

What if everyone set their direct debit to the minimum acceptable amount?  Shell Energy tried to increase mine but I discovered it was possible to reset it online to a lower value than I was originally paying, which I did.  I now pay £44 after they asked for £116.

Will obviously only defer payment.  But it may cause cashflow problems to them in the short / medium term with zero risk of disconnection or CCJs.  No worry or stress.

Obviously it depends on whether having a choice of DD payment is standard across the industry (dunno), and also whether that's underpinned by any legislation or best-practice malarkey and how long that would take to reverse.

If the answers are 'yes', 'yes' and 'quite a while' then it might offer a pragmatic complementary / alternative method of protesting with possible complete participation.

[Buelligan]

The average energy bill is expected to be close to £4000 a year by the end of the next price hike in early 2023. That's about £333 per month or over triple what we were paying at the beginning of the year.

This is untenable. I can afford that, but not much more. But many people can't.

If it's allowed to happen I honestly think civil unrest will hop up and dance.  You can't have people put in a position where the basic goods normal people require for life are impossible to pay for.  People will stop consenting to abide by the rules and your sovereingty is gonna bite itself off some prime fat pollie arse, maybe quite a lot.

[Fr.Bigley]

https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/28/british-gas-owners-profits-increase-five-fold-while-energy-bills-soar-17082094/#metro-comments-container




Think it's about time to fix this shit. They managed with the poll tax...we can't sit idle.

[TrenterPercenter]

The more and more I think about this the more it is appealing.

Setting the president for consumer strikes for utilities would be an incredible tool - it would need to be managed properly with a reasonable cut off (needs experts in each area to decide on a global acceptable price) but properly done could be game changer, needs a lot of organising though as it needs to have enough strikers though.

[TrenterPercenter]

What if everyone set their direct debit to the minimum acceptable amount?  Shell Energy tried to increase mine but I discovered it was possible to reset it online to a lower value than I was originally paying, which I did.  I now pay £44 after they asked for £116.

This wouldn't work, they would just defer and increase interest then make the necessary moves to their financial shares to accomodate this (they'd just find someone else to pay the shortfall on promise of the profits from interest at a later date).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Related to energy shortages:

Developers in west London face a potential ban on new housing projects until 2035 because the electricity grid has run out of capacity to support new homes, jeopardising house building targets in the capital.
The Greater London Authority wrote to developers this week warning them that it might take more than a decade to bulk up grid capacity and get developments under way again in three west London boroughs — Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow.
In those boroughs, "major new applicants to the distribution network . . . including housing developments, commercial premises and industrial activities will have to wait several years to receive new electricity connections," according to the GLA's note, which has been seen by the Financial Times.

https://archive.ph/6RfHd

Apparently a lot of it is down to data centres in the area sucking up power. Although this seems to be a regional supply issue rather than a national one, however as we near capacity it's very likely (and we've come very close some winters when our ageing nuclear plants had to be shut down for maintenance) the government will try to stop blackouts by paying off power-heavy businesses/manufacturing to shut down during peak demand times. Of course this will also push consumer bills up.

[Buelligan]

Read somewhere, can't find it now, that there are whole or large parts of new blocks of flats in London, bought for investment, sitting empty with lights/radios on timers to keep away squatters and burglars.

This is how capitalism fixes our world.

[thelittlemango]

Is anyone else overwhelmed with anxiety about this? I've always been super careful with money as I'm terrified of not being able to pay bills and getting fucked over as mentioned in the other thread about savings, and this is stressing me out a lot.

It's the fact that we're being told there is a huge increase coming in October and then another in January, and yet there is no more money landing in my bank account to compensate and the permutations of how to balance things and what to sacrifice (pretty much everything that makes human existence fun it seems) are consuming a lot of my thoughts.

I've always been someone who joins protests and adds my voice to causes but this is the first time I've actually felt moved to want a poll tax style riot, which makes me feel selfish as it's partly because I am included in the people who will be hit hardest.

[Buelligan]

That's not selfish, that's standing up for yourself and all the millions of other people like you who are being thrown under the bus.  Why should anyone take that on the chin?  Why should anyone let that happen to others who may not be able to speak up for themselves?

[Alberon]

This is heading to a Poll Tax style situation. The tinkering proposed by either Tory leadership candidate is pointless.

[Zetetic]

Not much to add, other than the obvious: local community organising is going to be extremely important in the coming months. If there's any way to reactivate pandemic mutual aid networks or latch on to neighborhood Facebook groups, worth trying.

[Buelligan]

I suppose I would add, IMO, the more noise people can make (any way they can) in advance of all of this hitting the fan, the greater possibility (even if that is minuscule) there is that someone with some power will realise something really needs doing.  Our neolibs nationalised our electricity provider and I don't think they did that because they'd always wanted to, so you know, get those yellow jackets on or something!

[thelittlemango]

I was looking back through some articles about the Poll Tax riots and the atmosphere at the time and a lot of them said it wasn't the riots themselves that ended the tax, it was that an opinion poll had said it was unpopular with 77% of the population.

As with most things it seems the only way to get things to change is for the political parties to think either it's a vote loser to keep the status quo or that they'll gain votes by making changes, but I feel that after the vitriol towards Corbyn's nationalisation plans they've made a rod for their own backs. I'm hoping that's not the case and they're as willing to flip flop on this as they have been everything else the moment the wind changed.

[Alberon]

That's probably true, the Poll tax riots were a symptom of the widespread hatred of the tax that actually caused the change.

But I think this will be worse, because it won't be a case of people not wanting to pay the tax they'll be unable to eat and heat their homes. People are worrying now, but when it actually starts it will be chaos.

[thelittlemango]

That's probably true, the Poll tax riots were a symptom of the widespread hatred of the tax that actually caused the change.

But I think this will be worse, because it won't be a case of people not wanting to pay the tax they'll be unable to eat and heat their homes. People are worrying now, but when it actually starts it will be chaos.

It's grim, old British flats and houses with shit insulation leaking warmth in the winter and people looking at pressing the heating button as akin to turning on a tap of pound coins and watching it go down the drain. I can already predict the out of touch Tory response telling people to wear extra layers of clothing indoors.