SCOTTISH POWER - Check your GAS Bills NOW...

Pincher

How about the computer suffered from the leap second "bug". The OP's bill was processed at midnight, so onlky the few bills generated during the Twilight Zone second had the anomaly.

derekwilliams

I'm beginning to think the whole UK Energy Industry operates in the 'Twilight Zone'. How the 'Big 6' can make so many mistakes, and take so long to acknowledge/rectify them, from what appears to be a very straight forward business amazes me. :mad:

polymaff

derekwilliams wrote: »

I'm beginning to think the whole UK Energy Industry operates in the 'Twilight Zone'. How the 'Big 6' can make so many mistakes, and take so long to acknowledge/rectify them, from what appears to be a very straight forward business amazes me. :mad:

As mentioned previously, it isn't just the Energy companies, but also the Banks, National and Local Government, in fact just about all users of IT, who have out-of-control IT systems - the designers and implementers of which have long since vanished out of the accountability trail.

It thus behoves everyone to perform, at the minimum, Sanity Checks on every transaction they are presented with.

It's one of the reasons that the teaching of approximate mental arithmetic (chunking?) in our schools is so important.

Pincher

If I was a teacher, and I confiscated all electronic gadgets, including calculators, tablets and mobile phones, for the duration of lesson, would I

1. be arrested for depriving the pupils their human rights

2. be tried for child abuse and mental cruelty

3. be torn limb from limb by social media addicts who will plea temporary insanity due to violent withdrawal symptoms.

modsandmockers

polymaff wrote: »

As mentioned previously, it isn't just the Energy companies, but also the Banks, National and Local Government, in fact just about all users of IT, who have out-of-control IT systems - the designers and implementers of which have long since vanished out of the accountability trail

And organisations which were born in the IT environment continue to go from strength to strength - I mostly use Ebay and Amazon (and MSE of course!), but there are many many others. Their standards of customer service are under continuous improvement, and the competition is fierce.

The utilities still cling to the outdated idea of telephone call centres, which were invented around the time of privatisation because, at that time, computerised telephone systems were at the cutting edge of new technology. The utilities fiercely resist the idea of allowing their customers to raise questions by email, and do not seem to be able to work out that if they were to study the contents of an email first, and then phone the customer for an informed discussion, then blood pressure on both sides would potentially be much reduced. They would also, of course, need to be sure that their staff do actually know what they are talking about, and are not primarily concerned with ending the call in the fastest possible time.

ps - and it should be normal practice for an email to be sent to the customer, after every phone conversation, with a copy of the notes which the company employee has placed onto the customer's account page

It's one of the reasons that the teaching of approximate mental arithmetic (chunking?) in our schools is so important.

When I used to help my children with their arithmetic, I used to say to them 'before you start, take a guess at the final answer, and if you are miles out at the end of the calculation, then have another look at your starting guess, and ask yourself whether the guess was wrong in the first place, or whether you have made a mistake in your calculation'

polymaff

modsandmockers wrote: »

And organisations.....

Totally agree.

modsandmockers wrote: »

When I used to help my children with their arithmetic, I used to say to them 'before you start, take a guess at the final answer, and if you are miles out at the end of the calculation, then have another look at your starting guess, and ask yourself whether the guess was wrong in the first place, or whether you have made a mistake in your calculation'

And it is good to see that teaching has returned to a few fundamentals - even if they have to give it a cryptic name like chunking and believe that it is something they just discovered. In betweeen there are two generations who have no feeling for "quantity" and how it relates to arithmetic and/or have mortgaged their brains for a pocket calculator. Example of the latter - a recent bulk purchase of 1,000 photocopies at 1p each. Chief cashier of the business went for his calculator to work out the cost and then the VAT - No kidding

modsandmockers

polymaff wrote: »

there are two generations who have no feeling for "quantity" and how it relates to arithmetic

We're getting way off topic, but the 'feeling for quantity' is not enhanced by the meeja's frequent use of multi-billion 'round figures', which are rarely supported by any detailed calculations.

lisa110rry

Pincher wrote: »

Three Scottish Power bills for 2015, all correct.


These correction factors are obviously to compensate for variations in supply quality, across the regions. So somebody is constantly sampling, and reporting the density (or whatever they measure) to a National Grid type organisation, which disseminates the figures to the anyone who wants to know. Somebody has to type this figure in, in Scottish Power, quite often I should think.


I have no problem in believing some drunken idiot typed 1.2264 at 13:31, after a liquid lunch for Mabel's birthday, and then walk in the next day sober, and typed in 1.02264 the next day.

Lol, poor Mable! And after all the trouble she had with Extra energy!

derekwilliams

Q: When does 6 Units of Gas NOT EQUAL 6 Units of Gas?

A: When Scottish Power do the maths to convert to kWh !!!!! :mad:

Check out this part of my new SP bill [supposedly correct]. Glaring error highlighted.

Cardew

derekwilliams wrote: »

Q: When does 6 Units of Gas NOT EQUAL 6 Units of Gas?

A: When Scottish Power do the maths to convert to kWh !!!!! :mad:

Check out this part of my new SP bill [supposedly correct]. Glaring error highlighted.

Sorry not understood.


6 Gas units are shown as 67.32kWh on 23 May and 66.98kWh on 01 June.


That discrepancy of 0.34kWh(about 1p) could be down to a minor change in the Calorific Value.