Category Archives: Utilities

Electricity, Gas, Water, …

Powershop

Our energy woes continue. We have moved our electricity away from Energy Australia (still need to get gas from them though) to Powershop. New Zealand owned, big on renewables and have an interesting business model in that the customer can sort buy excess power cheaply, to be used at later times.

To get access to these specials however, one has to be on Facebook, or get their phone app which wants access to your contacts, camera and a whole lot of other stuff which doesn’t seem relevant.

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Leaving AGL, again

Somehow after having left AGL for the more decent looking Australia Power and Gas, the latter got bought by the former. We were back with the very company we didn’t want to buy power from to start with. After yet another hefty bill, though we were under the impression, from prior communication, that rates would remain the same, we decided to go away, again.

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Gas Supply Charge

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you over the concern that I have over the gas supply charge each bill that we receive.

We only use gas for hot water and stove top cooking, so our usage averages about $30.00 for a quarter. Our gas supply charge is an additional $40.00 for this period, which I find to be completely disproportionate to our actual gas usage.

Is there anything that can be done about this charge? I can’t help but feel that a fairer system would be for the supply charge be perhaps calculated at a percentage of the usage, rather than the flat rate.

Yours sincerely,

J.Cuthbert

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On AGL’s Door to Door Salesman…

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please choose your door-to-door salesmen more carefully.

A fellow came to my house this afternoon, and I was generally under the impression was that he was trying to trick or confuse me into getting electricity with you.

He did this by firstly telling me that electricity had been privatised and that I could now have 10% off my bill, and that GST would now be removed. Wrong AND confusing!

He then asked if I had sent in the application from my last bill to get 10% off my bill. I explained that I paid via direct debit, so didn´t actually have a last bill.

He then tried to tell me that even though AGL would be giving me the discount, I would stay with Energy Australia. He continued to say that AGL had taken over the distribution of electricity in the area, and that this is how it would be possible for me to get 10% off even if I stayed with my current retailer.

After a while, I managed to get him to admit that he was simply trying to get me to swap over to AGL from my current energy provider, and that I would get a 10% discount off my first bill if I did.

I have a gas account with you already, but will consider moving it to another company if you send someone like this to pester me at home again.

Yours etcetera,

J. Cuthbert

Letter to Energy Austalia Concerning the Gas

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please enable an online connection feature for gas on your webpage.

Having connected to your electricity service this week, I discovered that I also needed to connect the gas for the hot water and stove.

I went to your webpage, and all I was given was a phone number. I then proceeded to call said number, where I was placed in a queue.

Being a busy person who also does not like being on the phone, in a queue, I looked up the AGL website. What I mean to say is that while I was in your queue, I signed up to AGL for our gas.

Yours etcetera,

J. Cuthbert