I really do know better than to wander into politics, but I think I've made amends for the mix-up. I do hope so.

They might be letting me go home in a couple of 18 hours!

Or they might not. What does the rule book say?

At the moment? "Go back Tuesday" :/ but still! That's ages away! :)

Willingly or forcibly?

:)) I've not got... troublesome yet. I just keep failing their tests :\ sometimes after just having scraped a pass through one.

It's not pre-shock of meeting the bearded Dutchman, is it, as then we'll cancel that. :)

SNORT!! :))))) No :) You don't get let off that easily!

at other thread stuff: I'm glad to hear the kitchen and bathroom work has gone so well, betreger! When we had a new kitchen put in, our landlord's contractors left saying they'd be back Friday to fill in the big hole they'd left in the wall, and came back three weeks later to do it. I whiled away the time discouraging a pair of woodpigeons from setting up home in it. It was fun and all good, until the handles started falling of the cupboards and the plumbing under the sink dismantled itself. I instinctively have a lot more confidence in yours not doing that though :)

And may I ask how the sabotage plot is coming along, Dave? ;)

Home.
At last.
Don'tevenASKaboutmyday,people... but tonight's star attradistraction... is Smudge (a large black cat) in a small dark space alleging he's stuck. I'm alleging I don't believe him which will hopefully do the trick, because that small dark space is somewhere inside a 1970's electric organ that looks like whoever put it together had absolutely no intention of leaving any way back from there.

I did find this though: https://www.instructables.com/id/The-Organ-Donor-Project/ on how to get them open, and this extract:

don't blame me if you try to disassemble an organ and it maims or kills you.

...on what comes next... which suggests he knows something about what he's on about, or at least knows something that he's not telling us about, but the instructable displays no discernible intentions of ever putting it back together again, which is where we diverge. Not too much in the hopes that it'll work because it doesn't now, but more in the hope that when I'm finally able to arrange for the council to collect it, I'd ideally like it to count as "one large bulky item" not, several ones.

I am quite appreciative of the fact that I've always been an outdoor type of person. Working in offices just...(no offence to office workers. After all, someone has to do it).
My duel fuel supplier went down last month. OFGEM in their wisdom, assigned OVO to be my new supplier. Okay, fair do. The e-mail just sent to OVO says it all really, so need to add to it here.

Good evening, I returned home at 19:40 this evening, find that I have mail from your company. After several minutes of reading the contract enclosed in that mail, called your helpline as stated on that contract.

It is available 8am - 8pm. Really? Can you please state why both telephone numbers printed both stated that you are closed for the day? Time of 1st call on your 0117 number 19:44. Time on your 0330 number 19:46.

Now for the "legal" contract you sent dated 23/1/19 - received 29/1/19.

It stated that both the gas payment card & electricity key will arrive 2 days before supply commences by yourselves on 30/1/19.
Cooling off period ends 26/1/19. ARE you serious? Is this the best you can do?

It states "legal agreement" - please check carefully.
About you...

Firstly, it is 92 NOT 9292
Secondly, you have my mobile number - WHO authorised you to have that number?
With regards to that mobile number. As previous supplier found to their detriment, as well as National Grid with their Smart meter bovine excrement - DO NOT use it to send bovine excrement via SMS. As you have that number it is to be used solely to contact with matters pertaining to the account - nothing else.

I am not interested in any other business you operate. I just want gas & electricity. Should I dislike your services, I'll just switch to another supplier. OFGEM has selected you take over my account. Make sure you just supply that gas & electricity.

It also states that you have no e-mail address for you. Well this e-mail solves that issue. Again - DO NOT use except in reply to any e-mail you receive from myself.
I do not want either mobile number or e-mail address sold or provided to anyone. Do not presume that I may be interested in any offerings of yours or any "preferred partners" of your company.

Now for the good things for my partner & I.

We'll receive key & card 2 days before you start to supply us. Your start date to supply us is 30/1/19
Where are they?

Had your "contract" arrive with more sufficient time, the top ups already made would have not been made. Instead they would have been as needed until such time as your new key & card were received. As it is, I am not going to lose at least 5 weeks supply of gas. As for electricity, still have 4.5 days of supply remaining, that's real credit not emergency.
So it would be nice to receive key & card before then. Should they do arrive before then it would be appreciated. However, please note that the gas card will NOT be activated until the current credit has been used.

I trust that a genuine & sensible reply will be received rather than patronising platitudes or legalese mumbo jumbo.
Also, just because there is no name at the end of this correspondence do not mistakenly ignore. I do not sign any e-mail as the e-mail itself names me.

Sorry you had a SOP day Pat.

Sorry you had a SOP day Pat.

Thanks, not really bothered about it but I did receive an automated reply which was to be expected. What I did not expect was, at the time, I thought a useful link.

However, Help

Informative enough, until I clicked on Boost Forum. What a monumental cock up. They've had 62 days to sort it out. From the look of things, I'n not the only one in the dark (pun intended) :-)

I normally top up on the 1st of every month with more than enough credit to last the month. November, December & January always get extra due to it being winter hence why I have enough gas for a further 5 weeks, so no worries there. As for electricity, it all depends on how fast they respond to the e-mail. They say 48 hours...

And may I ask how the sabotage plot is coming along, Dave? ;)

Not had much time to think about sabotage recently and suspect even if I did it would cause more work for me so holding off on that for the moment. Meanwhile waiting for HMRC to respond.

Welcome to HMRC online.

Please enter your login

Now enter your Gateway ID

Password please

Now user ID

Government ID please

Enter a code we’ve texted your old number

There’s a scroll in your garden. Find it.

Latin name for fox

Your name in Sanskrit

176th digit of Pi

You think that's bad? Try contacting your...
Energy supplier
Trading standards
Citizens advice
...by phone.

Automated menus, all 3 were a lovely round robin, repeat & rinse, then automatically hangs up.

So online we go, just as bad until we get to Citizens Advice. Okay, lets e-mail them...
We need your consent to record and use your special category personal data
We need your explicit consent to use some information, including your ethnicity, religion, health conditions, sexual orientation, and trade union membership.

...WTH?
We kids used to get fed up with our parents & relatives talking about the "good old days". 50 years on, I'm saying the same damn thing. :-(
Had a problem with...
Gas
Electricity
Telephone
...easy, just pop into your local shop. Easy to pay bills, buy new appliances & staff available to assist with any issues...
...Ah, the "good old days"

To inject a balancing note: a few days before Christmas, I was trying to use an airline website to book a complicated transatlantic flight (arriving and departing at different cities, plus connecting flights). The return connection wasn't showing up, although the individual flights were showing.

I rang the number shown on the website, and explained my problem to the person who answered the phone. He tried the same booking, saw and confirmed the problem. He filed a report to tech support, and told me that the overnight maintenance shift would fix it: I should be able to complete the booking the following morning. I tried again, and the reported problem had indeed been fixed (I hit a second, different, snag, so had to go through the process again - but that was as quick and easy).

Number of menu redirects: 0
Total length of phone call: under 7 minutes.

This was calling the UK number of a European, but not British, airline.

Number of menu redirects: 0
Total length of phone call: under 7 minutes.

This was calling the UK number of a European, but not British, airline.

There's the problem straight away, here anyway. I started called at 09:17, gave up both online & telephone attempts at 16:37 this evening.

While looking into this yesterday, I found out that the owner of OVO Energy took £2m out of the business to buy a family home before the business started showing a profit. He sold 15% of his shares - the thing is, the company that purchased those shares is owned by him & his family.

Time for some chuckles. :-)

It has been impossible to make direct contact with your company. I have just spent a lovely 14 minutes on the phone - 2 minutes waiting & 12 minutes explaining the situation.
A switch to a better supplier will commence 7 days from your own supply start date to this property. It has been suggested that you may raise an objection to the switch.
I am respectfully informing you to not consider that action as I hold you in breach of your legal agreement with myself as you have failed to honour it.
From what has been seen from your own help pages, I would not be surprised if many more "new" customers take the same action.
On a personal note, would it not have been more beneficial for you as a company to actually have separate e-mail categories, for example, feedback, support, help rather than Hello?

I prefer this one...
...Goodbye.

Time to "spot the difference"
Reply to 1st e-mail (automated)

Thanks for your email, we have people replying to emails Monday to Saturday to ensure you get a speedy response to your query.
We will get in touch with you within 48 hours and to ensure we can resolve your query as soon as possible, we may call you to discuss the email further.

Reply to today's e-mail

Thanks for your email – we have people answering emails Monday to Saturday to ensure you get a quick response to your query.
Due to our recent acquisition of Economy Energy we are experiencing unexpected high volumes of calls and emails. We're doing everything we can to ensure we provide a speedy response and we'll endeavour to get back to you within 3 - 5 days.

With all the calling yesterday, I failed to notice I had a missed call at 12:24. No not from OVO Energy.
Must have been a Libyan refugee seeking UK sponsorship. :-)

00 218 92 504 3711

Nothing but Glory for Ecotricity, our supplier for both gas and electricity. Always get through straight away, everything always sorted quickly. (Actually haven't had to phone them in the past year so it could have all gone to pot but at least the bills seem accurate.) The only minor grumble has ever been that their computer which works out what payments should be for next six months can't understand that we have a wood stove that heats the water in winter and the result of that is that we actually use less gas in winter than the summer!

I suspect other providers would be just as bad on that one!

I'm asleep and suddenly I wake up. Something seems wrong. It is too quiet. Then I notice there aren't and little led lights blinking. But why?
Seems the UPS has failed to do its job, and that includes making beeps when the power goes out.
Well I knew the battery was going down, that is why the replacement arrived yesterday, but that was a job for the weekend.
However, the router is plugged into this UPS so something has to be done.
I've replaced the battery before, 15 minute job.
Powers up, and you begin to think everything is okay.
Why doesn't the switch have any link lights? It has a power light!
Looks like something did die when the juice went out. Not supposed to happen!

In the old days I could have named 10 stores that would have an 8 port gig switch in stock.
I'm not sure I can name one anymore, such is the sad state of desktop computing today.

Well this computer is now plugged directly into the router so I have something, but my RAC is going to fall if the other boxes run out of work before I can get this sorted.

Oh to top it off, I forgot to get milk last night so breakfast is off.

<grumble off>

In the old days I could have named 10 stores that would have an 8 port gig switch in stock.
I'm not sure I can name one anymore, such is the sad state of desktop computing today.

I'm surprised by that. My local trade counter has 50 models listed still, and has four models in stock to pick up as soon as I could get there. (Though they won't be much use to you on this side of the Atlantic.)

What has changed is the price. My first 100 Mbit switch was only four ports, and cost over £100: these 8 port 1 gig ones start at £9.99. But I've never heard of 'Tenda' as a manufacturer.

In the old days I could have named 10 stores that would have an 8 port gig switch in stock.
I'm not sure I can name one anymore, such is the sad state of desktop computing today.

I'm surprised by that. My local trade counter has 50 models listed still, and has four models in stock to pick up as soon as I could get there. (Though they won't be much use to you on this side of the Atlantic.)

What has changed is the price. My first 100 Mbit switch was only four ports, and cost over £100: these 8 port 1 gig ones start at £9.99. But I've never heard of 'Tenda' as a manufacturer.

Well, Amazon, Newegg and Geek Squad have changed everything over here. The last place I actually saw network stuff on a shelf was a home improvement store! I suspect that the office supply stores have such a beast, but it will be no name brand with taillight warranty. There are Apple stores, but they sell smart phones. Perhaps a TV/appliance store might have something, but again no name brand. Last time I was in a Fry's electronics store, the shelves were covered in books, toys and hair dryers. There are some tiny tiny computer stores with Chinese language signs, but they look like a place that does repairs only and has no stock for sale.

Of course it is Friday, I have to be at work, huge rain storm is on the way and it looks like overtime is looming so everything will be closed by the time I can get there. Not ideal conditions to look. I'll find something by Saturday though. If not then I'll just suffer and use a 48 port rack mount 100 meg switch someone gave me that really isn't a solution until I can get Newegg to ship me something reasonable size with a brand name.

Oh don't get me wrong, there are good computer stores in Los Angeles, but they are all over on the West Side of town and that is a real big PITA to get to with oil soaked rain slick roads and incredible traffic, at least a couple hours each way for 20 miles.

Here I am, doing some relaxation gaming in The Elder Scrolls Online. Been playing this game for 5 years now, and only just ventured into Cyrodill, the PvP (Person versus Person) multiplayer part. It's week three, I have managed to get into a good crew, we have fun... and I made top four. Not doing it for the points, and I can't get any higher as the people above me are really that much better. But heartening to see that a relative n00b at PvP can get high in the charts, even with just his PvE (Person versus Environment) toon. And have the respect of the others, and the enemy... some of the guys on the other side don't like me, always single me out to be killed first. That's status! :)

Time for some chuckles. :-)

It has been impossible to make direct contact with your company. I have just spent a lovely 14 minutes on the phone - 2 minutes waiting & 12 minutes explaining the situation.
A switch to a better supplier will commence 7 days from your own supply start date to this property. It has been suggested that you may raise an objection to the switch.
I am respectfully informing you to not consider that action as I hold you in breach of your legal agreement with myself as you have failed to honour it.
From what has been seen from your own help pages, I would not be surprised if many more "new" customers take the same action.
On a personal note, would it not have been more beneficial for you as a company to actually have separate e-mail categories, for example, feedback, support, help rather than Hello?

I prefer this one...
...Goodbye.

Time to "spot the difference"
Reply to 1st e-mail (automated)

Thanks for your email, we have people replying to emails Monday to Saturday to ensure you get a speedy response to your query.
We will get in touch with you within 48 hours and to ensure we can resolve your query as soon as possible, we may call you to discuss the email further.

Reply to today's e-mail

Thanks for your email – we have people answering emails Monday to Saturday to ensure you get a quick response to your query.
Due to our recent acquisition of Economy Energy we are experiencing unexpected high volumes of calls and emails. We're doing everything we can to ensure we provide a speedy response and we'll endeavour to get back to you within 3 - 5 days.

With all the calling yesterday, I failed to notice I had a missed call at 12:24. No not from OVO Energy.
Must have been a Libyan refugee seeking UK sponsorship. :-)

00 218 92 504 3711

You've probably seen it, but in case you missed it. Energy firms under investigation are handed new customers

Two energy suppliers which have been handed the domestic customers of collapsed firms are themselves under investigation by the regulator Ofgem.

Economy Energy and Our Power recently ceased trading and their customers have been automatically switched to Ovo and Utilita respectively.

Both Ovo and Utilita are themselves the subject of continuing inquiries over the treatment of customers.

They say the issues are historic and Ofgem has been rigorous.

Ofgem is investigating whether Ovo gave inaccurate estimates to its customers over how much energy they had used during the winter of 2016-17, potentially leading to inaccurate bills.

In January, Ovo successfully bid for the custom of the 235,000 customers who needed a supplier when Economy Energy ceased trading.

---

grrrr wouldn't you know it. Arrive home after stopping on the way home from work to get a switch and what do I find?

link lights all are ON, on the presumed dead switch.

Do I trust it? I did power cycle it several times and it seemed very very dead this morning. But it is moving data now.

Trust or not, the replacement is staying bought.

Oh, getting the switch was fun. They, office supply, had a couple of super fancy switches that have web pages on the shelf. The dumb switch that is just a switch, no. There was a shelf tag though. A somewhat friendly employee types the number into the computer. "2 at this store" He can't check stock though. He doesn't have enough seniority. A manager has to check stock, fingerprint lock. Yes. He comes out and puts it on the checkout and walks away. Apparently he can't check out customers so a checker has to be brought over! If a grocery store ran that way ...........

In January, Ovo successfully bid for the custom of the 235,000 customers who needed a supplier when Economy Energy ceased trading.

You've no doubt heard the term "Google is your friend", well here, Companies House is your best friend, especially now we have the Internet.
Spark Energy went down on 24/11/18, Economy Energy on 28/11/18. On the day Economy went down, a "funny" coincidence occurred. OVO Energy took 75% of Spark Energy.
Directors of Spark Energy are also directors of OVO Energy.
The biggest elephant in the room for this fiasco is OFGEM.

Mary Starks, Ofgem's executive director for consumers and markets, told the BBC that there was "room for improvement" in the licensing regime.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Ms Starks said that new suppliers were subject to rigorous background checks and subject to financial requirements.

Looks like they didn't check too closely.

Looks like they didn't check too closely.

I'm sure they checked very closely at the wrong list of things to check for.
Have they been convicted? Does the company have cash?
Not, are they doing business the Rump way running from BK to BK. Or is BK administration on your side of the pond?

Not doing it for the points, and I can't get any higher as the people above me are really that much better.

And then of course all Saturday I was number 3. :)