A frugal life is an easy life!

Sent out for a late present this Christmas Eve, as a favour to someone else, I was given a flashback to the unrecognised plight of the humble shop/store worker.

Whilst working for Halfords many moons ago, a tactic they would do (besides cutting staffing levels) every year, would be to announce the Christmas working hours for the staff, purposely on Christmas eve, head office would make up a rediculously long Christmas eve working day, say till 8pm.
In the resulting outrage by staff, they would send out a memo a week or so later, saying they had reconsidered Christmas eve hours for their "great" "hard working" staff and reduced the hours down to 5pm - which is of course the hours they originally wanted the stores open, but now they look like they are showing consideration towards their staff.

Whilst out today, I enquired at two stores about Christmas eve working hours with the people serving me.
The first company was ASDA:
They are open to the public until 5pm, the till lady then stated that there were staff working until 6pm, possibly putting on the boxing day promotion and sales.
6pm? IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE! Where is the goodwill to already over worked staff?

The second company was H Samuels:
I couldn't believe my ears, the sales lady says they are being forced to work until 5pm, then the store is closing and they are working on the boxing day sale promotion until 7pm!
7pm? On Christmas eve? What an absolutely disgraceful way to treat your staff H Samuels!!!

I can accept that the business has needs, but come on, forcing your staff to work until 7 oclock at night on Christmas eve, after one of their busiest working days of the year?
It's a shocking way to treat the people who keep your business going!

What time did Bob Cratchet work to on Christmas eve, was it 5pm or 6pm?
Businesses today put upon their staff by cutting staff numbers and forcing them to work (what used to be unsociable hours) outside of their normal working hours, on Christmas eve.
A Christmas carol, may have been a fictional piece of work, but never has the sentiment spoken so loudly, rung so true, than with businesses today, in 2009.

In my experience, when a company "make things easier for customers" there, always and without exception, is an increase in cost to the customer somewhere along the line.

Example 1 - The lovely new "easier to understand" British Telecom quarterly bill - looks good on paper, yet compared to last quarters bill reveals an increase in prices for a whole range of services provided, without any notification or explanation. In our case it is equal to about £6 per quarter, or £24 per year increase.
BT clearly believe that more than 2 million customers on quarterly bills, do not check their prices and are thick!

Example 2: Today, Eon have fitted us a brand spanking new smart key meter.
The installation was quick and easy, however their fitter took off almost £19 in credit and replaced it with £10 emergency credit, which will be claimed back by Eon at approx £1 per week.
Their fitter did not mention this at all, nor did he mention anything about how we claim this back (that's very helpful for Christmas week with a baby in the house - NOT!)

The government stated a few weeks ago, that all homes will be fitted with "smart meters" which will save every home around £28 per year.
I can confirm today that this is complete rubbish - not my words - Eon staff inform me that by law, they have to read a meter in a house a minimum of once every two years, which means that regardless of a "smart meter" being fitted, you the customer still have to have your meter read once every two years, so each home will not save the cost of a meter reader coming out to your home. This will now be called "a meter check" rather than a "meter reading" (have you ever such nonsense!)

Now pre-payment for our electric with Eon, is ideal for us, as we are not subjected to direct debit increases as many millions of customers were last year in October, when the monthly amount taken shot up.
I rang Eon today and had a very interesting discussion with a senior manager there regarding charging and costs to our house.

What was the standing charge on our old meter? Seven (yes that's 7!) attempts to find it out. They told me standing charges on the new meter, they told me how competitive on pricing they are, they told me in depth about how they collect the standing charge, they wanted a discussion about how often I put credit on the meter, everything but answer my question.
When they finally answered it was revealed that my old standing charge was £1.61 per week - the standing charges on this shiney new smart key meter are £2.48 per week!
That's an INCREASE in cost to me of more than £42.00 per year!

Next I asked Eon, why they reclaim a debt via my meter, caused by me buying a months electricity and the price going up half way through that month?
What I am about to tell you can be one of two things:

Either it is a complete lie or Eon need to pay back their pre payment customers some serious money (I suspect the first option)
"Eon do not claim back, via prepayment meters, any in balance in price. If the price increases between the customer putting credit on their card/key meter, we [Eon] do not claim back the difference!"
I asked for this simple statement to be put in writing - John (the manager) refused then back tracked. Instead he proposes to send out a copy of Eon's terms and conditions (which are missing from their own website). This is hardly a ringing endorsement of John's interpretation of Eon's pre payment policy for their customers is it?

John then told me that my last three statements have all shown a debt owing because of price changes in the middle of the month.
"If you do not claim back inbalances via pre payment meters, then why is my account showing a debt? Why have previous advisors stated that the debt will even itself out over the year as the meter reclaims a small amount each week?" I asked John.

After 15 minutes of pure waffle, I ended the call without an answer from John.

I am paying more than £42.00 a year more, for having their smart key meter fitted for my electricity with Eon, in increased standing charges alone.
Eon staff have not got a clue about why or how this is charged and paid back, etc.

If Eon staff do not know - then how exactly is the customer supposed to find out?

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have dropped their challenge to the banks, regarding their overdraft fees.

I am personally disgusted at this!

The new supreme court ruled in favour of the banks (against all expectations and two previous rulings by the House of Lords and the Appeal court) precisely 4 weeks before the government announced the pre-budget report, which levys a "bonus tax" on the banks - which coincidentally, will raise close to the amount the banks would have had to pay back had they lost this case in the Supreme court!

The OFT have stated that they could have continued the action, using different legislation, but have decided to drop the action, which will in part, mean that thousands of people who have claims waiting with banks and the courts, will now lose those claims.
The OFT advise that "there might be a chance of winning by using the consumer credit act" - well thanks for nothing!

In my view, it is a stitch up.

• The OFT win their case in the House of Lords
• The banks appeal, but lose in the appeal courts
• The government launch a new Supreme court
• The Supreme court - against all expectations - rules against the OFT and denies any further appeals, both in UK courts and the European courts
• The chancellor announces the pre budget report, which levys a new bonus tax, upon bank bonuses, which will raise close to the same amount that would have been payable had the banks lost the case to the OFT.
• The OFT give up their action to enforce the law for people.

The law on any charges levied against a customer or business is very clear and has a clear legal precedent:

If a charge does not reflect ACTUAL COST to the company imposing it, it is deemed to be a "penalty charge" - as such penalty charges are unenforceable under common law in England and Wales.

The issue of charges with the banks really is that simple!
Prove that an amount of charge that you are billing a customer/business for, was caused by them and is the actual loss you suffered, or lose the case and refund the charge!

The question now is, why do we even have an Office of Fair Trading and the millions of taxpayer's money it spends every year, if it cannot decide on what is fair?
Clearly the OFT are nothing more than a toothless quango, whilst the people of the UK keep on being stung by unscrupulous business practices from big business!

As per usual, the weather people have got the weather forecast wrong in our little part of the world.
For once I am pleased at this, but it doesn't help much in the run up to Christmas this week, as we cannot get the car out at all, we cannot go shopping anywhere unless it is within walking distance, but who cares!

We have plenty of food in to keep us going, we have snow to play in and we have each other!

Merry Christmas to you all xx

British Telecom charges have magically increased without any notice what so ever!

• Unlimited weekend plan (inc. calling plan) last quarter £32.60 - this quarter it has  increased to £37.50
• Equipment rental charge last quarter £3.80 - this quarter it has increased to £4.35
• Calling features (Call barring) last quarter £6.52 - this quarter it has increased  to £7.50

Add to this the insult of "Equipment rental" for a handset that BT staff denied was even their's - despite being a BT branded handset - and charging me for postage to replace their own faulty handset!

No notice of increasing charges, just applied to my quarterly bill. On there own, it could be argued it is not really that much, an increase of £6.47 per quarter (£25.88 a year increase) now multiply these "small amounts" by the amount of customers BT have who are paying quarterly!
Then consider any "pay monthly" customers, are you being charged these price increases?

It's a shocking way to treat your customers British Telecom!