Utility company WTF
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@Polygeekery said in Utility company WTF:
@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@Polygeekery Oh, yeah, there's a Domino's about 2 miles up the road from here.
I tried to order online from them. The website said they didn't deliver, so I went to pick it up... and found 2 delivery cars sitting in the parking lot.
The guys inside said they had no idea what's up with the website.Good tip. Make sure to call as their online ordering is messed up. Good to know.
This reminds me of one time I tried to order lunch from D'Angelo's (sandwich chain in the Northeast US). The place was within walking distance; I just wanted my sandwich to be ready when I got there. The web site said they weren't taking orders, which happened periodically because their network was a
and about once a week or so would lose communication with the shop and report that. So I'd call the place instead on those days and all was well.On this particular day, when I called they didn't answer their phone. I thought that was weird. Was the place on fire or something? I walked out to the edge of our parking lot, where I could look down the hill over another building and see the place, and indeed a fire truck was in their parking lot.
So I walked to my car while placing my order by phone at the other D'Angelo's 2 miles away.
It turned out it was a pretty minor fire, but they had evacuated the building just at that moment (and I guess somebody had thought to shut off online ordering).
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@heterodox said in Utility company WTF:
Some people are referred to by their last name exclusively, even though they themselves only go by their first name.
I've seen that done, but most often it's when two team members have the same first name.
@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
she would always find some excuse to mention her boyfriend, for no apparent reason that I could ever discern other than to make sure the students knew she had one.
The type you mention generally has a boyfriend because she thinks she's supposed to have one.
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@lolwhat said in Utility company WTF:
@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
Seriously, can anyone give me any good reason why it's acceptable, in the year 2017, for any non-tiny company to do business online and not simply accept payment via PayPal?
Seriously, PayPal charges about 3% of every transaction to the payee, and that's before refunds and chargebacks. Seriously, that's not a small number if you do a lot of transactions. Seriously, your PayPal-paying customers will bitch if you pass that cost on to them directly.
I think for this reason we're apparently looking to move to Stripe for the majority of transactions. No word on how effective that will be....
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@anotherusername said in Utility company WTF:
@abarker said in Utility company WTF:
@boomzilla We have our benefits. If you don't know, then you don't need to know. :P
The one thing I'll say for Phoenix is that it's perfectly acceptable to have a dirt front yard there, and it's rarely wet enough to need to worry about having it turn into a mud front yard that could get tracked into the house.
Well, IIRC they're cracking down on dirt yards in my parts.
Seems they need to be improved by putting rocks there instead...
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@dkf said in Utility company WTF:
@anotherusername said in Utility company WTF:
What are you gonna do, anyway... pay another gas company to install mains all the way to your house?
FWIW, we can actually switch companies that way. They get to use the same pipes for delivery though (and I've no idea who actually owns them). The plus side is that online payments all work very nicely.
Actually that's what happened in Poland a few years ago: gas/phone companies are required to share the infrastructure with competitors so that there can be competition at all. Or something.
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@djls45 said in Utility company WTF:
@Fox said in Utility company WTF:
lost in Salt Lake City
E_NOT_POSSIBLE
Seriously, the roads in pretty much the whole valley are in a very straightforward north-south by east-west grid, and most of them are "named" by hundreds instead of random word names (and with very few one-way roads).
You've got everything north and south of Temple Street and everything east and west of Main Street.
The only difficult roads are the highways, and those still mostly follow the north-south/east-west system and have lots of exits and on-ramps.Yeah... gotta love grid systems.
Well, unless the landscape makes it nigh impossible to implement coughCalifornia or any other hilly-spacecough
Edit: Oh, and any of those families would probably have been happy to help direct you to where you wanted to go.
Though it can be sometimes hit-or-miss, depending on the area...
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@antiquarian said in Utility company WTF:
@heterodox said in Utility company WTF:
Some people are referred to by their last name exclusively, even though they themselves only go by their first name.
I've seen that done, but most often it's when two team members have the same first name.
John J Johnson. For rizzles.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Utility company WTF:
@antiquarian said in Utility company WTF:
@heterodox said in Utility company WTF:
Some people are referred to by their last name exclusively, even though they themselves only go by their first name.
I've seen that done, but most often it's when two team members have the same first name.
John J Johnson. For rizzles.
Major Major Major Major?
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@kt_ With a dash of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.
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@dkf said in Utility company WTF:
The plus side is that online payments all work very nicely.
Ha
Haha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Literally nothing I have ever done with a British Utility company, online, over the phone or whatever, has ever worked in any way I would describe as even in the same universe as "very nicely".
The best case I've ever had was the estimate when signing up, from which they calculate the direct debit, was lower than the estimated readings resulting in a large balance building up. Which then turned into a credit balance when I submitted actual readings that were well below either estimate.
Another case where the estimate they billed from was different to the estimate they set up the DD from, the balance built up with no messages from them ever, and errors every time I actually tried to submit a reading, until they stopped taking any money at all. When questioned they said it was because we owed too much for them to keep taking money TDEMSYR!
That case has been in dispute for several years now. Every so often they try to pass the balance on to a debt collection firm at which point I give them an earful about how I still don't accept their numbers they pulled out of their arse, that they have failed me in literally every point on their Treating Customers Fairly manifesto, and that they've never had anything approaching good customer service to me.
My current providers, for some reason, decided to close one account and open another one. In the week between my last meter reading and the account closing they decided to estimate at £300 worth of gas usage. The £500 balance then transferred to the new account despite the meter still being well under that estimated reading two months later. Currently at two support calls trying to fix this, and going to call for the third time in a few days if I don't hear back.
I really don't understand how it's seemingly utterly impossible to provide any level of competent customer service when it comes to piping gas and electric into a house that would still have them piped in without the intervention of the companies in question. The whole utility market is an utter joke
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@Jaloopa My electricity provider initially set up an estimate about 25% too low when signing up (e.g. they took 3 when they should have taken 4), which I didn't notice initially as it was a new house etc. One year later, they ask me to pay the balance, fair enough. I then call them to change the amount now that they have some correct numbers, and they immediately suggesting doubling the amount, which would have made it much too high!
I mean, they had the statement for the past year in front of them, and they wanted to take an amount that was obviously way, way above that. And it took me a few minutes to convince them to use the correct amount, they didn't want to do it (I almost hung up and stayed with the much-too-low amount...). I couldn't really make out whether it was sheer incompetence or greediness...
