Apathy Sketchpad

I am entering my third year of university just about now, and I am therefore receiving my third student loan. The first one was simple. I filled in the form, they processed it, and I got a nice pile of money. The second, you may recall, went less smoothly. I missed a signature from the form and had to go to the Student Support Centre (which I couldn’t find) and fail to give a number, because 118-118 didn’t exist back then. Apparently, we filled the form in wrongly this time, and somewhere buried in all the pointless extra bits was some way to tell them, possibly in some kind of a skip-code, that my brother was starting a degree and I would therefore like extra money, please. The extra money isn’t enough to be worth chasing up now, but the letter that arrived this morning certainly is.

For background information, in the first year, my course was “BSc/MPhys Physics”, then for the second year I switched to “BSc/MPhys Physics with Electronics and Instrumentation”, and this year I’m doing “MPhys Physics”. I can see how this might confuse the Student Loans Company, so for simplicity’s sake I didn’t bother to tell them that I had switched from doing “MPhys Physics with Electronics and Instrumentation” to “MPhys Physics”.

Somewhere along the line they must have got very confused, because today they told me I was doing “BSc Physics with Electronics and Instrumentation”, which is as wrong as you can be without suggesting I’m doing “BA Geology with Russian Studies” or something. Of course, I don’t mind them thinking I’m doing electronics, or for that matter instrumentation (whatever that is), but they also mentioned that as the BSc course is three years long, my student support now stops in July. It also means they think I’m graduating in June, so I don’t get the full loan for this year. Since I already applied for the full loan, however, this means that I have applied for more money than they now think I deserve and I don’t appear to be getting a penny from them ever again. I suppose I’ll have to sort this out, or else I will have to save up this year rather better than I have been doing, and that will be exceptionally difficult if British Gas don’t get on the case and sort out my little problem with them.

Or rather, that should be, my big problem. My little problem with British Gas is that their billboards claim that they are — I forget — about 10% (I think) cheaper than NPower, while the small print explains that this saving assumes you take advantage of British Gas’ gas-and-electricity-together discount, but ignore completely the fact that NPower have precisely the same offer. (My tiny, niggling, rather geeky problem with British Gas being they insist on using that bloody awful font).

My big problem is that a few days ago, they sent someone called Suaun (which is a spelling I’ve never seen before either, but you must believe I typed it correctly) round to ’sort out’ the billing. Now, as I have mentioned before, nobody ever tells me anything, and this is why I (and apparently Adam) was so blissfully unaware that we get our gas from NPower. Personally, I am of the opinion that if anybody should know this already, it would be British Gas, but then, there is very little motivation for them to go the their customers’ houses with their little clipboards. So, Suaun very quickly runs through a little spiel, ticks a few boxes, and tells me that the previous tenants used British Gas and hadn’t sorted out anything about leaving, which does sound like their style — I suspect it was them who let down our fire extinguisher. So, he shows me where to sign and I sign it, on the grounds that if it’s a problem he told me I could phone up and cancel everything anytime in the next week. (This turned out not to be true.) This was Monday. On Wednesday morning I called their pointless little sales team, on the number marked “to cancel your contract phone this number”.

“British Gas Sales Team.”
“Hello? I’ve got a contract I’d like to cancel, please.”
“Okay, can you tell me your reference number?” This was the first I’d head of any reference number, and I think we all know by know how the rest of this conversation could have gone, so I shorthanded the whole lot.
“Yes, if you tell me what it is and where it’s printed I can.” (This turned out not to be true, either.)
“It’s printed at the top of your confirmation letter.”
“I haven’t got a confirmation letter. You sent someone to my door.”
“Alright, then,” If, as now became apparent, the number was not actually required, why had he asked me in the first place?

Their phone-monkey then politely informed me that it would be quite impossible to cancel my contract because they hadn’t got it. I asked how they could possibly not have it, I had handed it to one of their employees two days ago, and they told me that it takes about three weeks to get into their building. I asked how it was possible to phone up and cancel a contract within a week if it didn’t arrive for the best part of a month, and they told me if I filled in the “cancellation slip” on the back of the contract it would arrive before the contract, despite a couple of days’ head start, and the contract would be cancelled before anyone even looked at it. I spent ten or so thoroughly dull minutes in a queue at the post office to spend 38p posting the damn thing to British Gas, but that was OK because they weren’t actually getting the 38p. Besides, if, in a few weeks, I don’t get written confirmation that they have cancelled the contract, I’ll phone them up until they send me some. As well as being sensible business and economic practice, this also puts them 38p out of pocket as well, and I’d like that.

When I was filling in the slip, I noticed for quite the first time that Suaun had also signed me up for electricity, which is preposterous because as I must have complained about before we have a token meter and therefore shouldn’t get any electricity bills from anyone at all, let alone a gas company.

Which reminds me, I owe Lizzy £10 for the electricity. I should go sort that out.