Electricity Saga
Just like in a love relationship, there comes a point in an immigrant’s life when the honeymoon period with the new country ends and the problems begin to appear.
And so, the saga of the electric company continues.
M went in person to the electricity/water company office in Valletta to see about fixing the bill. As I mentioned, the bills we have been receiving do not make sense when one tries to trace all the payments and charges. So, a kind lady printed out all charges and payments for the last several years. It turns out several things go on that are just confusing.
For example, once a payment is made, they do not send out a bill showing the payment was received. The amount simply disappears. Thus, you, the consumer, have no way of balancing out all the bills. Even on this official printout, things were complicated. For example, if we made a payment of Lm30.26 and they decided to apply it to different parts of the bill, it would show up as:
Lm5.23 for the water part
Lm22.34 for the electricity part
Lm2.69 for the government surcharge
The clerk had to sit and hunt around and add things up to see which sets of numbers might possibly match up with payments we had made. In the end, there were Lm31.13 which went unaccounted for.
Now, all of our payments have been made on-line, and as Sabine wrote today, on-line services in Malta do not always work out. So, M called up the bank to see why money was deducted but the electric company never received it. It turns out the bank made a mistake, and sent it to an incorrect account number. Wait, what?! This is not some individual who receives a deposit once in a while! This is the national electricity and water company that receives hundreds of payments daily! At least the mistake was found quickly, and the bank promised they would call the electric company directly to sort things out.
So, this morning I took the bill, subtracted the Lm31.13 that are supposed to be credited, and went to pay. As a “convenience” to the customer, bills can be paid at any MaltaPost branch, so I walked down to our local post office… where they refused to let me pay.
MaltaPost Clerk: “I’m sorry, we can’t ‘arrange’ the bill here, you’ll have to go to Enemalta and ‘arrange’ things there.”
Me: “But I already went to Enemalta and ‘arranged’ the bill. I want to pay it, minus the amount that will be credited due to a mistake.”
MPC: “We are not an Enemalta office, we simply take payments, so we have to take the exact amount that is on the bill.”
That last statement made absolutely no sense to me. If all they are doing is taking my money and passing it on to Enemalta, then why do they care how much I am paying? Take my money, pass it on, and the electric company and I can “arrange” things between ourselves later.
So I guess now I am supposed to sit and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for the revised bill to come some day, so that I can go and pay it. In the meantime the bill will become overdue, and I wonder if we risk having our electricity cut off.
Plan B would be to pay the bill in full, and hope that a credit is applied… but after all of this, it simply does not seem wise to trust Enemalta to magically return our money.
I have always paid my bills promptly and on time, everywhere in the world. This is the first time that I have not been allowed to pay a bill.
At least the kind lady at Enemalta gave us tips on how to reduce our high electricity bill. The tumble dryer is a big culprit (we are not using it during the summer anyway) and suggested we can air-dry clothes and then put them in for ten minutes just to soften them. The other big problem is the electric cooker, though we are trying to figure out if it would be more expensive to replace it with a new gas stove or to pay the electricity as it is.
And lastly, since the flat was empty last year, our estimated payments were based on minimal use. Hopefully this year’s estimated payments will be more in line with reality, and in the end we will not be stuck with a huge bill. Already the next estimated bill is on its way. I really cannot stand this estimate system.
