The Price of Power

In Monopoly, the probability of paying anything to the the electric company (by virtue of landing on it) is about 0.026040 per turn (assuming that you don't own the electric company). If you do have to pay anything then you have to pay 10 times the value of a roll of two dice (assuming that both utilities are owned by the same owner, which nowadays seems pretty likely). The expected value a single payment is £70 and therefore expected value of payments to the electric company is £1.82 per turn.

Not in Monopoly, things are a tad more expensive (£600) and a lot more likely (1).

When we moved into our house, some 18 months ago, we arranged to take over all the utilities (gas/electric/water/phone). However for electricity, we got a nice letter back saying that they were not able to setup our account because the current supplier had objected and that we should find out who the current supplier is using a look-up service and contact them for an explanation.

We discovered that it was British Gas, so I phoned the customer helpline and listened to lots of music dubbed with "Your call is important to us". After 30 minutes, I had to attend to other things (my time not free!). Thoroughly frustrated I tried again another time. After 10 minutes, I gave up.

(I did notice several letters from the supplier addressed to the previous occupant over the next months, these were returned to the sender since we do not have a forwarding address.)

And that was where I left it. We did not receive a single bill for electricity.

Today, someone arrived to disconnect our electricity supply (according to the note through the door). As it happens, the meter is indoors and we were all out.

The caller had left his mobile telephone number, and it turned out that he was a nice man called Ray who helpfully worked out that the arrears was just under £600 and that I could pay half of it now and the rest by direct debit over the next 12 months.

This seemed like a very good option to me. We'd had 18 months of free credit but mostly I was pleased to have an instant fix without wasting any time in a telephone queue.

Next time I have a problem with a service I might just be tempted to stop paying and wait for them to contact me.