Bank Error In Their Favour

They say money can’t buy you happiness, but there’s a new sweet shop opened up on the high street in Dunfermline and I’m fully prepared to conduct my own experiments on the matter.

They also say money makes the world go round, but I’m pretty sure from my time as a physicist that angular momentum is a conserved quantity. If someone’s charging us for maintaining the Earth’s rotation then, well, someone should look into it, that’s all I’m saying.

So what’s all the fuss about money then? Well three times in the last week I’ve had to take issue with people over money.

Last month was an expensive one. I bought myself a fancy telescope and then, to make up for my financial transgression, I also bought an engagement ring and proposed to my girlfriend whose flat I’d filled with astronomical equipment. It all worked out in the end – I even get time to go out observing while Sarah is distracted by wedding websites – but it left me in desperate need of a pay-day.

So I was FURIOUS when my payslip arrived and was nearly £500 short for the month. Had I underpaid some tax? Possible. I changed job, including a month of unemployment, right before the end of the tax year, so it’s more than likely that there’s been some confusion somewhere. Yeah right, confusion. Everyone who’s read the Bible knows that far more evil and twisted than the terrorists and paedophiles are the taxmen. They’re screwing me.

Actually it turns out there’d been an administrative error in the accounts department at work and the missing money will be with me shortly. So that’s OK.

But then there was my energy company, who I won’t name, but if I just say they’re a bunch of bloody idiots you can probably guess it’s the same one you use. If you’ve been paying attention over the last few months you’d know that I’ve recently moved house. Leaving a rented property is always a faff, and it’s usually the sorting out of final bills that causes the most trouble.

I took electricity and gas meter readings in mid-February and paid the bills, just before I moved house, but two weeks before the end of my tenancy. My landlord had agreed to take further readings on the date of the tenancy expiring and to arrange for me to receive a small final bill to clear up any costs while I wasn’t living there, which should of course have been virtually zero (I left the fridge plugged in.)

The suppliers had been awful throughout my 18 month tenancy, never sending me any bills but then aggressively demanding payment within seven days or they’d send the boys round to repossess my television. I would always make said payments, provide my meter readings, and request a paper bill for my records, which I would never receive, only hearing from them again when they contacted me to demand more money.

Imagine my surprise to receive a text message the other day from this energy company demanding I pay my final bill. A final bill, covering two weeks of almost zero electricity usage. A final bill valued at £1551.46.

Of course I promptly contacted them. They hadn’t received – or had probably lost – the final meter readings, and they assured me that it’s “a bit high” because it’s an estimated bill. Estimated by who? What did they think I was doing that uses more than £700 worth of electricity in a week?

I was FURIOUS, and phoned my old estate agents, who very professionally dealt with my call and have assured me that they will deal with the matter on my behalf. Oh, so that’s OK too.

Stop it. Stop being so helpful you idiots. Can’t you see I’m trying to find an angry angle about this for my blog? All this helpful help, it’s not helping you know?

I wasn’t at all surprised to find out this morning that Sarah and I have had our mortgage application declined, but nor was I disheartened. Surely with all these kind and helpful financial institutions and organisations around, the Post Office, the lovely local branch, would be amenable to a little persuasion.

Apparently not. The man I spoke to, devoid of charisma, monotone, ugly (probably) and joyless (certainly) couldn’t be moved. I assured him of the stability of my employment. Declined. I assured him that our flat is certain to sell in a matter of months. Declined. I assured him that my blog’s readership has recently soared into double figures and is therefore bound to be snapped up in a lucrative deal with a major international publisher any time soon. Declined.

I was absolutely FURIOUS.

The big problem is that we’ve already made an offer on a house, and had it accepted, based on the Agreement In Principle received not one week before from the very same mortgage provider, based on exactly the same information from which they were now declining the loan.

Ironically, Mr. Post Office, you’re the one person out of this bunch of burglars to whom I’m actually trying to give money. I want to provide you with a guaranteed income for thirty years and you won’t let me. I asked him flat: Mr. Office, is there anything I can do to change your decision?

His answer was equally straightforward. The only way to get him to consider approving the mortgage would be to “improve the loan to value ratio.” In other words, to give him more money.

Ah, that’s more like it.