It's a good job I phoned up the operators of various utilities to find out what to do about closing the accounts down as some of them have been a little bit cheeky in the way they operate. Take, for example, paying your TV licence by direct debit. £9 goes out of your account once a month an everything seems fine. It turns out, of course, that you must have been stung somewhere down the line as the man said I'm paid up six months in advance and he'd send out a refund form. When did I start paying six months in advance?
Having left my bike at my sister's the other day I thought it wise to switch the insurance over and downgrade from fully comprehensive to third party fire and theft. I currently live in one of a scattered collection of houses along a country road and she lives in the depths of Gateshead. Actually about a third of a mile from the Angel of the North but I still haven't managed to see it. I wonder if it's a bit like Spinal Tap where the ordering process got a bit confused and it was delivered as a six foot high angel.
I was a bit confused by the woman on the phone who said:
Comprehensive cover in Gateshead will cost you another £300 [
doubling the cost! ]. Changing to third party fire and theft will
cost you £14.
So was that £14 altogether, in addition
to the comprehensive (surely not!) or what? Obviously, it was meant
as in excess of my current comprehensive premium but for some reason
the way she expressed it made it sound like a premium to the new
comprehensive charge. Ouch!
In the end, though, it is a bit disheartening to note that it's more expensive to keep my bike locked up in a garage in Gateshead on the minimum (useful) insurance than it was to have it comprehensively insured down here. Ho, hum.
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.