Electrickery

I want to pay for my electricity. I don’t want to be cut off. It’s almost summer, how could we survive with no electricity. Should be no problem, just front up and pay.

·         No, sorry we don’t want your money.  You don’t have an account.
·         Well I gave the real estate company the transfer documents and a deposit for 1,000 to have the account in my name.
·         There is no record of you in the system. Not under your name, your P.O. Box, your passport number or your phone number.
·         Okay, make an account.
·         We can’t transfer the account to you until the previous tenant gets a clearance certificate.
·         Umm, I don’t think they are in country anymore!
·         Well bring them into the office and get them to sign the account over to you.
·         Umm, I don’t think they are in country anymore!!
·         Then you need to get them to sign the paper and bring it to the head office.
·         Umm, I don’t think they are in country anymore!!!  I think I’d better talk to the real estate company.

Now six months ago when I moved into the house, the company took my documents and deposit, and arranged for a final reading of the meter, then they paid up the final amount. That was that, I thought. They had the deposit, I had my electricity, all go.  About a month later the electricians came around and replaced the old electricity meters with new Direct Connected Electronic ones. Fancy units that took a whole day to install.  I figured I’d get a bill sometime after that but nothing happened and nobody came to read the meter for ages. Finally some people came with some fancy electronic PDA that was meant to read the meter but it never seemed to work for them. And some other people came to look at the meter, I think to check up that a new one had actually been put in. Anyway the meter reader came again and I tried to ask when the bill was likely to come. Oh, soon, he said. No bill. This kept on going until I started to get alarmed. I hadn’t paid a bill since moving in. The meter man always seemed to be having difficulty with the readings, he cursed his machine a few times and eventually one time he wrote some numbers down on a borrowed piece of paper… better go and check with the Distribution company, I decided.  So I took a photo of the meter, to get all the various code numbers and the reading itself and headed into one of the branch offices at Marina Mall. Which is where the conversation above happened.  It did however, give me the account number that my meter was being charged to. That was to prove useful.

So next I emailed the real estate company. And it turns out they still had my deposit and hadn’t done the transfer of account because the person was out of the country.  But they had checked on line and I had about a 400drh bill to pay. They suggested I just pay that. Now that did not marry up with what my meter seemed to suggest, which by my calculation was four times the amount.  Anyway I thought I would just go ahead and pay that the next day. Well, the next day while I was at work I got a panicked call from my wife to say the electricity man was there to cut off the power… to the neighbour for not paying his bill. Was that co-incidence? Was he really not there to cut off ours? Why was he there two days after I had enquired at the electric company office? But I was assured over the phone in a relayed conversation that he was really cutting off the neighbours – see their meter is inside out house beside with ours.  Not trusting anything I hopped on the phone and got an electronic voice billing from the account number I had been given the other day. 309drh to pay. I took an early lunch and headed off, waited 10minutes in a line and paid that account off with just the number – no questions asked.  But is it really the right amount and why was it so little? When I got home I got another confusing story, apparently in the end the meter man couldn’t disconnect the neighbour’s power because of some configuration of the wiring – that doesn’t sound good. If he cut them off he’d cut us off too… so he left them on.  Armed with all the documents I could gather  I headed back to Marina Mall to try to get the account  transferred.  But no certy no accounty(excuse the crudeChinese laundry parody). Still no go. The English explanation wasn’t all that good but apparently all that could be done was to get the owner of the building to go down to the head office and verify that the person had left the country…

At home I was still not sure that my meter and the account aligned so I phoned the toll free number, waited a good twenty minutes on muzak hold, then finally talked to a pretty decent human.  Not that he could resolve the problem but we sorted a few things. Yes, the meter was definitely tied to that account I had just paid. And the last reading was in mid May and that was what I had just paid off.  No, there was nothing I could do about transferring the account, that had to be done by the real estate and the owner. But at least it seemed to indicate that my meter was not going to get the snip so there is time to sort this out.  I still don’t see how the numbers add up.  I still don’t see why they don’t just want to take anyone who wants to pay an account and take their money.

But I have learned all about the nature of final certificates. I’ll have to keep that in mind. See I haven’t had direct billing for my electricity up to now. In the past it has been within my contracts and I haven’t had such a thing as a final reading. I might live to regret trying to get the account in my name. I might never be able to get rid of it once I do! But the thought of trying to get the electricity fixed or reconnected if I don’t actually have an account is not pleasant, not while it is pushing 40+ daily now.