Poor service when trying to arrange payment

IT is with an immense amount of disgust that after reading the headline in The Herald yesterday, “Businesses face legal steps over power bills”, I am writing this letter.

The metro simply refused my attempt to negotiate a reduced payment on my municipal account.

I am unemployed – my last job was on contract in September last year. Prior to that, my account was fully paid. As things stand, my account is behind, and my wife and I attempted to apply for the Assistance to the Poor.

We went in and complied with all the forms the municipality required.

We had a random visit from a woman who I assume came to check if indeed there was no one employed in our family.

After she confirmed what she needed to, she then left and provided us with another date as to when to report back to the municipality.

On that date, we were then told that I was employed – how, I would love to know as to this date, I am still unemployed.

Without any prior notice, our pre-paid electricity was then blocked – all this happened over a weekend.

The very next Monday, we then returned to the municipality, only to be told that it had made a “mistake”, our pre-paid electric meter was then unblocked after four hours on the same day.

We were then told to bring bank statements indicating if any monies were coming into our accounts.

We were then referred to the payment arrangements section.

This is where we received the worst service I have seen in ages.

The woman who dealt with us was arrogant, simply told us that we would even have to remove my son from a so-called “private school”.

She went further to say that we had to pay the account.

After this, we attempted to make an arrangement, which was declined, and we were told to pay the full amount or else.

For your information, my son’s school fees were paid in full by a family member and another family member sends us some money monthly, which in turn is used for household expenses, etc.

I wonder, has this woman ever heard of the saying that a half a loaf is better than none?

I want to urge the powers-that-be: ensure the people employed are of much better mannered nature.