Don't Pay

[paxman]

There's a movement on Twitter that is suggesting customers don't pay for their energy by cancelling DDs. I can't see who they people behind the movement are. Anyone know?

@JosephineGH
I find that hard to believe as all the energy companies push DDs.

Again, it's not about the individual (me)
Large numbers of people acting in unison and cancelling dds etc will have an impact .

The thing is it will get to the point of people physically not being able to pay because they have no money to!

The whole point I believe is to make a stand and why not? They can't take everyone to court can they.

Well see won't we ?

Josephine you can't make someone agree with you. That's just your opinion. None of you are right because we won't know until it happens.

If it's paying for what you use, and therefore healthy people have a choice to use less, then I presume there will be no rise in the standing charge in October?

Apparently this campaign has a simple focus

The mass cancellation of direct debits / nonpayments etc is designed to make the government reverse the planned price hike in October .

So it is in the governments hands

www.timeout.com/uk/news/dont-pay-uk-the-campaign-urging-millions-not-to-pay-their-energy-bills-this-winter-072722

The average annual bill is predicted to be £3800 by the start of 2023

I have never set up a direct debit for gas and electric bills. I send the company meter readings every month, the company emails me a bill and a date to pay and I pay on that date. The one time I did not send meter readings and received an estimated bill, I quickly sent meter readings and the bill was corrected as it had been massively over estimated by approx £70!!

Why would anyone listen to something Twitter was telling you to do? It's a daft idea in any case.

I don't feel disdain, I'm a millionaire myself and perfectly ok (and lucky), but there is a way of feeling compassion and caring about people and having wealth. People for whom the last 10 years has been slowly and surely awful and progressively worsening, and all that is good in this country is disappearing. Homelessness has quadrupled or more, human rights are being threatened in a way that makes me feel ashamed to be British. The cultural and financial poverty being experienced by those people unable to work for whatever reason has led to 25% of children in the UK experiencing poverty, housing is in crisis, the NHS is so dysfunctional I don't know where to start etc etc

No I don't feel disdain, I have an absolute hatred for the 2022 Tories, whether they're Truss, Sunak or Johnson, they're the same liars and cheats complicit in the dysfunction of our society.

Keyboard warriors mainly, there are probably some on here

There will be threads with idiots moaning about their credit reports next when they want to change their mortgage and they have a black mark

you can't just not pay, like you couldn't just not pay your council tax

You can. People refused to pay their poll tax in sufficient numbers to get it abolished. I wouldn’t do it but if enough people did ….

I don’t know, but I have heard (only via gossip) that that’s what’s being proposed. Which I’m all for. I’ll pay for what I use. I manage my budget and I’m a fucking grown up. I don’t need this ‘building credit’ nonsense. I mean, I use more data in summer, but the phone company doesn’t insist I build credit in winter. They just bill me for what I use, and I pay them.

Do you have to have a fixed direct debit? I mean, is it actually a fixed term or condition that one agrees to? Why? I don’t have to pay a fixed amount in advance of a bill for anything else. There’s no excuse for it if you have a smart meter. I did refuse to let them increase mine, and presumably so long as I don’t fall into debt (I’m in credit
because they overestimated how much I should be paying last year, surprise surprise!) they can’t actually make me. Can they?

I think reducing dependence on the bastards is the only way to go. If I was going to be here long enough, I’d disconnect and go fully micro-renewable. I’m utterly sick of being shafted for profit by people who have a lot more that I ever will. In the interim, a bit of clever civil disobedience sound in order. Not just not paying, that’s silly and won’t achieve anything. I liked the switching the box of for ten minutes on a Sunday night and creating power surges, but MN in general was pretty disparaging about it IIRC.

I have never paid by fixed direct debit or built up credit, why would I do that, I put in meter readings then adjust my DD accordingly but alway make sure I have paid for what I use

And we got council tax instead. Based on house value.
So a couple on a single average wage and higher valued house mortgaged to the hilt pays more than a family of four working adults living in a lower banded house they inherited and have no mortgage on.

I really don't think it was the victory it's claimed to be tbh.

True. I think this is a foolish mistake

People are being encouraged to do something that will be to their detriment

It won’t hurt others, it’s a kind of self imposed rationing, but it will them

If enough people didn’t pay for their energy, then the energy companies would sell their product elsewhere. This is nothing like a newly imposed tax that was unpopular. It is the payment of a critical resource that is globally in short supply.

No one is coming to save you on this. The gov’t is not going to risk a currency crisis by underwriting everyone’s utility bills. You’re going to have to cutback - for some people, a lot - on frivolous usage of the resource, while those who cannot get extra help.

Poll tax was outrageously unfair, it was a flat rate whether you were a dustman or a multi millionaire. If you’re mortgaged to the hilt and you can’t afford the house you live in it’s because that’s what you’ve chosen.

Exactly and then they couldn't get mortgages etc as they had ccjs