Need to rant, and I'm so very fed up.
I'm a single, disabled parent. Been a single parent since September but ex always used our money on crap when we were together, and things are financially always tight.
So, I moved house in June and the house was with British Gas on pre-payment smart meters. I'd never been with British Gas before. I put £100 on both electric and gas, so £200 total. I then switched companies and was sent a cheque refunding me £86 that I didn't use from British Gas. Thought that was the end of it.
I've been trying to save for carpet in the house as currently the downstairs floors are concrete (yes, seriously) and upstairs is MDF, except for more concrete in the bathroom. It's very creaky and freezing cold. My DS who is one is just starting crawling and learning to cruise. I have a rug in the living room but it only covers half the room and the rest of the house has no proper flooring. However, with Christmas, switching over to benefits and ex being an arse about paying maintenance, plus huge new energy bills, I've got nothing for carpet.
So I went onto a carpet companies website and saw they offer payment plans. I've never been in debt or had bad credit so thought, brilliant, I'll give them a ring. I get through and talk to them and they say my credit score is to low for them to approve anything. I check a credit report service and apparently owe British Gas £570 and had unpaid bills going back years.
I phone British Gas and after being hung up on twice and having their automated system repeatedly telling me to enter my account details when I dong have an account, they tell me that they'd somehow transferred the previous tenants debt onto my name and that I didn't owe them anything and they'd make sure my credit report would be correct within 3 days. That was over two weeks ago.
So I phoned again today and had to deal with all the same rubbish of their automated system and being constantly transferred and having to repeat myself, all whilst struggling to keep DS happy and being on hold for forever, and they say that they can sort it out, but it will take a year (!) for my credit report to be back where it was as it needs at least 12 months since the last overdue bill was settled to reflect a true credit rating!
So now I'm stuffed and my one year old is having to learn to walk on cold concrete floors because British Gas cocked up. I'm so angry I can't focus on anything. I'm also sleep deprived and cannot see how I'll be able to afford carpet for at least six months atm so I just needed this rant.