Guess-estimated Electricity And Water Bills, Why? By Maltalive

A rant by maltalive dot tv

Guess-estimated electricity and water bills, WHY?

Why, I ask myself do we get through the letter box estimated bills? (From now on I will refer to estimated bills as guess-estimated bills as it seems to make more sense to me and you hopefully by the end of this short article, or rant!)
Maybe once or twice a year we will be fortunate enough to get an actual bill, maybe we have to thank the mathematician/accountant that appears once or twice a year to give an actual bill payment!



But why in a modern world do we not always get an actual bill? Is it because someone is making money from all our guess-estimated bill payments, which I will do my best to try, or shall I say guess, to make sense of it all shortly!



Firstly I will say that I have recently moved back to Malta, where I have lived on and off all my life, but have been living in England for the past 4/5 years, I cannot remember the exact time I lived there, that was just a guess-estimate!



So, here I am back in Malta and I have recently rented a beautiful traditional apartment in a separate part of a town house in Sliema, fortunately for me the owners only use their part of the house occasionally throughout the year, and a very nice couple they are, I must say. As we were going through the rental agreement they explained to me about the bill payment, basically we agreed that I would pay them a certain amount each month towards the bills; Ill call it a guess-estimated arrangement, of which I was happy to agree to as they are given guess-estimated bills themselves, so no choice really! They showed me a recent guess-estimated bill so as to give me an idea of how much it would be, when I saw the guess-estimated bill I laughed out loud, they looked at me in surprise and wondered what I laughed at, to which I explained that I had seen my fathers recent guess-estimated bill which had the exact same guess-estimated amount, to which they replied why is it funny, I explained that my father lived in a similar size property to mine, and this is a guess-estimated bill for a town house! How can that be..?



If Albert Einstein was still alive I believe he may have difficulty in explaining this dilemma! God rest his soul!



Whilst I lived in the UK I refused to pay guess-estimated bills, I would inform them that I wanted an actual bill due to the fact that I was moving shortly, they would say in reply; that we will pay you the money back at the end of the year if the guess-estimate is over (hardly going to be under is it!), I would then reply, do you know where I will be at the end of the year, because I dont!? Some people reading this may think I am an awkward customer, I would say that I am just a customer!



Now I will tell you a brief scenario involving a family member in the UK and about her guess-estimated bill! At the end of the year she was given 300 back from the electricity company due to her guess-estimating billing; To which I replied, wow thats generous of them, I then said, look at it this way, I am sorry to shatter your dreams but, now think that the said corporate/state company held 30 million (half the population of the UK) times 300 of each customer and had it placed in their extremely large and very heavy corporate bank accounts for one year! Now imagine the interest they will gain from such a manipulative manoeuvre! I am not going to go into the interest rate figures; Ill leave that for you to work out and ponder on!



Also I will let the reader work out the interest gained by local companies in Malta who give out the same guess-estimated bills! (I am neither a mathematician nor an accountant!) But what I will add is a brief part of an article which I read in The Sunday Times of Malta 26-06-2011; Electricity bills may rise by 20 to 30per cent next year if the state-owned energy company (Enemalta) buys its oil requirements at current future prices, according to the Finance Minister..



So, I guess-estimate that our guess-estimated bills we bill even more guess-estimated in the coming year! I better stop now as I have a guess-estimated flight departure to catch!