We are getting really close to demolishing the old house now and as a result this week my task was to get the electricity and gas lines/meters abolished. A seemingly simple task, it took all Monday, most of Tuesday and all of my resolve to get these items organised.
Electricity was really simple, I rang United Energy, the distributor who told me to call AGL who were the retailer the previous owner used as the electricity was still connected. The lovely guy at AGL opened a non-supply account for me, emailed me the form and I had the whole thing organised in about 10 minutes. Sweet.
Gas was a whole other story. Now, I like the odd glass of wine but usually I don’t indulge until the kids are in bed. Monday and my dealing with Origin Energy had me hankering for a crisp glass of Sauv Blanc at about 3pm to try and get me through the rest of the day.
It seems that on the general Origin energy phone number, no-one knows how to get gas disconnected. I was on hold for 50 minutes, transferred to 4 different people and when they finally answered I got disconnected and had to start again… that was just Monday morning.
Not willing to waste more time on hold, I twittered about my ordeal and tagged Origin on twitter. Almost instantaneously I heard from Claire, their social manager and she had my details passed onto my own private customer service officer who would do all the waiting on hold for me trying to sort this out. Redeemed! Or so I thought. After being transferred a few more times, the guy at National response centre told me I needed the previous owners final meter reading to get the abolishment and subsequent employees told me I needed to create and account, get gas connected, disconnected and then abolished. What the? I threw the towel in at that point on Monday afternoon. 10 Origin employees, over 2 hours on hold, 1 message on twitter and still no idea how to get rid of the gas.
Tuesday was a different story. A new call to the National response Centre had me connected straight away with Rylie who was fantastic. She emailed me the form whilst I was on the phone. Told me all I needed was a copy of something with my name as the owner, the meter number and a completed application form. I sent this in on Tuesday night and by wed morning the job was raised and the gas will be taken out ASAP at no cost!!! I can’t believe how easy it was. Apart from Rylie, Origin Energy really need to get their act together and certainly won’t be in the running to supply our new house with anything once it is built!
We must be almost at the same stage. Our abolishments were a but different. Gas (Origin) and Optus were simple, Electricity (SPAusNet) was a bit more of a pain, the transition from overhead to pit caused a few headaches, its all done now but the old power pole still remains. Telstra was a hardest, I spoke to 10 different people. One girl told me to call dial before you dig! Finally found the right person and the line was gone the next morning.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the build.
Cheers
Che
Your scenario is identical to mine! On hold, transferred, on hold again, cut off.....argh!! Telstra were the worst and in the end i ended up going with private companies for all the services! You would think these requests would be something these retailers would receive everyday, but yet, not one employee actually knows the process! I think I've found a hole in the development market that could do with some representation!! Natalie's abolishment services sounds pretty good to me!! Lol :)
ReplyDeleteI know this post is old but it was at the top of my Google search.
ReplyDeleteI have just done the same. We are building in Mornington. United energy was easy for electricity. Just a form and a letter and all done.
Gas I eventually found out was Origin. There is no direct number for the the abolishment team. Call origin and ask an operator for SPEED DIAL 090. Once I got to the right department they were super helpful and had it organised in 10 mins.
Thanks for your comment blugreen. I am sure your information will be helpful for someone searching on Google just as you did. Many thanks. Kirsten
DeleteWhat was your cost bluegreen. We are with Lumo for our gas who apparently use multinet for our area in Mordialloc and were just quoted $781 to abolish the gas!! This is $500 over what we were told is about average
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