Electrical pre paid metering

[ians]

It is absolutely disgusting that the waiting period for a pre paid meter has moved form 6 months to 12 months, which means that if you apply for a pre paid meter today, you will pay the municipality in around 6 weeks, then only have the pre paid meter installed next year this time in May. Yet there are hundreds of contractors looking for work and millions of people without jobs, but I suppose what more could a person expect.

It is not like you are they subsidise us like in the good old days, you pay the full rate and some, and you pay upfront, plus they earn million of rands in interest from all the payments, maybe it is just another money making racket they have latched onto. There are thousands of people waiting for meters to be installed.

[Justloadit]

The problem is if you do not belong to the clan, you get no work.

[ians]

We don't stick together and don't support each other, what do you expect, we still have control yet we just give in and cry on social networks then to make it even worse we go at each other and forget about the issue being discussed.

A very important tip for anyone applying for a pre paid meter,

Once the amount stated on the account is paid it doesn't stop there, if you read the small fine print you will notice there is an additional Deposit which must be paid, around R100. If you don't pay the R100 deposit your application will not be released to the depot until it is paid and they will not contact you if you don't pay the R100, they will just file the application away until you phone them and ask why the pre paid meter has not been installed. Once the R100 deposit is paid only then will your application join the 12 month que. It could end up taking years before your pre paid meter is installed as is the case with one of my customers, over 2 years and still no pre paid meter.

Another tip, don't get angry with them at customer services, they will just walk away and leave you standing at the counter, it is their right, you re just the customer and they don't owe you anything and if you don't like it , well you are pretty screwed because management are never available.

I have found a way to attract attention is to snore at the counter, you wont believe how quickly you get attention, I normal taking strong medication before I visit government departments to stay calm and relaxed.

[Dave A]

It is absolutely disgusting that the waiting period for a pre paid meter has moved form 6 months to 12 months

Since the introduction of the rule that residential property tenants can't open or transfer an electricity account in Durban, this is no surprise.

And without drastic action I'm quite sure the backlog is going to get far worse before it gets better.

[ians]

What we need is a private contracting company to take over, so that they can catch up. In fact the customer services entire department should be taken over by a private company to improve customer relations and improve the pathetic services rendered by EThekwini electricity department.

I have just received the costing (pro forma invoice) for an upgrade from single phase to 3 phase application number E0288263 which was submitted in the beginning of 2012, it was drawn by P NXELE on the 29/03/2012, approved on the 30/03/2012 no name just a scribble signature. You think that is bad, I have just received this pro forma invoice, but the on the pro forma invoice it states that this estimate is valid until the 20/02/2013, we are already in the 5 th mouth going into the 6 th month, which means this pro forma invoice is not even valid anymore.

One of our prepaid applications is into it 3 rd year ( I do realise it was my fault for not reading the small print about the R100 deposit) but just think if I never contacted them to enquire about the application it would have just been thrown into file 13.