modern times
Mar. 29th, 2007 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pvaneyndA colleague at work got his 'final end of year bill' from his electricity supplier. In Belgium you pay every month an amount based on the guess of the supplier of your usage. Because , he claims, his new house is drying out, so requires less energy to heat up, he consumed about 20% less energy then last year so their estimate was too high. Good: he gets 400 € back. Bad: the amount he has to pay a month goes up.
So he phones them up and asked why. The reason: the program to adjust the guess based on the usage of last year cannot handle a negative amount (you payed too much) so the program thinks the last estimate was 400 € a month too low instead of too high, so it adjusts it upwards. Next year it will adjust it even more up :-).
Now I know that the ABS function in FORTRAN exists already since the late 1950's so I think the problem is not their programs, but that this is an easy way to get an interest-free loan out of people that don't watch their bill with a eye for details.
So he phones them up and asked why. The reason: the program to adjust the guess based on the usage of last year cannot handle a negative amount (you payed too much) so the program thinks the last estimate was 400 € a month too low instead of too high, so it adjusts it upwards. Next year it will adjust it even more up :-).
Now I know that the ABS function in FORTRAN exists already since the late 1950's so I think the problem is not their programs, but that this is an easy way to get an interest-free loan out of people that don't watch their bill with a eye for details.
