Bad BG, Part 4

I love Bulgaria. A committed Bulgarophile, I am now in the process of buying our THIRD property in this country. That does not mean, however, that I like everything that is BG-related.
 
A real Bulgarian electricity bill!
For nearly two years, those scumbags at the Bulgarian electricity company have been overcharging us. We had no option but to pay, as they will disconnect you faster than saying "Nyama tok!" (No electricity!)

I thought that an e-mail would do the job, as there was a long queue at the electricity company's office, just along the road from the Lions Bridge (you can't hide your lion eyes). Well, I should have known better. Just because they do actually have an e-mail address does not really mean that the electricity company will answer your e-mails. And even if they do, it does not mean that they will refund you all of the money that they have collected because they have been overcharging you. 

First I sent to the electricity company all of the photos of the meter I had made. That did not achieve the desired result and in their reply they made the standard I-cannot-be-bothered ploy of asking for more information, so I sent them a copy of the electricity bill that they sent to me. Will this achieve anything? Probably not.  

And a genuine Bulgarian electricity meter.

The lawyer who dealt with the documents relating to the sale of our house in Kalotina is a nice lady called Sylvana. (Legal work is a lot cheaper in Bulgaria than it is in the UK, incidentally.) Anyway, I asked her, "Is it it true that there is a lot of corruption in Bulgaria? Bribe-taking? Mafia?" Yes.

UPDATE: Thanks to Sylvana's excellent efforts, the electricity company has at last admitted that they owe as a refund of more than 1,200 leva.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Educaring, Part 2

Image
Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed.  In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh...
Read more

On the Cards, Part 1

Image
Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one.  My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!   Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them. The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car ...
Read more

Moving to Bulgaria

Image
A lady called Betty Bradshaw recently wrote this on the Facebook Group "Moving to Bulgaria" and my replies are in italics. Sorry if this sounds thick... but what is the very first thing we need to do before buying a house in Bulgaria? Is it the visas? Is it buy a house first? We are serious about moving over, but have no clue where to begun our journey. Dear Beckie Bradshaw,  You are not being "thick" at all. We all have to start somewhere, when we do something completely new and out of our comfort zone!  Anyway, the first thing you need to before buying a house in Bul garia is to read my blog  www.bulgariawithnoodles.blogspot.com   Then you should watch some of Susan Ashwell's lovely videos about Bulgaria on YouTube. (Her series is called "Escape to a simpler place and time.")  Thirdl y, you should reply to the message that I am just about to write to you. Here is the message (or messages) I wrote to Becky, together with her replies. Hello! My wife an...
Read more