Power to my elbow

Every year I have the same problem with my energy supplier. They say I owe them money and must increase my monthly payment. They then try to gouge me for far too much. I phone up, I complain that I think my gas meter is running fast, they have a look and say it looks OK, I negotiate them down to a reasonable increase.

Not this year. I pay £44 a month for gas and electricity, the bulk of it for gas. I owed £214.94 "overage" for the year. They wanted to increase my payments to £79 - almost double. The clever woman on the phone infomed me that prices had gone up. Had they doubled? I asked. I knew the answer was no. If I paid off the amount due, then I could increase my payment to only £65 a month. That's almost 50% more, I said. Have prices gone up by 50%? It's only 12-and-a-half percent, she said. ????? Then, despite my assuring her that I only had a combi boiler running on gas, she informed me that my usage may have increased. In a mild winter when I was having hot flushes left right and centre? I don't think so. I gave her a chance to treat me as if I had a brain, or I would switch suppliers. She remained silent. I hung up and phoned another supplier. I switched on the spot. I'll be paying £50 a month with a chance to review it in 6 months. I know it will have to go up, but at least they listened to me and didn't try to blind me with false statistics on a day when I had been teaching MATHS!