The situation with Arms Ltd just seems to get worse, rather than better. The company might tell us that waiting lists and queues are getting shorter, but the fact of the matter is that abominable errors just seem to continue.

Just last week, this newspaper heard of a case whereby a customer had tried to close off an account to a residential property. That person waited patiently in the ‘lunatic asylum’ that doubles up for a customer service centre in Luqa for over three hours. That person was then sent to the Meter Reading Department to arrange an appointment to get a final reading.

An appointment was agreed, only for it to be changed at the last minute because the meter reader was going to be on leave at the time. The appointment was changed and a meter reading (final) was taken. It was supposed to be end of story – a bill should have been issued with the final amount owed. But no… that would be too simple for Arms.

The person ended up getting billed for a whole year – even though they had not used the property in question for that whole time. In addition, the meter reader was supposed to have taken a final reading.

TMI was shown the reading – consumption was 17045. That person was eventually billed €800 for over 24000 units consumed. The way Arms goes about its business is nothing short of gross incompetence on an unprecedented scale.

This story was only one of many that surface day after day. Waiting in a Spartan room with no one willing to help people, only directing them to take a number and take a seat. For mere productivity’s sake – how many more days are going to be wasted by people who have to take a day off to go and sort out their billing mess, only for a new, higher and even more inaccurate bill to be sent in its place?

Politicians have blamed the software. We blame the whole shoddy mess, from the top to the bottom. It’s absolute chaos. People with an iota of intelligence can read through their bills and then put themselves through Calvary in trying to get it sorted out.

But what about the older people who do not question things? What about those who are housebound and need to get to Luqa to query a problem? What about those people who do not have a car? Of course, the government will tell us that we will soon have a state of the art transport system…. But these are money matters. Matters that keep people awake at night and cause people to fret and stress over money that they know they do not owe, but are threatened and cajoled into settling for.

The smart meters, we are told, are being rolled out – but many do not have any faith that the system will solve much. If the automated system cannot even keep up with direct manual input, then one can only be filled with a sense of dread at what will happen if the date is collected automatically. The problem lies in the billing system. Something, somewhere, is amiss. And if one link in the chain is broken – then it all breaks down. Perhaps each and every person who has been subjected to undue stress, forced leave, worry and anxiety, should file a symbolic civil suit against Arms for €1; that should get the message across.