Purely a vent since my cats are tired of me venting to them

What a lovely little scam this appears to be:

So my auto-pay seems to have failed. My fault for not catching it. I found a shut-off notice in my door Friday evening. I called immediately, but they were closed. The notice says that my power will be shut off on or after 0800 tomorrow morning. Won't let me make a payment online or with their automated shut-off because a shut-off notice went out...and they won't open until tomorrow, 0800.

I'm sure the tech won't be out here on the dot, but still annoying as hell to have to wait here. If I miss him they'll tack on another $50, and it takes 48 hours to kick in...so a few days without power will be just dandy.

Just a stress I wish I didn't have to worry about Christmas morning...

Don't they give you at least a notice 30 days before they shut off the power?

That sounds like a litigation exposure for them should someone die because they shut the power off so quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Don't they give you at least a notice 30 days before they shut off the power?

I have had a brain fart, forgot to schedule payment, and no, Florida Power / Progress Energy / Duke Energy (or whatever name the same company is using this week) did NOT give 30 day notice.

What was really aggravating, this was for the hangar, which is a business account, and as such there is a $200.00 deposit that they have held for almost ten years. The missing payment was about fifty or sixty bucks. The hangar door was open when they killed power. The big heavy door is operated hydraulically, and the hydraulic pump is driven by an electric motor, so when they killed power, the door was wide open with no way to close it. And the fire alarm monitoring system went down, as well, with airplanes in the hangar, 100 octane fuel in the tanks.

That took a bit of scrambling to get the situation resolved.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Don't they give you at least a notice 30 days before they shut off the power?

That sounds like a litigation exposure for them should someone die because they shut the power off so quickly.

48 hours is all you get...what was weird is that they delivered it Friday, and were closed sat/sun/mon with the scheduled shut-off being this morning.

Was able to call and make the payment at 0800 as expected, and from what a supervisor said it the notice should have been placed on the 20th, and they have no idea why it was delayed...or, at the very least, if a tech had forgotten about it until Friday the shutoff date should have been updated accordingly.

It's dealt with...but man was it more of a pain than it had to be!

quote:

Originally posted by xwesler:

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
Don't they give you at least a notice 30 days before they shut off the power?

That sounds like a litigation exposure for them should someone die because they shut the power off so quickly.

48 hours is all you get...what was weird is that they delivered it Friday, and were closed sat/sun/mon with the scheduled shut-off being this morning.

Was able to call and make the payment at 0800 as expected, and from what a supervisor said it the notice should have been placed on the 20th, and they have no idea why it was delayed...or, at the very least, if a tech had forgotten about it until Friday the shutoff date should have been updated accordingly.

It's dealt with...but man was it more of a pain than it had to be!

I'm glad its resolved but 48 hours seems very wrong. I miss a credit card payment and at most the company charges interest and a penalty fee.
I miss the gas & electric bill, which I have done several times when I was on hard copy, and they just roll it over on the next billing cycle without interest even though there's a provision. I think on the third billing cycle is when I get a bill with a red banner on top. And I think there's a nominal set up charge to put service back on again.

I can't imagine the company making money off the service initiations so they're also losing money on these shut off/turn it back on ops. Plus I go back on the basic life issue if the person is old and frail and needing heat in winter or cool air in summer, never mind if they are on some medical equipment.

When I lived in Pennsylvania I had MedEd or PP&L for electric hook up. MedEd always had the higher power rates and more frequent brown outs.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
When I lived in Pennsylvania I had MedEd or PP&L for electric hook up. MedEd always had the higher power rates and more frequent brown outs.

Yes. Not impressed with Met-Ed at all. We moved several years back from PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company) land to Met-Ed territory. Not only were the rates higher, the customer service wasn't great, their budget billing sucks and their roll-out for the digital meters was ridiculously slow. I had a digital meter back in 2007 at my old place with PECO yet we STILL don't have them where we are now with Met-Ed, and it appears we won't until 2019 at least.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
When I lived in Pennsylvania I had MedEd or PP&L for electric hook up. MedEd always had the higher power rates and more frequent brown outs.

Yes. Not impressed with Met-Ed at all. We moved several years back from PECO (Philadelphia Electric Company) land to Met-Ed territory. Not only were the rates higher, the customer service wasn't great, their budget billing sucks and their roll-out for the digital meters was ridiculously slow. I had a digital meter back in 2007 at my old place with PECO yet we STILL don't have them where we are now with Met-Ed, and it appears we won't until 2019 at least.

My complex was just switched to digital meters this past March.

I was being overcharged by quite a bit at one point, and when I called them out on it they told me the meter was only read every other month, and the off-month bills were estimated based on the previous year's readings...problem was, I had only lived here two months (single, no pets) and the previous tenants were a married couple with kids and animals, so WAY higher energy usage. They did credit me a small amount, but I doubt it was anywhere near what it should have been, and fighting them was going nowhere...