Me vs. The Utility Companies

About 2 years after we moved from Plano to Addison, I was escorting a group to San Francisco and was actually on a street car holding on for dear life as we chugged up or down one of those legendary hills. My cell phone rang and, to my surprise and puzzlement, it was my electric company. How did they even get my cell phone? They were writing to let me know that they had just discovered an error in their billing system and had never adjusted the amount they were billing us at our old house. In other words, they were still billing me the approximate amount we'd always been paying at our old house even though we were in a new house. Our new house was only very slightly larger, but we also now had a pool.

You know that old joke about how a pool is a big hole in your backyard that you throw money into? It's very true. Not only the chemicals, the maintenance, the repairs (oh, the repairs!) but it also takes a lot of electricity to run the pump, the skimmer and the filter.

The bottom line was that I now owed the electricity company over $2000.00 for electricity I'd used and not been billed for. I politely informed them that, while I was sorry that they had such a bad billing system, that I'd promptly paid each and every bill sent to me and that their billing problem was their problem. They finally agreed to write off half of the amount and allowed me to pay the other half out over time.

This meant that now my electric bill went from about $200.00 per month to about $300.00 per month and that I was paying an additional $100.00 per month to make up the gap. Hello, your electric bill just doubled. YAY!

Not only that, but shortly thereafter my contract expired with said electric company so my price per kilowatt hour skyrocketed. I got to have a really quick education in shopping for electricity and understanding electric meters and electric bills.

And that I will share with you tomorrow!