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Scamming the Public?
By Sunny MacMillan, Salisbury
I have spent what seems like an inordinate amount of time on the phone with CL&P, our local provider of electricity.
It's always an exercise in persistence to call a huge, seemingly impregnable company like CL&P. Plastic voices respond with an array of choices that would choke a horse. If you don't know what the possibilities are and can't write them down as fast as they are spewed at you, you are apt to blunder through the barricades in a manner wasteful of your energy and certainly your good humor. Do I pick #1 or #4? Might be either. How do I get a real live person on the phone? Much pushing of "O" for operator ensues.
Even then, you may run amok—or want to. You are asked for identifying numbers, which are long. Sometimes you are asked to provide other identifying information, as if anyone would try to "cheat" on getting a question answered. Mother’s maiden name, SS number, what have you? Next it may be the name of your favorite dog.
Be that as it may, I finally satisfy the "service rep" enough that he or she asks what the problem is. I explain in detail. "Oh, you need to speak with a different department." And so I go through the whole routine all over again, sometimes more than once, before I find someone human who has a mindset to actually help me.
Let me set the stage further. On our property is a tumble-down cottage that is almost never used for anything but storage. Once in a great while someone needs a light on, so we keep the electricity "on." The minimum charge, I am told, is about $8 per month. Imagine my chagrin when I began receiving electric bills dunning me for upwards of one hundred dollars for a few months’ time. That led to the first series of phone calls, when someone promised to see that it never happened again.
The fly in this particular ointment was the now-dread ESTIMATED bills. Now, some winters we have to be patient about this "estimation" of use. Deep snow can keep meter readers frustrated, and they make no such promise as "neither rain nor snow, etc." as the Post Office once supposedly did. This mild winter, however, there is no excuse for estimating bills four months in a row. Everyone agrees it has been an extremely clement season, so much so that the ticks many of us fear never had time for a winter holiday. But that's another story …
The electricity folks supply nice little graphics with our bills—little graphs and bar charts that aim to clarify what they are up to. A recent statement showed an amount due for our cottage of $177.68! My "energy profile"—on which I would think the company would base an "estimate," shows a tiny bit of use last June and July, and no use during the succeeding months until December. Then the blank columns, clearly identified as "estimated," soar high into the stratosphere for December, worse yet in January, February and March—resulting in an extraordinary bill. It would be even higher if I had not sent in the $25 that the "rep" suggested when I first called to complain about the inflated estimates.
I wrote a letter detailing this problem to some official nesting deep within a CL&P lair. More bills.
Yesterday I mentally girded my loins (whatever they are) and fought my way again through the phone system to get a person who would listen to me. Yes, she agreed, the billing bore no relation to previous use. "Then how are your estimates made?" I asked saucily. Some bureaucratese ensued about "estimates made on previous estimates," etc. Excuse me. What are we talking about here?
We are talking about a public utility that is supposedly carefully regulated by the Department of Public Utility—the DPUC. Doesn’t the "C" stand for "control"?
If I had been frightened enough about losing my electricity that I paid what appeared to be a valid bill, I would be out close to $200. That's a lot of money in these parlous times for an unused service. At $8 per month, give or take a light being turned on once in a while to check out what the mice have been up to in there, it would take years to catch up with that amount—if ever. Then CL&P would have the use of my money, earn interest on it—and, correspondingly, I would not have the use of it and earn nothing at all except a healthy respect for how a big company can "con" unsuspecting customers.
I can picture someone even older than I am, perhaps a bit more befuddled than I, paying the bill out of habit—"I always pay my bills on time"—or handing it over to an accountant or relative who helps with paying the bills. I can also picture someone whose grasp of English is uncertain paying it just to avoid getting into "trouble."
I also wonder if non-payment of this entirely erroneous amount could have repercussions on someone's credit rating. Not to mention that "late payment charges"—on an amount fabricated by the company—accrue stolidly month after month when I continue to refuse to pay a bill I do not owe.
Finally I was told that this estimated amount was wrong, that there is a severe shortage of meter readers, and that an entire new system of reading meters is in the process of being installed—"but it will take some years," etc., etc. Then no one will have to come onto a property; he, she or it will aim a "gun" from a car and scan in the meter reading from the road. It’s wonderful what technology can do.
No sooner had I hung up from what seemed like hours with the first "rep" than I received a call from someone delegated to answer my letter. Again the sad tale of no meter readers, rendered almost as a confidence—"I probably should not be saying this, but …" Do they expect my sympathy? With our growing Latino presence, for example, even a person who speaks little English could be trained to read numbers! Retired people could do it. I have never seen one ad in our local paper looking for meter readers. Wouldn't it make sense to hire someone locally to read meters in a region well-known to the person?
I now have another bill in hand. The company had managed to get the unwarranted total up to $203.90 beyond my $25 payment. Then, finally, there is a correction. I am now told I owe $12.97! This would almost be comical if it did not entail late fees, the company use of my money if I had paid that outrageous, invalid amount, and the enormous hassle of phone calls and letters.
When I first moved to Connecticut, I remember asking if there was not a differential—i.e., a lower rate—to encourage electrical use late at night for things like dryers and dishwashers. I was told "No." But recently I thought I heard on the radio news that an electric company elsewhere in New England is actually going to pay its customers to use electricity during off-peak hours in order to conserve energy. Can this be? We all hear and maybe talk about conserving energy. How simple it would be (if the electric company here was not seemingly bent on taking advantage of consumers) to offer a lower rate for late-night electrical usage.
Instead, I feel nothing but annoyance for the time and waste of my mental energy (and what could have been an egregious misuse of my money) to straighten this mess out. Most people feel helpless when besieged by a big company. Remember, readers, big is not necessarily better, and sometimes even a small person can squeak loudly enough to get someone to listen.
I have now been told my accounts will be looked at "specially." That's great if it spares me these outrageous bills, but every citizen deserves to be treated fairly.
I wish our elected representatives would look into this matter of CL&P's billing too high based on completely unrealistic estimates, and then using that money to accrue interest on the company’s behalf—not to mention all the "late fees" on amounts not due. I also wish they could figure out a way to make CL&P offer a differential rate to encourage less consumption of electrical energy.
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