IconoclasT wrote:

Beleive me, if I had a legal recourse I would be pursuing it.

] If they have violated their own SLA by not correcting their
] own error in a timely manner, demand credit or compensation in
] writing via registered snail mail.

They corrected the error within 24 hours, but not for lack of trying. I spent nearly an entire day on the phone with them to get them to do a 30 second check in a "bulk" account to see if my payment ended up unclassified. I could have easily let this roll into multiple days by not riding their asses on it, but I needed to take a shower. If I had provided them with the information and then politely waited for them to resolve the issue I could have generated a fine for them (they have 1 business day to resolve improper disconnections), but I'd rather have my gas back on.

] Also, surely they are bound by the regulations of your local
] public utilies commission. File a formal complaint against
] them.

I've considered nailing them on their non-descript disconnection notice, but its a grey area. The rules say:

http://www.psc.state.ga.us/consumer_corner/consumer_corner%20gas.htm

Additionally, the marketer must make a good faith effort to make personal contact with the consumer at least two (2) days prior to disconnection. This personal contact may be in the form of a telephone call, certified mail, certification of mailing, hand delivery, or other method designed to reasonably notify the consumer of pending disconnection.

Its pretty clear that this is intended to be an interactive notification. You receive a telephone call. You sign for certified mail. Hand delivered does imply personal contact.

What they did is send me a notice that looks exactly like one of their bills, and it went on top of my bill pile without a second glance. I figured it was my monthly bill. This does not seem to be in the spirit of this rule.

I have no idea what "certification of mailing" means. Its possible that this vauge wording is the loophole they'd try to pull their notification through. It would end up being a debatable issue.

Frankly, I wouldn't be so angry with them if their customer service people had dealt with the matter at phone call number 1, rather then at phone call number 8, particularily given how quickly the person I reached on phone call number 8 found my check without having my fax in hand.

But the reality is that in a competitive market disconnection threats are prominent and unfiled checks get researched because the companies in question are financially incented to avoid screwing their paying customers. In this case these people couldn't give a damn if they have a paying customer cut off because those customers have no recourse. As long as a check gets cashed they are happy.

The only other time I've had an experience like this was with Pac Bell in California. Utilities and Banks in California treat new customers as criminals until they've established a several year history with them. Banks have a 15 day holding period they place on deposits to accounts that are newer then 6 months, which needless to say makes getting setup with an apartment out there a real adventure. (Not to mention the process you have to go through to get approved to rent.)

I made a bunch of long calls to Europe for business reasons one month about 6 months into my PacBell account. My bill was about twice as large as normal. So instead of billing me at the end of the month, they billed me in the middle of the month. I never received the bill (more on that in a minute) so on the end of the month they disconnected my line. No phone call. No other notice. Nothing.

This was a real pain in the ass because they put some credit risk record in their computer which not only killed our LD service but made it impossible for us to reconnect LD once we had sorted things out. It was several weeks before we had our phone service totally working again.

Now, this was in January. I actually did receive this 15 day bill. It arrived in April, along with a bunch of other mail that the post office had apparently lost and then refound. This occured twice with my post office there (the one on haight street on SF). USPS will take a report about a problem, but thats it. They don't actually investigate or fix problems. They just take reports. Unfortunately, vendors like PacBell assume that the postal system always works despite the fact that they don't use certified mail.

The moral of the story is that the challenge for regulators is to create a competitive environment where companies are actually beholden to the interests of their customers. In these cases I was dealing with companies who did not care whether or not I was happy because I had not alternative to doing busienss with them. That is always a recipie for trouble.

RE: Fuck Infinite Energy