beached as bro

Gary said at least four meter readers had checked their reading and failed to detect the error.

Someone in this story is full of shiat.

Hmm, so the owners know that they were under-billed, receive a back bill from the power company, and yet they are in the right for refusing to pay it?

Granted, they offered a monthly arrangement which was refused, but to flat-out deny payment just screams that they are self-entitled douchebags.

Anastacya: Hmm, so the owners know that they were under-billed

[citation needed]

/ The provider accused them of knowing. That is a different claim than the one you're reporting.

MooseUpNorth: Anastacya: Hmm, so the owners know that they were under-billed

[citation needed]

/ The provider accused them of knowing. That is a different claim than the one you're reporting.

Meh. I had a fail. Still doesn't change how I feel about the people. If the owners knew there are more than four meters, and the discrepancy comes from said 5th meter, they should pay the back cost.

Whether that back cost is $55k, I do not know. Just seems like there was a billing error, they got busted for underpaying, and decide to do the "well it's your fault, yes we used the service but since you didn't bill us for it, we're not paying" BS.

Situational ethics are bad, mmkay.

Anastacya: MooseUpNorth: Anastacya: Hmm, so the owners know that they were under-billed

[citation needed]

/ The provider accused them of knowing. That is a different claim than the one you're reporting.

Meh. I had a fail. Still doesn't change how I feel about the people. If the owners knew there are more than four meters, and the discrepancy comes from said 5th meter, they should pay the back cost.

Whether that back cost is $55k, I do not know. Just seems like there was a billing error, they got busted for underpaying, and decide to do the "well it's your fault, yes we used the service but since you didn't bill us for it, we're not paying" BS.

Situational ethics are bad, mmkay.

"The company said it had been reading five dials instead of six on the meter and blamed information provided by the couple's previous provider, Empower."

There is only one meter, and that meter was just being read incorrectly by the power company. How were the owners supposed to know about that?

How many years accounted for 55k?

/they have an accountant, therefore must be rich.
//fark em.

NobleHam: "The company said it had been reading five dials instead of six on the meter and blamed information provided by the couple's previous provider, Empower."

There is only one meter, and that meter was just being read incorrectly by the power company. How were the owners supposed to know about that?

When I receive my power bill, it lists the meter readings. Maybe I am just more perceptive than these people, but I know enough about how both gas and electric meters are read that if I get an obscene bill, I am able to go look at my own meter and determine where the mistake is made.

This happened once with my gas meter. They gave me an "estimated" bill which was $1k higher than my usual bill. Once I went out to my meter and read the actual reading, it was adjusted.

I would think that if you receive a bill that is absurdly high, a person would make a few phone calls, ask what the meter said, that sort of thing.

Anastacya: I would think that if you receive a bill that is absurdly high, a person would make a few phone calls, ask what the meter said, that sort of thing.

Another fail, apparently.

If you RTFA a bit more carefully, you'll see this wasn't a case of a single bill being unusually high. This was a case of systemic under-billing over years, and this after the company refunded them $9000 for believing they'd overcharged them.

If your typical power bill over several years is $800/month, and you get a bill for $800 this month, and your provider recently told you they'd been overcharging you the whole time, what exactly is supposed to tip you off that the bill is half of what they now say it should have been?

Based on the facts in the article, if the couple are at fault at all, it's for trusting that their power provider knew what they were doing.

The error was systemic and entirely the provider's fault. They need to write it off, fix their procedures, and move on.

MooseUpNorth: Anastacya: I would think that if you receive a bill that is absurdly high, a person would make a few phone calls, ask what the meter said, that sort of thing.

Another fail, apparently.

If you RTFA a bit more carefully, you'll see this wasn't a case of a single bill being unusually high. This was a case of systemic under-billing over years, and this after the company refunded them $9000 for believing they'd overcharged them.

If your typical power bill over several years is $800/month, and you get a bill for $800 this month, and your provider recently told you they'd been overcharging you the whole time, what exactly is supposed to tip you off that the bill is half of what they now say it should have been?

Based on the facts in the article, if the couple are at fault at all, it's for trusting that their power provider knew what they were doing.

The error was systemic and entirely the provider's fault. They need to write it off, fix their procedures, and move on.

Couldn't have said it better if I tried.

The door-to-door salesman had nothing to do with the bill issue...

/_{so only 4558 reasons}

I'm curious as to what their power bills were before they changed providers..... This would certainly determine culpability.

MooseUpNorth 2010-02-08 06:25:03 AM
Anastacya: I would think that if you receive a bill that is absurdly high, a person would make a few phone calls, ask what the meter said, that sort of thing.

Another fail, apparently.

If you RTFA a bit more carefully, you'll see this wasn't a case of a single bill being unusually high. This was a case of systemic under-billing over years, and this after the company refunded them $9000 for believing they'd overcharged them.

If your typical power bill over several years is $800/month, and you get a bill for $800 this month, and your provider recently told you they'd been overcharging you the whole time, what exactly is supposed to tip you off that the bill is half of what they now say it should have been?

Based on the facts in the article, if the couple are at fault at all, it's for trusting that their power provider knew what they were doing.

The error was systemic and entirely the provider's fault. They need to write it off, fix their procedures, and move on.


Try that one on your bank next time they make an error in your favor.
According to TFA, Mercury Energy recently bought the utility and detected some billing errors, then corrected them. It's a private company, so where are all the bootstrappy capitalists out there.

On the other hand, I once fell for one of FPL's money saving plans and my bill doubled immediately. Took a year to get out from under that deal. It had to run its course. They also charge me with a new deposit every few years. So far, they have about $6K in deposits from me. Enough to pay for a year & a half of regular bills.

/quick and dirty

TheyCallMeSirr2: The door-to-door salesman had nothing to do with the bill issue...

/so only 4558 reasons

FTFA: a door-to-door salesman promised lower bills

Which they got... Sort-of.

/ Pet peeve: Split infinitive: "Reason # 4559 not to trust ..."

Anastacya is apparently suffering from a life FAIL at the moment. Our parent company would have spotted it years ago but we misread her life-meter. Not to worry though, well be sending her a bill in the mail for the mistake because we know how to RTFA, and assume that she would know how too.

Could have been worse. He could have suffered the fate of an un-successful encyclopedia salesman.

/Burglar!

His wife is kinda hot.

GranoblasticMan: / Pet peeve: Split infinitive: "Reason # 4559 not to trust ..."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with split infinitives.

Oxford Dictionaries (new window)

This is a split infinitive:

To boldly go where no man has gone before!

The infinitive is to go, and it has been 'split' by the adverb boldly. Split infinitives have been the cause of much controversy among teachers and grammarians, but the notion that they are ungrammatical is simply a myth: in his famous book Modern English Usage, Henry Fowler listed them among 'superstitions'!

Split infinitives are frequently poor style, but they are not strictly bad grammar. In the example above, to avoid the split infinitive would result either in weakness (to go boldly) or over-formality (boldly to go): either would ruin the rhythmic force and rhetorical pattern of the original. It is probably good practice to avoid split infinitives in formal writing, but clumsy attempts to avoid them simply by shuffling adverbs about can create far worse sentences.

Chicago Manual of Style (new window)

CMOS has not, since the thirteenth edition (1983), frowned on the split infinitive. The fifteenth edition now suggests, to take one example, allowing split infinitives when an intervening adverb is used for emphasis (see paragraphs 5.106 and 5.160). In this day and age, it seems, an injunction against splitting infinitives is one of those shibboleths whose only reason for survival is to give increased meaning to the lives of those who can both identify by name a discrete grammatical, syntactic, or orthographic entity and notice when that entity has been somehow besmirched.

Professor at Harvard and chairman of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary (new window)

Any speaker who has not been brainwashed by the split-verb myth can sense that these corrections go against the rhythm and logic of English phrasing. The myth originated centuries ago in a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive because it consists of a single word, like dicere, "to say." But in English, infinitives like "to go" and future-tense forms like "will go" are two words, not one, and there is not the slightest reason to interdict adverbs from the position between them.

In other words, take your pet peeve and shove it up your ass, and remove the stick while you're up there.

GranoblasticMan: / Pet peeve: Split infinitive: "Reason # 4559 not to trust ..."

This is the kind of petty pedantry up with which I will not put.

/channelling Churchill

Pay off your suppliers, pay off every other bill, raise yoru salaries to whatever cash you have on hand and declare bankruptcy. Let the judge sort this mess out.

What annoys me is that the private power company turned a profit of 153 million dollars last year. There are like 5 people in New Zealand and the rest of the population are sheep - how the fark is this possible?

Tell me again why the rush to privatize utilities across the western world was a "good thing"?

Xcel tried something like this in MN. They realized they had underbilled a bunch of people over a period of time. Then they demanded they all pay up the difference right now like it was the customer's fault. The PUC had a little talk with Xcel.

Our old gas company used to pull billing tricks before those electronic meters were put into use. They would not bother having anyone read your meter and send you an estimated bill that was always way more than you had ever used in a month. It would then take multiple calls and an act of Congress to get them to correct your bill.

TwistedFark: What annoys me is that the private power company turned a profit of 153 million dollars last year. There are like 5 people in New Zealand and the rest of the population are sheep - how the fark is this possible?

Tell me again why the rush to privatize utilities across the western world was a "good thing"?

Their power plants harvest the static electricity generated by sheep rubbing together.

I think it is silly how if a customer is overcharged for service they expect a refund, yet if they are undercharged they think it is a mistake on the business and that the business should just eat the cost.

You shouldn't have it both ways.

I used to be a door to door salesman and you could trust me. That's probably why I only lasted about 5 months making very little. The ones that succeed at it are pushy A-holes who say anything to get the sale. I would say "You want this?... No?.. OK then, have a nice day."

hailin: I think it is silly how if a customer is overcharged for service they expect a refund, yet if they are undercharged they think it is a mistake on the business and that the business should just eat the cost.

You shouldn't have it both ways.

I'm sure there's a law covering how far back the company can/must go in correcting over/under-charges.

Yogimus: How many years accounted for 55k?

/they have an accountant, therefore must be rich.
//fark em.

Bullshiat - once I went to represent a friend having her butt kicked by apartment complex managers who thought they could push her around, calling myself her accountant. I had no credentials whatsoever, no knowledge of her finances (other than the fact that my buddy had to pony up $600 for a delinquent roommate who I then went after) but had the smarts & balls to stand up to the people bullying her. Apt. complex managers didn't ask for credentials but I definitely scared the crap out of them (I'm a biatch when I want to be, I wrote letters to the SEC based on their claims of being untouchable because they were a publicly traded company). They gave her and roomies not only a pass, but a free month's rent for their troubles.

i wonder if there is some sort of rule on how far back utility companies are allowed to bill for past service. when i worked for the phone company, i would see a simular issue every now and then where a customers account had some delayed billing. we only made them pay for 3 months of the delay. any further back, we credited to them. the customer has a responsibility to atleast review their bills, but the utility companies also have a responsibility to bill in a timely manner and to let 55k worth of service go unpaid is the power companies fault.

GranoblasticMan: Split infinitive

Good thing we speak English and not Latin, you pompous farkwad.

borg7of9: i wonder if there is some sort of rule on how far back utility companies are allowed to bill for past service. when i worked for the phone company, i would see a simular issue every now and then where a customers account had some delayed billing. we only made them pay for 3 months of the delay. any further back, we credited to them. the customer has a responsibility to atleast review their bills, but the utility companies also have a responsibility to bill in a timely manner and to let 55k worth of service go unpaid is the power companies fault.

Depends on the state or country. In my state you can go as far back as a year for service corrections. In other states it might only be a few months.

I have no idea with New Zealand.

@hailin i guess they should look in to what the laws are where they live. i can't imagine that companies just get free run of how far back they can bill people. if that were the case, the power companies can bill you for anything, no matter how far back.

Yogimus: How many years accounted for 55k?

/they have an accountant, therefore must be rich.
//fark em.

It would be suicide to be a business owner with employees and not have at least a part-time accountant. Doing all the finances yourself means you're not managing and running the actual business - though every owner should independently review the finances monthly or quarterly (themselves or through an outside agency). Did you not see that it's for a sports bar? It was only in the first paragraph.

hailin: I think it is silly how if a customer is overcharged for service they expect a refund, yet if they are undercharged they think it is a mistake on the business and that the business should just eat the cost.

You shouldn't have it both ways.

Both ways are generally mistakes on the companies' part.

Charge them the full charge for this month, plus the difference on the first month of what they owe.. until they catch up. This is a minimally acceptable method of dealing with it.

Permit them to change providers whenever they want, unless they stay.

Yes, it doesn't make your business competitive, but the customer has a right to know the full bill every month (per contract), to determine if they need to save energy, or try a different company. If you inadvertantly hid the full amount from them, it's fair to assume that their decision to stay with your company is based on how much they've been charged. If you increase their price, they may rethink that decision. If you "Secretly" or accidentally do it.. it's the same thing.

It's then up to your company how you'd like to proceed regarding dealling with the rest of the debt... Be competitive and eat some of that bill, or pass the entire bill along.. The power company is correct though.. if someone is undercharged for something, they are not let off the hook for paying the full amount.

Oh.. I forgot, this is already what the company is doing, and the couple are biatching about it.

Dead-Guy: The power company is correct though.. if someone is undercharged for something, they are not let off the hook for paying the full amount.

Really? Because I have a court judgment in my favor saying that, in my jurisdiction at least, that's not true.

I got a collection notice a few years back regarding some "unpaid" interim taxes. The county turned over the "debt" and when I pointed out that in the two years since it was supposedly due I'd gotten exactly zero bills or notices, the tax collector, a local idiot of note, basically said the same thing you did: just because I'd never been told about the debt didn't mean I wasn't responsible for paying it.

Well, I dragged them into court, they stood in front of the JP for five minutes stammering like buffoons and not producing any evidence they'd even TRIED to notify me of the "debt" (while happily sending me other legit tax notices the whole time) and then they wound up giving me $245 to cover the filing fees and my time. They also paid the court costs and presumably they ate the debt collection agency's fee.

Comcast once did something similar: I went onto automatic payment with them and for four months they sent bills saying not to send money, it would be automatically deducted, then they shut off my cable for non-payment. When I called them up they claimed I owed nearly $500. When I challenged them on the automatic payment issue and verified they had all the information correct to do the payments, the crackhead rep said they'd never actually attempted one, but that it was my responsbility to make sure they were taking the payments out, not theirs.

I called my lawyer and he sent them a nice letter informing them that if they didn't turn the cable back on and set up a reasonable payment plan, they'd be facing us in court with four bills showing paid balances. It cost me $175 to do that, but they quickly turned the cable back on, knocked off all the late and reconnection fees (about $120 worth of crap) and offered a payment plan for the other half (which I declined and simply paid it in full). In the end, it cost me $55 more to threaten them than to just suck it up and let them walk all over me, but it was worth it just for the feeling of satisfaction that came with that weepy apology letter.

Mistakes happen, of course, and if they're caught in a reasonable time-frame I'm cool with it as long as it's not a regular thing. But when you go for years without catching major mistakes that add up to tens of thousands of dollars, then sue the customer to fix your screw-up?

No. See you in court, jerkwads. Unless they can prove the couple knew about this for awhile and didn't say anything, they don't deserve a dime of that money. Making mistakes is a business expense that you eat. It's (probably) not their fault the company made a $50,000 error.

Anastacya: NobleHam: "The company said it had been reading five dials instead of six on the meter and blamed information provided by the couple's previous provider, Empower."

There is only one meter, and that meter was just being read incorrectly by the power company. How were the owners supposed to know about that?

When I receive my power bill, it lists the meter readings. Maybe I am just more perceptive than these people, but I know enough about how both gas and electric meters are read that if I get an obscene bill, I am able to go look at my own meter and determine where the mistake is made.

This happened once with my gas meter. They gave me an "estimated" bill which was $1k higher than my usual bill. Once I went out to my meter and read the actual reading, it was adjusted.

I would think that if you receive a bill that is absurdly high, a person would make a few phone calls, ask what the meter said, that sort of thing.

The sad thing is most people are too lazy and cannot be bothered to be that inquisitive.

The company said it had been reading five dials instead of six on the meter and blamed information provided by the couple's previous provider, Empower.

If Mercury is blaming Empower for the error, it seems to me they should be suing Empower instead of the couple.

I think the real problem in charging them is in an assumption that if they had known the full cost, they would have both stayed with that power company and also used the same amount of power for all those years.

Anastacya: MooseUpNorth: Anastacya: Hmm, so the owners know that they were under-billed

[citation needed]

/ The provider accused them of knowing. That is a different claim than the one you're reporting.

Meh. I had a fail. Still doesn't change how I feel about the people. If the owners knew there are more than four meters, and the discrepancy comes from said 5th meter, they should pay the back cost.

Whether that back cost is $55k, I do not know. Just seems like there was a billing error, they got busted for underpaying, and decide to do the "well it's your fault, yes we used the service but since you didn't bill us for it, we're not paying" BS.

Situational ethics are bad, mmkay.

You had another fail. 6 dials. The company was apparently reading 5. There were four different meter readers (i.e., people) who came out, all of whom somehow managed to miss the 6th meter. Your implication that they were clearly aware the power company was not checking all of the meters is 100% unsupported by the article.

Commenting without reading and comprehending is bad, mmkay?

Yogimus: How many years accounted for 55k?

/they have an accountant, therefore must be rich.
//fark em.

FARK YOU!

Your acceptance of the code of selflessness has made you fear the man who has a dollar less than you because it makes you feel that that dollar is rightfully his. You hate the man with a dollar more than you because the dollar he's keeping is rightfully yours.

So, wait...

According to the couple, their bill was about $800 a month over 3 years. They're being billed, now, for just shy of $55,000. This is on top of the (estimated) $28,800 they've already paid over the last three years ($800 * 36). The power company failed to read 1 out of 6 dials and this somehow amounts to them owing nearly 200% more than they've already paid? Is it really plausible that they were using $2300/mo worth of power?

The power company goofed up, they should be forced to take the loss.

At least there is a lot of resistance to posting electricity puns in the thread.

No. That doesn't make any goddamn sense. That bill is way out of proportion.

Anyway, whatever happened to companioes catering to their customers? The customers make the business. It's just bad practice to charge customers for fark ups on the part of the business.

Trance750: The sad thing is most people are too lazy and cannot be bothered to be that inquisitive.

Yea, everybody should keep a detailed tally of their utility usage in case the company sends four different people out across three years who manage to all systematically make the same exact mistake month after month, thus causing you to be billed for only 1/3 of your actual usage. Anybody who hasn't planned for that off-the-wall whackadoodle eventuality is surely lazy and stupid.

Now, if you don't mind, I need to go work on my escape plan in case Mt. Everest is actually a giant rocket that someday malfunctions and launches directly at my house. I assume you already have one and aren't lazy and dumb.

The company said it had been reading five dials instead of six on the meter and blamed information provided by the couple's previous provider, Empower.

So it was the company's fark up..not the couple.

He can keep away from my farmer's daughter.

wish i could afford to pay $800 a month in electric bills. then i could turn the heat on.

oh well, at least i only live in florida and hopefully it'll be back to 75 degrees in a few days. still, those 2 weeks where the temps were freezing really sucked!

it doesn't help that i work outside in the water. i was basically a frozen popsicle for those two weeks.

hailin: I think it is silly how if a customer is overcharged for service they expect a refund, yet if they are undercharged they think it is a mistake on the business and that the business should just eat the cost.

You shouldn't have it both ways.

Actually this is how it generally works. When a big company is making a profit off of its customers it is already a biased relationship. When the big company screws up the customers generally have no recourse other than to sue, but if, for example, customers are behind in payment then the power gets cut off. I have no problem with these people not paying in this case.