gotta love the utilities

[Kev Williams]

Just got my natural gas bill, with a 2 year comparison and our new equal-pay amount...

This year I paid less for gas than last year-
This year I used less gas than last year-

My equal pay went UP $4 a month... http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/banghead.gif

[Bruce Wrenn]

Don't feel so bad. We now have Duke Energy. Bills go to Charlotte with post office promising second day delivery. But it takes a week or more for your payment to post to your account. So even if you paid your bill on time, and post office delivered it on time, you can be hit with a late charge. Every other business in the world has to post payments as of the day they are received. I have two properties, each with a separate account. Both bills are mailed in one envelope, and paid in a single check. One was on time, and the other late. How the heck can this be? Eventually some class action lawyer is going after Duke for this practice, and it isn't going to be pretty. Easily could cost Duke BILLIONS, not millions. PS in addition to being a rate payer, we are stock holders in Duke

[Dave Lehnert]

Don't feel so bad. We now have Duke Energy. Bills go to Charlotte with post office promising second day delivery. But it takes a week or more for your payment to post to your account. So even if you paid your bill on time, and post office delivered it on time, you can be hit with a late charge. Every other business in the world has to post payments as of the day they are received. I have two properties, each with a separate account. Both bills are mailed in one envelope, and paid in a single check. One was on time, and the other late. How the heck can this be? Eventually some class action lawyer is going after Duke for this practice, and it isn't going to be pretty. Easily could cost Duke BILLIONS, not millions. PS in addition to being a rate payer, we are stock holders in Duke



We have had the same problem. They will post the full amount of the check to only one account (over paid) and make the other late.

[Jim Koepke]

I have two properties, each with a separate account. Both bills are mailed in one envelope, and paid in a single check.

Well there is the problem, no one in their payment receiving department is able to do simple algebra. (see other post)

Could they handle two checks in the same envelope? They might not be able to figure out which one is for which bill.

jtk

[Dave Lehnert]

Well there is the problem, no one in their payment receiving department is able to do simple algebra. (see other post)

Could they handle two checks in the same envelope? They might not be able to figure out which one is for which bill.

jtk

Did the two check thing once. My guess they were stuck together because only one got entered.

[Nathan Johnson]

Can you use online bill pay from your bank?
All my utilities accept ach that way, except water/sewer. But I still pay using bill pay and instead of an ach the bank sends a certified check and includes account info. If you made separate payments in that manner, perhaps you could avoid the issue.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Have ABSOLUTELY no desire to do online bill pay. Several years back, our younger son paid all his bills using online. Money was deducted from his account, but none of them reached their destination. Took several months to figure out what happened to his money. When he went to purchase a new home, all these late bills showed up on his credit report. Used to use a bill paying service to pay power bill. It was located in pawn shop, so at least once a month, I could check out their inventory. Remember that this bill pay machine was owned by power company. On three different occasions, machine would void my check and spit out a receipt showing bill was payed. But somehow machine didn't communicate with payment office, and we would get letters threatening to "cut off power." Gave them number on receipt, and they would say no such receipt existed. Take check, and receipt, go back to pay station, and machine wouldn't read check as it had voided it the first time. Oh yeah money came out of my account with no problem, but didn't reach billing center.

[Nathan Johnson]

Well, apparently checks don't work either, so short of handing them cash in person I'm out of ideas.

Re: online bill pay. None of mine are automated and I check each statement from each bill I need to pay to ensure the last payment was applied. Things happen, and you still need to have oversight of those accounts. I've never had an issue with a bill pay payment from my bank in the 10-ish years I've been doing it, and I like the convenience. I couldn't imagine going back to writing checks out for everything.

[Jim Koepke]

We pay all but a two of our bills online. A few have been set up to deduct automatically during the month.

We do not use a second party bill payment service. We do not allow the bank to "take care" of our bill payment.

The biggest problem is my wife has difficulty remembering all the different account names and passwords, even though there are only 4 of them at this time.

Paying bills isn't rocket science. If a utility can not handle two bills and one or two checks in a payment envelope, then someone needs to talk to a supervisor. Make it clear to the supervisor your next stop will be the state commission of public utilities if they can not figure out a simple way for you to pay your bill without having to use two stamps.

Is there still a local newspaper in your area?

In my area electricity is distributed by the county public utilities district. The board members are elected. When the power is out, they know people are thinking of them. If there is incompetency in the billing office, people are thinking of them.

jtk

[James Waldron]

[snip]

The biggest problem is my wife has difficulty remembering all the different account names and passwords, even though there are only 4 of them at this time.

[snip]
jtk

Perhaps a look at LastPass might help with that: https://www.lastpass.com/

Works well; all data is encrypted on your machine before being backed up on line; only one password to remember and all your on-line passwords are incredibly strong (and obscure). It's free, too. I've found it solid and reliable and every site I have a logon with has a different, highly unique password. No affiliation, just a long-time user.

[Bruce Wrenn]

.

Paying bills isn't rocket science. If a utility can not handle two bills and one or two checks in a payment envelope, then someone needs to talk to a supervisor. Make it clear to the supervisor your next stop will be the state commission of public utilities if they can not figure out a simple way for you to pay your bill without having to use two stamps.

jtkDuke Energy is the LARGEST utility in the country. Supervisor reads from same script as lower employees. Because they are LARGE political contributors (state and local,) utilities commission is WORTHLESS. They quickly tell you to resolve it with Duke. They even brushed of local TV investigative reporter who was doing a story on late posting of payments. Google "complaints about Duke" and you will see thousands of complaints. They could care less as they are a state sanctioned monopoly. Do business their way, or do without, it's your choice.

[Wade Lippman]

I've used online billpay for maybe 10 years and have never had a problem; probably a couple thousand transactions. I'd recommend giving it another chance.

OTOH, my business law course 25 years ago said that mail was considered delivered on the postmark date. I don't know how your utility gets away with ignoring that.

[Mike Henderson]

I've used online billpay for maybe 10 years and have never had a problem; probably a couple thousand transactions. I'd recommend giving it another chance.

OTOH, my business law course 25 years ago said that mail was considered delivered on the postmark date. I don't know how your utility gets away with ignoring that.

I've used the electronic payment system through my bank for at least 25 years and never had a problem. If the recipient can't accept an electronic payment, the bank will mail them a check and the bank pays the postage.

The default in law is that delivery is upon receipt by a common carrier - unless you agree with the other party that it will only count as receipt upon delivery - at least that's what I remember from my b-law course. Always best to pay early and avoid an argument.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

Just got my natural gas bill, with a 2 year comparison and our new equal-pay amount...

This year I paid less for gas than last year-
This year I used less gas than last year-

My equal pay went UP $4 a month... http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/banghead.gif

If the $4 increase on a equal pay/budget plan bothers you that much you could just pay them what you owe every month instead.

[Jim Koepke]

If the $4 increase on a equal pay/budget plan bothers you that much you could just pay them what you owe every month instead.

It took a lot of work for my wife to understand this. We were actually paying in to a credit because last winter was warmer than usual. We recently had the tank topped off for winter. We still have a bit of credit.

jtk

[Lee Schierer]

We get one utility bill for electric, as our home is total electric. We've lived in this house for 41+ years and have been on balanced billing for most of it. In recent years, the electric supplier can't seem to understand what balanced billing is, every 3 months they change the payment amount. It was driving my wife, who pays the bills, crazy because she has to change the bill pay amount with our bank. I told her to add up what the actual costs were for the previous 12 months and divide that by 12. Then ignore the payment the electric company calculates and just pay the 1/12th amount each month. Once in a while on the anniversary date we need to pay a little extra to catch up. Apparently our calculator works better than their computer.

[Kev Williams]

Just got my natural gas bill, with a 2 year comparison and our new equal-pay amount...

This year I paid less for gas than last year-
This year I used less gas than last year-

My equal pay went UP $4 a month... http://www.engraver1.com/gifs/banghead.gif


If the $4 increase on a equal pay/budget plan bothers you that much you could just pay them what you owe every month instead.

heavy sigh.... It's not like I can't afford the $4 increase. What bothers me is the simple fact that they should have LOWERED my equal pay by about $5 a month, NOT RAISED IT, AT ALL. I've researched their plans-- in May of this year they asked for a price decrease - sometime between then and now (can't find an actual date) they've announced an INCREASE, to the 'average' tune of $1.48 per month. Even factoring that in the average, and my bill is less than the $60 they consider average, I'm still upside-down approx. $7.50 a month. Yes, I realize that it will eventually even itself out.

In the meantime, what this seems like to me, correct or not, is a typical new-style millennial bean-counting; a sure-fire way to generate working capital without earning it. Or paying interest on it. Depending on how many customers are being overbilled, this borders on unethical IMO...

[Mike Henderson]

If they can get you to overpay for the year, they get to use your money for that period of time. Do it for enough customers and it adds up. If they refund your money at the end of the year, they still got to use it for that time, and they made money on it.

I agree with everyone else - just pay what you owe each month. During the time of low bills, put some money away for the expensive bills - if paying the expensive bill is a problem of cash flow.

Mike

[Paul F Franklin]

Utility companies base the budget amount (equal pay amount) on their prediction of what your bill will be for the next year. The fact that you used less this year or fuel cost was less this year has very little to do with it. They know your average usage per degree-day, they have climate predictions for the next year, and they have fuel cost predictions for next year. They use this data to make their best estimate for next year. It's not perfect of course, there are many uncertainties. In my experience they generally do pretty well (the competent firms, anyway).

They do have trigger points set up so if actual gets too far from predicted (either up or down) it will trigger an adjustment.

[Brian Elfert]

heavy sigh.... It's not like I can't afford the $4 increase. What bothers me is the simple fact that they should have LOWERED my equal pay by about $5 a month, NOT RAISED IT, AT ALL. I've researched their plans-- in May of this year they asked for a price decrease - sometime between then and now (can't find an actual date) they've announced an INCREASE, to the 'average' tune of $1.48 per month. Even factoring that in the average, and my bill is less than the $60 they consider average, I'm still upside-down approx. $7.50 a month. Yes, I realize that it will eventually even itself out.

In the meantime, what this seems like to me, correct or not, is a typical new-style millennial bean-counting; a sure-fire way to generate working capital without earning it. Or paying interest on it. Depending on how many customers are being overbilled, this borders on unethical IMO...

If you're so bothered by it and are convinced they are making a bunch of money off what might an extra $60 for the year then cancel the equal pay plan and just pay what you owe each month. That way there is no credit built up. Depending on when your year starts you may actually owe them money for a number of months so it works in your favor.

I had budget billing for electricity until I had solar installed. What I didn't like was that I often owed them $150 to $200 at the end of my budget year. I would have preferred they increase the monthly payment instead.

[Bruce Wrenn]

It helps if they actually read your meter. Fifty years ago, lived in a rented house, where bill was estimated one month, and read the next. Estimated month was always more than 2/3 of combined months bill. It meant that they were fleecing me and our neighbor every other month for no cost loans. Once in that house came home and there was disconnect notice on the door for non payment of bill. Just so happened that bank statement came that day with canceled check in it. Called customer service, and they said they had made a mistake and would have power on the next day. Told CS rep that was no problem, but if power wasn't on by when I got up, I was taking my chain saw and start cutting poles until I met service truck coming to turn on power. Less than 30 minutes service truck shows up. Guy said dispatcher said he didn't care what he was doing, go turn my power back on! Here since Christmas, Duke hasn't been able to read meter three times. Meter reader can sit in his truck and read meter, although he only needs to be in area of meter to read it. Second month called and asked why wasn't my meter read. CS rep asked me to go and see what meter was flashing. Came back and told them screen was blank. It was a bad meter, which should have been replaced no later than second day after meter reader couldn't read it the first time. Remember getting my bill was a couple weeks after meter couldn't be read. So Duke estimated my power usage based on last year. Fine and dandy, except for one thing. Last year we were using heat pumps which died over the summer, and this year we were using gas furnace instead, which means we used a lot LESS electricity than the year before. Two months ago, again they failed to read meter.