I can’t even count how many hours I’ve spent in the past year arguing about some BS charge, trying to get something repaired under warranty, or even trying to redeem an valid coupon that was sent to me. I’ve reached a point where I’m exhausted in trying to fight these kinds of things but I feel like I can’t just let any of it go. Sometimes I wish I could hire a Karen, it would be 100% worth it.
As close to verbatim as possible, calling to the former eletric supplier we used.
“Good morning, ny name is XYZ and I need a clarification for the invoice you just sent. My account number is 123 and the address is ABC.”
“Thank you. Please wait a moment.”
5 minutes later, without notice I’m transfered to another department.
“What seems to be the problem with the invoice?”
“After reading it, I have found it was issued based on calculated numbers. My meter is already online.”
“I am afraid you are mistaken; we have no readings from your meter for the last 6 months.”
“I have just disconnected from the power distributor service line and was informed my meter has been online and registering the energy used for the last year.”
“I apologize but that is incorrect.”
“I am checking my customer area at the distributor as we speak and I have information the online date for this location is XPTO; the company has not been issuing invoices based on real numbers for some reason I do not know and I would appreciate an explanation.”
p.s. I am not confrontational with call center workers; I worked at one for a short time and it was a rotten work environment for the most. I was miffed but making my best to be polite.
“I must insist that information is incorrect. Our invoices are firm and issued according to an algorithm calculation for expected consumion based on client history.”
“Right. Would it be possible to have a complaint issued to have this matter evaluated?”
“Considering the information provided, there is no basis to present a complaint. I also notice the next invoice is due in 8 days. I remind you that the late payment will incur in penalties. Can I be of any further assistance?”
I thanked and ended the call, after which I started the transfer of my contract to another vendor, while submitting a complaint by the public complaint book, that is supervised by a regulatory organism.
After 4 weeks, I was returned a good chunk of change and was bombarded with calls to evaluate my satisfaction with the conpany and inquire my interest in moving back to them.
Nah, I’m good.
Hold on hold on…by electric supplier you mean the power company…and you could CHOOSE to have a different one? As an American this boggles my mind. We have one company and you either have electricity or don’t.
Idk about where the original poster is, but here in Australia, yeah there are different energy providers. They all take advantage of the same infrastructure (which is run by a singular company, by and large- Energex), but different companies will offer different rates or deals for your energy needs and your service area. It’s supposed to provide some competition for the consumers, although I don’t know how that works out on the vendors side of things.
Is there a different rate between providers or like different quality or something? Funny how the USA is supposed to be capitalist but other countries have this and we don’t. There are different single carriers for different areas (per county or per city) but you have one choice and it is what it is.
Could you imagine the fighting during a storm while they tried sorting out who needed to pay for repairs while people didn’t have power?
We have one distributor (technically two) that runs everything regarding power supply and distribution (lines, substations, transformers, etc, and the meters) and I think nearly 30 different energy retailers, from which you can contract your power.
The market is open and lately has seen a lot of competition, with a number of small companies entering.
We recently changed retailer, again, to a small company where you have to buy a quota to be able to buy energy from them (60€ is the minimum). This means you own a part of the company and can take active part in its governance.
They sell me energy with a one cent markup over the market index, which is well below the usual fixed rates.
Crazy…I’m guessing in the United States this would never happen because thanks to our genius lawmakers corporations are people. From what I understand utility companies are not allowed to donate to politicians, but they still do either by funneling money through charities or their CEO’s do it directly, etc.
I’m confused. What does it imply a company being a person that makes it so incompatible to what happens in my market?
A company is a collective entity here (translating it directly, a company is a “collective person”), bound by general law and even more activity specific legislation.
This is referring to campaign finance, many believe that corporations have too much influence on American politics and their influence should be limited. The constitution guarantees free and open elections, doesn’t the heavy influence of corporations soil that? Many think so. When challenged in court, the courts ruled that corporations are people so limiting or eliminating their ability to donate and influence campaigns violates their first amendment rights (the right to free speech). It’s complete bullshit, in my opinion, and it’s the reason in many cases that we don’t have regulations limiting corporations in general…even utilities. Agree or disagree…
That is highly convoluted but it sheds some light into a few questions I had regarding your country and its corporations. Thank you.
We circumvented that here by making sure all recognized political parties have equal access to divulge their message in TV and radio, by granting through force of law a fixed time slot for campaigning. Its usually just before the evening news and in ten minutes they need to fit a lot parties, so things are very boiled down.
Besides that, the state itself grants a stipend to political parties to spend on campaign; their support base can chip in and usually does but every single donation must be accounted for and is handed to the partie, not a given individual.
On their side, companies tend to keep their mittens off politics. It can prove very bad if a given company associates with a given political figure. Recently we had string of figures, some still in office, involved in a serious case of “gifts” from companies, which led to very serious accusations of abuse of power and corruption. That tends to backlash.
What companies do, in a more or less public way, is vent their concern about certain policies being drafted or put in place. They’re social actors and can put forward their view but little more. Companies handle their business, government creates laws and reviews it as necessary.
Funny thing? Nobody really knows how this country actually works and moves forward but it does and has been doing it for a long time.
In my opinion the way you do things is how they should be done in order to actually have free and fair elections but impossible to dismantle the power structure now since they run things. They buy the politicians and in some cases literally write the laws.
That’s horrible.
Can’t a good grass roots movement pierce that? A small local party, with iron clad rules for supporting and funding candidates?
I know primaries are important in the US but when one candidate can slander another of the same party something is very wrong.
Our parties rarely run primaries here as what is important is the votes cast to one party not one individual. This has a downside to it, obviously, but we skip the internal drama on who will be the next candidate to run for office.
For a long time, the US actually had something called the “Fairness Doctrine” which required broadcasters to present matters of public interest in a way that was fair. So if you had a guy on a show that said the president was a lizard person, that show also had to have someone on to refute that opinion, or the media company could lose their broadcasting license.
The Fairness Doctrine was repealed by the Reagan Administration in 1987, which immediately resulted in the rise of conservative talk radio, who could say whatever they wanted without having to present the opposing viewpoint, and they didn’t have to worry about losing their license.
The rise of conservative talk radio led to Fox News, which led to the election of Trump.
Interestingly, less than a year after the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, a conservative political nonprofit corporation was formed called Citizens United, led by a man named David Bossie. The goal of this organization was (and remains) the creation of media that supports their goals of restoring “traditional American values”, which consists entirely of right-wing documentaries and attack ads.
In 2008, Citizens United made a documentary called “Hillary: The Movie”, which was basically a movie-length attack on Hillary Clinton, who had announced in 2007 that she was going to run for president in 2008.
At the time, there was a law called the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which essentially banned any attack ads that name a federal candidate from running within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days from a federal election, if the ad was funded with money from a corporation (including a nonprofit) or union.
The Citizens United nonprofit corporation knew this, and sued the Federal Election Commission, arguing that not being able to show their attack ad was a violation of their constitutional right to free speech, which, very importantly, had only ever been interpreted to apply to human individuals, not corporations.
The Supreme Court was dominated by conservatives in 2010 (and still is), and they ruled that corporations did in fact have free speech protection, that not allowing attack ads funded by corporations that were not required to disclose the source of their funding before elections was a violation of the constitutional rights of corporations, and subsequently nullified the part of the law that prevented Citizens United from showing their attack ad, while also removing almost all limits on the “speech” that corporations could engage in without repercussions and also happened to confer legal “personhood” to corporate entities.
Incidentally, David Bossie (President of Citizens United) resigned from Citizens United in 2016 to take a job as deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Could you tell me the name of the company?
EDP
I was wondering if this was Australia. I’ve heard of issues with smart meters and the issue is annoyingly complex as the information they get from the AEMO isn’t always correct.
Source: Have worked in the energy utilities sector in the past…
Europe.
The meters run fine and there has been a push from the distributor to make the entire network digital as they have been eating huge fines for not guaranteeing timely readings. The last one was more than €20 millions, to be returned to the consumers.
This particular situation was due to laziness and a sense of dominance the company has, because it is the oldest and most well known in the market. They can treat people in the worst fashion that their customer base won’t leave them; it’s a mix of Stockholm syndrome and a well put together slander campaign of every other energy retailer in the market.