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*Grumblegroan* Utility companies *grumblemoan*
Posted by Anok • 1/14/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: capitalist bastards, monopolies
OK, I'm putting this in the shameless category because I'm dropping a link to my full thoughts on this:
identitycheck-anok.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-is-why-monopolies-are-bad.html
However, I want to know how the utility companies in your area operate. Are they gouging you? Are they monopolies? What does your state do to protect your rights as consumers?
User Comments
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Oh, yeah. They suck us dry over here. And electricity isn't even permanent
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Whaddya mean? Do you get a lot of black outs and brownouts?
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Not lately (which is strange), but we get power outages every so often and the always-enjoyable ten-hour blackout every month or two.
But I shouldn't complain. Even with those problems, we're the lucky ones. -
Ah, yes. The lats place I lived was like that, minus the ten hour blackouts per month.
You just never knew when the power was going to cut out on you. Usually in the middle of the night, wreaking havoc on your alarm clock -
The best part is when all the food in the refrigerator begins to spoil.
Yum. -
I do love the smell of rotten food!
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And the taste is even better!
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Oh yeah the rates are just too high.
I have no idea how they compute the kilowatt rates but it always seems so darn high to me.
They showed my how they do it but it still makes no sense to me how they compute it. I have some tenants above me that aren't paying at all monthly, I know because their bill came in my mailbox once or twice and I opened it up to see how much they're paying. One of them is paying only $8.00 HELLO.
I am paying about 80-120 a month. I am almost never home.
I put in low wattage bulbs like 40 watt bulbs and even lower in halogen and still the bill is the same,
no improvement until much later.-
You have choices in carriers though, don't you? I know my brothers utility bills are rather low, but it could be the type of building, too. (he lives in your neck of the woods)
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OR someone else connected their power to mine and is stealing from me, that can happen too. I do have a choice of carriers and have made a recent choice and the bill is a little lower than it use to be but the tricky bastards don't tell ya this in the bill and a lot of people don't know they can choose carriers.
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Yup. How mad would you be if you found out someone was stealing your utilities?
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Someone is going to be dead if I find out, I have a nagging suspicion that I'm right.
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You should manage it so they get a big shock every time they turn on a light.
Irony is best
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No choices on electricity or natural gas providers. Some older homes have oil for heat and there are lots of vendors to chose from. Our state regulates and caps the unit price of electricity and natural gas but the current caps expire soon. Everyone is afraid, very afraid...-
I'm sure that if your state regulates them, they also regulate the actual increases too. That's how it used to be here - the companies were only allowed to increase rates so often, and, only so much (they had to go before a board and essentially prove that they needed an X amount increase).
But now...pfft forget it.
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That is nothing by a quirk of fate the city I live in had its own phone company when the rest of Britain was all on the government service so when the whole phone system was privatised the city council sold half the phone company and carried on as normal.
Now because this company charges other internet companies too much to use its equipment it has a monopoly in the city and gouges us.
My service is 30 pounds a month and you could get the same service outside my city for 10 pounds a month.-
Ouch. Ma Bell has resurfaced here as well. She ate up every single land and cell line company that was in the state.
I hate AT&T. Hate them -
The government telecoms ombudsman even referred them to the monopolies and merger commission and the report came back saying they didn't hold a monopoly because any company could come into the market. But it was a catch 22 because none would due to the high line rentals they were charging.
I hate them more than you hate AT&T. -
OK, I'll go to your neighborhood/local monopoly and start a riot if you come to mine and start one.
Deal? -
Can we play "White riot" from loud speakers while we trash the places?
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Yes! or Guns of Brixton. You know, just to mix it up a bit.
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Well we have only one electric company in central Florida and they just were given permission to raise the rates by 25%.
Ouch!-
That's outrageous.
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Ow? Did you throw rocks at the building in protest? Criminy.
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If we did that they would just shut it off LOL
Oh, and we now get charged an added fee for the city water just foe being hooked up to the service.-
Bastards! (I think we have that too, actually).
See what I mean? The outrageous things they can get away with?
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We have some units in the complex we property manage. Some are vacant because the financial crisis made it impossible for the business to make ends meet. So we shut off power at the breakers. Guess what! The bills still come in at over $100 a month. Either someone is tying into the lines to steal power (we haven't found evidence of that) or the meters don't make any difference to the electric company. The new meters are impossible for anyone to read without a special tool either. I think those kind of meters should be outlawed.-
Ooooh. See now I'd fight that tooth and nail.
I'm pretty sure that the meters don't actually matter much, too.
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Our local companies share monopolies over different sections of the surrounding area. The one that "owns" the area in which I live is in double trouble right now. They had a massive gas meter failure (faulty manufacture, I assume) and installed replacement meters on houses without notifying the owners that they hadn't been correctly billed for gas for three months of the winter. Then, in June, they sent out "estimates" for the gas they think you used when the meters weren't working. (One of those houses was mine, and believe me a $400-$500 gas bill popping up in June is a shocker!)
Happily, the state utility commission has ruled that no one has to pay the bill until it's determined how they were calculated. While that's on hold, they are negotiating a rate increase. Apparently, the company decided to go ahead with an increase higher than they'd requested and much higher than the negotiations had reached before the final agreement was in place. My bills are all over the place and I can't switch carriers. I can't depend on the amount and may or may not have that large bill to pay sometime. I may or may not get some of the money from the major increase as a credit. At this point, I'm hoping both happen and that they cancel each other out. As added insult, it's one of those companies with a "creative" spelling, which irritates me every time I see their trucks, in addition to the other frustrations. I wouldn't take it out on the repair folks, but I'm still tempted to key the things when I see them unattended.-
Ooohhhh, oh man. Yeah, lets trust the company's guesstimation on how much gas they wanted you to use - I mean think you used.
That's the same kind of shenanigans our company pulls. We're still fighting the gas company over the billing. I'm convinced that I'm paying the neighbor's gas bill. (It has her address on my bill, after all). We've called in independent plumbers to battle the SOB's.
It makes you want to scream, doesn't it?
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We have the enigmatic LCEC; the last C is supposed to stand for "Cooperation," but instead stands for corruption.
These assholes will shut your power off for overpaying your bill, and then charge you $100 ($50 for them sending someone to shut it off, $50 for someone to turn it back on).
Usually, you're supposed to have the bill in on or before the 10th, or LCEC will shut your power off by the 11th. Living in Lee County for 14 years without any large source of income, I can affirm that this is always the case. However, this past December they shut our power off on the 5th. Assholes.-
See, that's deregulation at it's best. To protect consumers there should be an appropriate grace period for billing. At least we have that here. If you're late you just receive a 1% late fee. You have a thirty - 60 day grace period prior to shut off though.
It is also illegal here for power companies (not gas) to shut your power off in the winter, even if your bill is unpaid or underpaid. People could die from hypothermia if they did that, so it's a no-go here. -
In Florida during the summer time, the only concern is for heatstroke.
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That's true.
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We've seen huge increases in our electric bill. There are several power plants around Denver -- all but one powered by coal, the other by natural gas. Since the coal comes from this region, it doesn't make sense we should see that much of an increase. But Excel Energy is regulated and we're supposed to be getting back rebates since they overcharged last year.
Obama's plan for an electric smart grid is a step in the right direction. We have sunny days about 300 days a year here, which makes it ideal for solar power. The plains can be pretty windy and we already have several wind farms, but a smart grid will make that power source more practical. Power plants seem ideal for fuel cell technology.-
Wouldn't that be great? The industries set up there could probably produce enough to sell to states who don't have the ability for wind and solar farms.
That means our rates would go down, too -
Wind farms can be built offshore, but there's resistance by people who don't want to ruin the view of the ocean. Waves can also be used to power generators. There are all sorts of ways to generate electricity that are efficient and don't pollute.
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Ah, yes...I know exactly who and what you're talking about
Personally speaking I think windmills are quite nice to look at.
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