Woman's Power Shut Off Over 1 Cent Charge

[Itsme]

This was all over the news tonight....crazy.

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Woman's Power Shut Off Over 1 Cent Charge

POSTED: 6:58 am PDT May 16, 2006

FLINT, Mich. -- Just how powerful is a penny?

To a Michigan energy company it's the difference between keeping your lights on and having them turned off.

Consumers Energy turned off the power to a Flint woman after she paid all but one penny of her bill, which was $1,662.08. The company told Jacqueline Williams the power would not be turned on until it received the penny.

The woman went into the Consumers' Energy office and paid the penny and got a receipt. After seven hours without electricity, her power was restored.

[Cubsfan]

Holy crap, how do you get a $1600 electric bill? Maybe I just get cheap electricity, I don't know.

Anyway, I guess I don't see a big problem with this. Hard to draw the line for allowing customers to not pay. One penny? One nickel? One quarter? A dollar?

[cheapie]

you can get a bill that high by not paying for months and months. and since it's flint, i can fully believe that. total ****hole.

[Thesifer]

Im going with the didnt pay for a long time.. And wonder why she didnt pay the cent.. maybe it was an accident.. or oversight on her part...

I know I had an AT&T Phone card that I paid off once and they kept sending me a bill each money for like 1$.. then 2$ .. then 1.50$ discounted for lack of use.. Etc etc.. and gave me a bad mark on my credit way back when.. eventhough THEY made the mistake.

[Grubbie]

you can get a bill that high by not paying for months

That just happened to my gf and I. Wasn't really our fault the electric and gas company was so dumb they only put our name on the gas. got a nice fat 800$ bill...

[MJordanash]

After paying all of that minus a penny you'd think they'd either remind her or put it on her next bill. Its not like she paid the penny but forgot the other amount. Give me a break.

[cheapie]

while it was prolly a dumb thing to do, i'm guessing policy or the computer system wouldn't let them turn it back on. or the woman could have just been pissed and paid it a penny short on purpose.

[Jeffbx]

Pfft - this whole story was way overblown.

She owed like $1800 to the power company & hadn't paid for months. She got donations from the Department of Human Services, the Salvations Army AND over $400 from the power company themselves to cover the cost of the bill. When she sent it in, it was off by a penny, so of course the automatic system in place cut off her power because it was still showing up as 'unpaid'.

But it makes for a good 'big bad evil corporation vs. penniless little old lady' story, so that's how it's presented.

[oblongmelon]

Holy crap, how do you get a $1600 electric bill? Maybe I just get cheap electricity, I don't know.

Anyway, I guess I don't see a big problem with this. Hard to draw the line for allowing customers to not pay. One penny? One nickel? One quarter? A dollar?

Or you can live in my city, In a very large old drafty victorian house with alot of original windows, and fireplaces..where God forbid you turn your heat on higher than 68 degrees without NYSEG bending you over sideways on your heating bill..
I had one bill this winter (and it wasn't even THAT cold here) that was 911 dollars..that was my December bill, and THAT my friends is what living in Upstate New York is like. New York State Electric and Gas are thieves in sheep's clothing..You can't live without Electric, and they hold the monopoly in this area..While there is municiple electric provided about 25 miles away-it's not worth selling my house to take advantage of it..I'd rather put on 3 sweaters and light a few candles..(and unfortunately, while you would think they would, the fireplaces really don't give off much heat, as I imagine they were more for ambiance than functionality back in the day)

[nickel]

Pfft - this whole story was way overblown.

She owed like $1800 to the power company & hadn't paid for months. She got donations from the Department of Human Services, the Salvations Army AND over $400 from the power company themselves to cover the cost of the bill. When she sent it in, it was off by a penny, so of course the automatic system in place cut off her power because it was still showing up as 'unpaid'.

But it makes for a good 'big bad evil corporation vs. penniless little old lady' story, so that's how it's presented.
exfreakinactly.

the media is really showing their true colors with the slant on this one.

[Thesifer]

exfreakinactly.

the media is really showing their true colors with the slant on this one.


They must be politically motivated to go against big business.

<<< Thread Locked >>>

[nickel]

They must be politically motivated to go against big business.

<<< Thread Locked >>>
oh nooooooes

[MJordanash]

They must be politically motivated to go against big business.

<<< Thread Locked >>>
:naughty: Nice

[guiseppewv]

exfreakinactly.

the media is really showing their true colors with the slant on this one.


What are you talking about?!?!?!? - There is no bias in the media. ;) :P

[Grubbie]

What are you talking about?!?!?!? - There is no bias in the media. ;) :P

Next up on Fox Right Slanted News at 10, Bush saves world.... :)

[sizemic1]

Makes me feel pretty good about my $20 electric bill WHILE running the A/C! :)

[seqiro]

Two related stories:

1) Last week Sprint shut off my long distance service even though I paid my balance in full.

Basically, the credit card they had on file expired and I got a letter saying I had 15 days to update my info or they would shut off my service. The very next day I called them and figured I'd use my debit card this time around. Except that it kept getting declined, and a phone call to the bank said it was declined for "incorrect address". Turns out they had my street wrong in their billing system, and for whatever reason it just would not take. So, I paid my balance with a check over the phone and asked them to switch me to paper billing since they refused to call my bank and straighten it out.

I figured that was the end of it until 14 days later when my LD service was shut off. I called them and they actually had the nerve to tell me that my current balance was "zero dollars and zero cents". I asked why they shut my service off and they said it was because my credit card was rejected. I told them we'd already gone through this and that I opted for paper billing. They then agreed that I would get my next statement on May 17th. I asked them AGAIN why they shut off my service and they didn't answer, but merely said that it would be back on in four hours! I hung up the phone, switched LD carriers, and now I'm switching my Sprint cell phone too.

2) Bell Atlantic Mobile (back in the 90s) shut my cell phone service off with no warning over a 5 cent error they made.

I go to use my phone and I'm told that I have outstanding charges. So I call them and they say I underpaid by 5 cents. I tell them that was impossible and so they investigate and it turns out that apparently someone must have thought my "6" in the cents amount was a "1", despite the fact that in the longhand version, it was very clearly a 6. Mistakes happen and they corrected their error, but some NOTICE that my service was being shut off would have been nice.

[Cheesypuff]

maybe this person needs to seek some help from the Arkansas Mayor if you know what I mean....

[guiseppewv]

Two related stories:

1) Last week Sprint shut off my long distance service even though I paid my balance in full.

Basically, the credit card they had on file expired and I got a letter saying I had 15 days to update my info or they would shut off my service. The very next day I called them and figured I'd use my debit card this time around. Except that it kept getting declined, and a phone call to the bank said it was declined for "incorrect address". Turns out they had my street wrong in their billing system, and for whatever reason it just would not take. So, I paid my balance with a check over the phone and asked them to switch me to paper billing since they refused to call my bank and straighten it out.


Something very similar happened with me when I had Sprint for my cell provider about 5 years ago. I had been paying online for over a year and a half and then one day my card got rejected. I tried to pay the bill online again and the same thing happened, so I figured they were having a glitch in their system. Needless to say I kept trying for a few days and my CC got rejected everytime. I called my bank they said the CC was getting rejected b/c of a "wrong address". Funny thing is that I never changed my address. I called SPrint and they gave me the run around. After 3 months of me having to pay by check over the phone I told them they had 30 days to get their crap right. They still didn't get it fixed so I changed providers to AT&T. I cannot stand Sprint's customer service.