Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Slipshod job

I just spent the last 6 hours without power.

Why?

Because the electric company is stupid.  Let's see…..when you ask to start service for a certain address, wouldn't it stand to reason that the bills be sent to that serviced address?

Apparently not.  Silly me.

We hooked up gas and electric on the same day.  The gas bill made it to us last week, so we kept waiting for the electric bill.  Provo city is always about a month  behind, so we figured the bill would be along shortly.  Nope.  So this morning, out goes the power.  What the heck???  We called, talked to a lady and asked what was going on.  She then told us we were delinquent in payment (really?) and said that our bills were being sent to an address in Orem.  Hmmm, address in Orem.  You guys don't even service Orem!  Then she told us that they had tried to contact us by phone.  Nope, no one had.  So after a lengthy conversation with Nick, she said she would expedite the matter to get our power back on.

I wasn't satisfied.  I called back and asked to speak to a supervisor.  After explaining the situation, that we aren't lazy nonpaying people, he admitted openly it was their fault for sending the billing statements to Orem, and apologized again and told me that they hadn't even tried to contact us other than bills.  Oh, so your employee lied to us?  Yes, I'm not sure where she got her information.  Nice.

5 and a half hours later.  "Hello?  My power still hasn't been turned back on, what am I supposed to do?"  "Well, you should pay your bills."  "Um, you are obviously not the person I spoke to this morning, so you have no idea what's going on."  Pause.  "Let me check on that for you."  Hold……..another supervisor.  "Hello?  My fishies are going to suffocate, my food is moldering in the fridge and I can't blend my food to eat and I'm breast feeding."  "Your food will be fine, just don't open the fridge.  And the most important thing is to drink water."  Um hello, I didn't call for breast feeding advice, I called to get my power turned back on.  So after explaining the situation, YET AGAIN (and that I'm an MA, i know all about breastfeeding basics), she told me AGAIN it was impossible to get in contact with people in the field.  "Really?  They don't have cell phones?  I find that hard to believe." Pause.  "They are servicing in the order they are recieved."  "So they are turning power on and off for people probably moving in and out, empty apartments, I'd say mine is more important because we have things depending on power and it wasn't our fault.  We were given no notice, and were not even warned about our power being turned off.  That is very unprofessional."  Pause.  "Let me see what I can do."  Hold………"The best I can do is an hour and a half."  Oh!  So you can get in contact with your field people!  ………   "I guess that will have to be fine."

Really?  Bunch of smarties you got working for ya, Provo City.  First of all, what the heck??  They were sending our bills to our address from a YEAR ago in Orem.  Second of all, they lied about trying to contact us.  Thirdly, they gave us absolutely no warning about power being cut.  And fourth!  They had it under my name….my maiden name.  Hmmm, considering that Nick set it up this time, and gave them the address (they must have had it on file because they knew where to turn on and cut power….), I'd say they are a bunch of idiots.  We're not bad people who don't pay our bills!  If it had been a matter of money, we would have called for an extension.  And since the gas company had no problem sending us the bills last week, we figured the electric wasn't far behind.  And why the heck were they billing to an Orem address?  I still don't get it.

Oh well, no matter, the power is back on now, obviously, I'm blogging….but I'm still mad.  Almost as bad as us being send to collections because IHC doesn't know how to bill.  It took 6 months and 10 calls to get that one straightened out.  And every time, "we'll take care of it, we'll take care of it….oh by the way we sent you to collections." Um?  No!  I had coverage, I have the card, here is the number, call the insurance and see for yourself.  Finally got taken care of when they actually called.  Imagine that.

Man, if you are going to do a job, do it right!  Take pride in your work,  do it right the first time!

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