ENTERGY!!!!

[soarkrebel]

I am going to use this forum to vent my disgust with entergy. i just bought a house and 17 acres. i have a 24 x 20 shop oh 20 yards from my house . i tranfered my account to the property you know thinking the shop is on the property so it's going to be on my bill.
well today entergy pulled the meter on my shops meter loop. they put another meter in it. my camper is plugged into the shop . so tonight i go out to get something out of the frige. no power!! i check everything and no power at all in the shop.
so i call entergy and wait for what seamed like forever on the line to talk to a human. and then i explain to the lady my problem . she tells me because the shop can't be lived in it is a commercial account. and yes the meter was pulled today. i asked why i was not told that when i changed everything over. she didnt know. well i asked her who was going to pay for my spoiled food. she told me i have to call commercial accounts tommorow.
I am steamed why can't these people just use common sense and have told me about the different accounts. i called the previous owner and he said they just sent both bills togather and he didnt know there was a difference. just two different meters.
anyway i feel a little bit better typing my frustration out. but i am sure i will be smoking in the morning.

 

[knucklehead]

A humble apology from an electrical utility worker - as you must know, there are different, shall we say, "types" in a business. Our business has gotten away from the home-town company image with our 800 numbers and low paid, high turnover business reps. My Dad used to call locally, and the lady on the other end recognized his voice (she went to high school with him). They have no clue about anything electrical, and could be hawking long distance service or insurance over the phone next month.

All I can say other than I'm sorry is don't quit, and stay polite. And try to cut down on the smokin' /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

We are currently in the opening rounds of Electric Company merger. 10 years ago, we were served by a real utility, home grown and service oriented. Cost cutting gave us contracted customer service reps, 10 line crews instead of 60, and efficiency. Management, who have no idea what a pole or transformer look like, even sold the generator plants ratepayers paid for to their buddys.
This winter, when the power went out in a wind storm, I got to talk with the CSR, I gave her the pole # and the problem. 4 hours later an inspector arrived to make certain I wasn't completely stupid and the power was really out. He called for a tree crew, also contracted, to remove branches from the wires. 4 hours later, the tree crew finished, and called the job in as ready for restoration. Some DIPSTICK punched the wrong key on the computer. I spent the next 4 days trying to get a contracted employee to walk 100 feet down the hall to correct the screwup.
I resorted to calling in the entire neighborhood, one customer at a time, as out of power, hopeing a bucket truck would arrive. Nope, just more inspectors. Finally, I offered to chain the inspector's truck to mine, with a padlock. I was given the # for the vice pres for energy delivery.
Mr vp was a bit shocked to hear from a customer, especially one who knew what he was talking about, and in 20 minutes, a knuckle bucket was in the driveway.
All this new computer based contract employee utility efficiency has sure worked well, 4 days of generating my own as opposed to the 4 hours it would have taken when we had a utility. Then again, back in the old days, management came up from the ranks, not some [censored] business school.
Now that we are part of Eastern, I can hardly wait to see how long it takes to restore the next event.

 

[bgott]

I came close to going to jail the last time I had a billing problem with Reliant. I kept getting billed for a rent trailer three or four months after the tenant paid her deposit. After getting it fixed, supposedly, and getting the bill in my name again after five tries on the phone I went to the office. I went round and round with this stupid equal opportunity employee for a half an hour. You have to pay the bill. You mean it's my bill? No, it's hers. Then why do I have to pay it? Its in your name. So I'm your collection department? No, it's her bill. So why do I have to pay it? It's in your name. Why is it in my name when she paid the deposit? Because of ERCOT. Screw ERCOT, lady, I've had these problems out of you idiots for four years before ERCOT!! And then we started over and went through the whole thing again, twice. I finally included d a m n in my converation and then she came out with " I don't have to listen to this kind of language". That was the wrong thing to say at that point. I was in the process of educating her in a few words that were definitely worse than the one I used at first when the guy in the next cubicle came around and asked what the problem was. After I explained it he fixed it with about three keystrokes. Then I really got mad. I did, however, have enough presense of mind left to dummy up and get out of there one step ahead of security. What really got me the know it all POS didn't even have the sense to ask someone else how to fix something that obviously was a problem. To not know how to deal with a problem is one thing, he11, I've got to ask questions nearly every day, to be so freakin' stupid that you don't realize it just boggles my mind. Isn't there a test they can give these people to avoid these kind of problems? Or is it easier to move your office to another building so you can't hear the screaming?

 

[knucklehead]

We take stress management courses led by former Postal employees......Pull! Bang! Bang! /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

A little rant: Usta be we could just sorta let things happen with phone, electrical, and health services (any others?). Then the government decided to "fix" them. Now we have mandated competition, over regulation, and endless red tape. Cost cutting has been a necessity, and the competition part is a real joke, as companies buy each other out - our little Maine "monopoly", as it has been portrayed by our wise and all-knowing Utilities Communists (er, Commission), is now part of an ever broadening conglomeration known as Energy East, and includes NYSEG (sp?), among others (I can't, and don't want to remember). We are in the process of "finding synergies" which means cutting jobs and centralizing work. Things aren't getting beter. They are devoted to running a lean business and not to the type of service we have enjoyed in the past.

A little encouragment: The best thing to do is learn the rules, and be better at it than they are. We have excellent service from our HMO (CIGNA), precisely because my wife has made herself aware of the policy and practices, and contacts them proactively when dealing with all sorts of health issues. She speaks confidently, and in terms they understand. I would highly suggest that we need to do so with phone, electrical, cable, health, and insurances of various kinds. I call the cable company every month, and we joke around about me coming in and doing the billing (It's Adelphia!!!). It doesn't take long, and after a while you learn, and it ceases to be frustrating. As an employee, I even went into the business center and dealt with the rep face-to-face once. I think it freaked them out, because I didn't tell them I was coming...I got a little circle of sorta concerned looking women around me, until I started joking. I think they were getting ready to rush me. They told me some tricks, like how our company has to pay someting like 5-6% on credited accounts - it's better than the banks by far! Some people keep a credit for that reason, but they're starting to wise up.

Mini rant: Most of the people we see whining into the network cameras about the stock market are retired folks who decided against widely circulated advice to stay in high-risk stocks rather than transition to bonds and income preserving vehicles.

You're do NOT want to get tagged as a problem - which they will do - you wouldn't want your mechanic to think of you that way, would ya? Keep plugging, and keep positive. It's the way things are going, and we need to adapt. Ya just can't shoot your way out of a problem, anymore. The dandies have won, hang up the iron and get used to doilies under your coffee.

What the heck am I talking about? Did I spell doily right?

 

[Bird]

Brad, we don't have that problem with our electric co-op. The electric service can be in the renter's name and the property owner is not responsible for it. However, "residential" meters are charged $7.50 a month plus the electricity used, and since I have my shop building on a separate meter, "shops, barns, etc." are charged $15.00 a month plus the electricity, so having a second meter costs an extra $15 instead of $7.50.

Now our water co-op is apparently similar (though worse) than your electric company. A renter (or anyone else) can have a water meter in their name with the bill going to them, but the membership is in the property owner's name and if the renter doesn't pay, the property owner is responsible for the bill and the property owner will pay the bill or the water is cut off until he/she does.

 

[MDNY]

Bird,

I would say let the water get cut off (unless it was a multi-family home) unless I lived there too.

Now I am building what we plan to be our early, mid and retirement home. Don't plan to move and bought the land I need and want.

I have been talking with NIMO our local power company (A National Grid Company) about the work needing to be done. I have never done this before and I guess I made mistakes (so did they).

Mistake #1: Neighbor needs access to the power lines on my side of the road since his side has none. I say ok, but the pole can't block either trail on my property as one is going to be a driveway. I come out and find one of the poles very close to blocking my alternate path.

Mistake #2: I called the power company to address this (caused a redesign of my power needs) and they agreed to meet me and review the pole. I moved it a few feet away and decided after much discussion off line with the neigbor (a bit confusing) and the pole is to be placed now.

Mistake #3: Was Nimo not actually assessing my power needs or power line needs correctly. Of course a first time home builder is supposed to know what he needs. So I didn't have the underground service with Nimo, I had the electrician doing it.

Well the electrician says no way better off having the power company do it with a transformer pad. OK. I call them and they need to resurvey it all and do more work. I get a bill for $1501.02 for 362FT of underground wire and a transformer pad (I guess the bill was itemized).

Mistake #4: All of this caused me about 2.5 months worth of delays and waiting since I had no clue, the power company didn't really care (go figure) and my neighbor got involved where I didn't know he was involved. I could have just told them no on the pole for him and made my life easier.

So I finally get a call and they will set my initial pole sometime by 8/29. However they are not doing anything for my neighbors pole, replacing the two other poles that must be done (per the power company surveyor) and the underground cable and transformer will be done when??? No answer. I told them to get me 48hr notice and I will make sure the site is ready for the cable and transformer to be placed so I can get power.

Oh yeah and I move in about 2 months so I cannot pin hopes on them. The phone company needs to come out, raise their lines and run my service too.

I will never build again and I will live here until I die. It will be cheaper?

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>I would say let the water get cut off (unless it was a multi-family home) unless I lived there too</font color=blue>

Yep, but if it's a rental property, and you own it, you'll pay the old water bill before you can get water for your new tenants.

And your problems with the electric and phone companies sounds perfectly normal to me. I went through almost the same battles and extra expense with both companies when I moved my parents onto my place, then my brother had it to do, too, when we built his place.

I don't understand why, but it seems as if they all operate about the same way, and are not the least concerned about their customers, especially new ones.

 

[stovepoker]

I have no heartburn with the line workers, in another lifetime I was part of the corps. My ***** is with the billing and collection people who are a constant reminder of what monoplies are and why some sort of competition is needed. In a truly competitive business environment, outfits like Niagara Mohawk would be relegated to the business Hall Of Shame. The obnoxious, arrogant indifference to the Customer base is the stuff that government regulation feeds on. So many friends have talked about generating their own juice to get off the grid, so that they could beat the cost of juice. The Real cost here is not the cost of energy, but in fact the cost of damage that indiscriminate administrative employees can do to a family.

 

[knucklehead]

Amen - but what I am trying to say is, in my not so humble opinion, the forced divesting of resources and opening of markets to other suppliers in the name of competition made this happen by complicating power production and delivery, and forcing cost cuts and consolidation of markets at every level - generation, transmission, delivery. Maybe we were different before, being smaller (although we have +/- 300K customers). We had the plants (hydro, oil, and nukes), we had tranmission, distribution, and everything had names on it of guys who started the company, or worked for the company for a long time. Like I said earlier, the voice on the other end of the line was experienced, often known to the caller. Local offices were everywhere, like post offices. Now somebody in Florida owns the generation, and we got snapped up by someone in New York. We're a conglomerate now. We've closed a ton of offices, and everything gets sluiced through an 800 number to some headset-bedecked telephone and PC network biological interface that performs "as expected" for some reward guaranteed not to keep them there long enough to be vested, or qualify for pension. We have coffee cups with more time in the company. Do you think that is conducive to local solutions and creative, ultimately helpful thinking?

Competition? Somebody has to own the lines, you see. As you know, you can't have a half-dozen power/cable/water/gas/sewer lines coming down the street - it's simply not like other businesses. The distribution company does the billing in our area, and dispatches people for problems (and disconnects /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif). I think the frustration is not being able to dump your Chevy power/cable/water/gas/sewer lines and go buy Ford - so you gotta work with them, regardless of who they are - this week.

I'm trying to relate our personal experiences, and our success with learning the rules, then speaking confidently and courteously - those people at the other end of the phone are followers, not paid to think creatively - sometimes they have a book in front of them on how to answer questions, fer cryin' out loud! You will be better off learning how to lead - understanding how the business works. This is new to all of us, because we haven't had to pay attention to it before. Just like HMO's. Costs are going up, whether I think it is because of wrong-headed government interference, or whatever. One of the things everyone is doing is either farming out their billing, or hiring younger, cheaper employees.

I'm tossing a couple yellow bald guys in here so I don't sound like I'm ranting or wailing on you personally. You don't expect the Wal Mart folks to make your decisions about a computer, camera, or even a calculator, do you? Caution - there is a wrong answer here! /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif You're dealing with similar intellects making similar money in the utility business, now - we all need to inform ourselves accordingly.

Not happy words, but proper preparation will help with these issues.