Nicor scam

[Souj]

So, last year, my gas bill for this month was about $300 or so. During this past summer my heater broke.
I have an electric stove and it doesn't heat my water so I just shut it off and left it. next couple of months my Nicor bill was $30, until it came to this month... My heater was still off, yet my bill was back up to $300. So I call them, and they give me a bunch of bullshit, then I finally get them to say they sometimes just take an average of previous years and slap that on your bill without even checking the meter. Even when they don't check your meter, they still charge your bill for a "meter checking fee".
I'd say this is most likely common practice throughout a lot of utility companies, but I thought I'd just let people know Nicor definitely does it, so I'd be checking your meter reading and compare it to what they charged you.

[Altariel]

I believe this is common practice but as far as I know they are required to adjust your account accordingly once they get an accurate reading.

[Souj]

yeah, they changed my bill to its proper price, but it doesn't make it any less fucked up.

[kyod]

Common industry practice. This is the source of most discrepancies with heating bills. If you call to contest the bill they send someone out for an accurate reading. Bullshit, in my opinion, but legal :/

[Demosthenes11]

did you call me a nicor

[Salodin]

I cant believe they can get away with that...

[miokomioko]

Dirty Nicors.

[Altariel]

To be honest it probably works in everyone's benefit how they do it. December to December bills are likely very close on average except when something off-the-wall happens like this case. I would imagine hiring enough meter readers to go to every property every month would be pretty damned costly and we'd pay for it in higher bills.

[Kaisha]

To be honest it probably works in everyone's benefit how they do it. December to December bills are likely very close on average except when something off-the-wall happens like this case. I would imagine hiring enough meter readers to go to every property every month would be pretty damned costly and we'd pay for it in higher bills.

Or....they could just not charge the meter-checking fee when they don't actually have a person check it physically.

[Plow]

Mine's through a local co-op, basically they take the average but every few months they expect *YOU* to check the meter and call them with the reading. If you don't call them, they'll call you a few times, and eventually if no response they'll send someone out and charge you a $20 fee for it.

Seems about a perfect system imo.

[Souj]

To be honest it probably works in everyone's benefit how they do it. December to December bills are likely very close on average except when something off-the-wall happens like this case. I would imagine hiring enough meter readers to go to every property every month would be pretty damned costly and we'd pay for it in higher bills.

Yeah... they actually do charge everyone with a meter checking fee, so the bill is already higher for it.

[Yabby]

They do this shit a lot, last year i remember getting over 400 dollars back in January because they overcharged me for a few months in the winter.

[kuronosan]

They do a lot of this "budget billing" bullshit in an effort to trap stupid people who don't read their bills into simply paying for it.

[Jak]

Our electric, water, AND gas company in my county does this. Me and my parents have caught all of these utility companies charging what they thought would be appropriate.

One bill I remember in particular was a $500 electric bill my parents got.. my mom called b/c the bill showed some massive watt usage but when they actually checked the meter and compared it to their last months bill it wasn't even 10% of what the bill showed. The bill got reduced to like 60 bucks.

And that's just one time.. me and my parents have both had to call each utility company several times to get our bills corrected.

Shit is plain stupid and should be illegal.

[Salodin]

Apparently I'm in the wrong business =\ I want to be able to charge whatever the fuck I want and get away with it most of the time...

[Callisto]

Our electric, water, AND gas company in my county does this. Me and my parents have caught all of these utility companies charging what they thought would be appropriate.

One bill I remember in particular was a $500 electric bill my parents got.. my mom called b/c the bill showed some massive watt usage but when they actually checked the meter and compared it to their last months bill it wasn't even 10% of what the bill showed. The bill got reduced to like 60 bucks.

And that's just one time.. me and my parents have both had to call each utility company several times to get our bills corrected.

Shit is plain stupid and should be illegal.

Our electric provider did the same, and on top of us billed us 3 times in a 5 week period, shut off our service due to our bill being so high and unpaid which led to the death of a pretty expensive pet fish, then when we finally figured out what the fuck happened and called them on it they were just like "oh yeah, we completely messed that up, our bad lol, oh well". They took off the excess they had charged us but didn't offer jack shit in terms of reimbursement for the 3 days they stuck us without power in the middle of 90 degree July weather or the dead pet, and the only reason they even let us out of the excess charges was us siccing the state BBB on them.

[Elesirdur]

Yeah, pretty much every utility company does this. It's even worse when you move into a new apartment where the previous renters used way more energy (electricity/gas) than you do and your first few bills are sky high until they send someone around to physically check the meter.

However, utilities in North America (and probably Europe and East Asia) are starting to install "smart meters." These devices are equipped with a connection to some telecom network, either through cellular or landline internet, that allows instant measurements to be taken at the meter. Users can even log on to their utility's web site and see the exact amount of energy they have consumed that week/month/year, and how much is should cost them. I'm sure that even with these smart meters the utilities will still have to send folks around to do periodic checks and calibrations, but an end to this kind of yo-yo billing would be a godsend.

[miokomioko]

However, utilities in North America (and probably Europe and East Asia) are starting to install "smart meters." These devices are equipped with a connection to some telecom network, either through cellular or landline internet, that allows instant measurements to be taken at the meter. Users can even log on to their utility's web site and see the exact amount of energy they have consumed that week/month/year, and how much is should cost them. I'm sure that even with these smart meters the utilities will still have to send folks around to do periodic checks and calibrations, but an end to this kind of yo-yo billing would be a godsend.

My dad just had a smart meter installed and he was hoping to get a semi-instant read of how much power he was using so he could figure out what in his household is being the most wasteful between his computers, aquariums, and swimming pool filter because the bills are getting ridiculous. The best they can do though is to give a reading the previous day's usage. I'm assuming it will generally fix the crazy bills because I'm sure he was getting hosed from a previous year or something when he was being wasteful with that pinball machine running 24/7.

[Amelya]

My dad just had a smart meter installed and he was hoping to get a semi-instant read of how much power he was using so he could figure out what in his household is being the most wasteful between his computers, aquariums, and swimming pool filter because the bills are getting ridiculous. The best they can do though is to give a reading the previous day's usage. I'm assuming it will generally fix the crazy bills because I'm sure he was getting hosed from a previous year or something when he was being wasteful with that pinball machine running 24/7.

Might be useful:
http://www.amazon.com/P3-Internation...1770510&sr=8-1

Also you should be able to look up how much energy the aquarium filters/pumps/lights are using. If it doesn't say it on the actual item, usually online places will tell you in the description. I did it with most of mine a while ago. It's pretty hard to calculate for the heater since it turns on and off, but you should be able to get a rough idea at least.

[Miragemaiden]

They do this shit a lot, last year i remember getting over 400 dollars back in January because they overcharged me for a few months in the winter.

At least you actually got your money back. I'm wondering now if I should be checking my own meter every month... lame.