Woman's Power Shut Off Over One Cent

[The Straight Story]

Woman's Power Shut Off Over One Cent

POSTED: 11:49 am EDT May 16, 2006
UPDATED: 11:53 am EDT May 16, 2006

FLINT, Mich. -- It was just a penny, but to Consumers Energy it was enough to cut off power in a local home. Jacqueline Williams, 41, of Flint had an electricity bill of $1,662.08 and paid all of it, except for one cent. That wasn't enough for the power company, which blacked her out for seven hours Wednesday.

The CMS Energy Corp. subsidiary told Williams the power would not be turned on until the penny was received.

"I went down there, paid my penny and got a receipt," Williams told The Flint Journal.

Shortly after, the electricity was turned back on.

http://www.local6.com/news/9224216/detail.html

[EFerrari]

1. Wtf is the MATTER with people any more. n/t

[bluerum]

2. They don't call them "power" companies for 'nuttin.

[high density]

3. It seems we're missing something here

Dunno about you, but my power bill isn't $1600 a month. Shutting off over a penny is stupid but the reporter doesn't seem to be telling the entire story here. $1600 is about 3 years worth of power for me.

[The Straight Story]

4. I can see it happening, something like this happend to me

After months of a decent bill I got hit with my normal bill plus 985 more. Their reason? My meter was not working right. They came out and replaced it and then told me it should have been charging me more kwh. Blabbed on about something at a substation and they were done.

I tried to fight it but they simply said - sorry, you're screwed.

[mccoyn]

6. Could be gas and electricity.

Consumers Energy and DTE merged a few years ago. I live about 40 minutes away from Flint and the merge meant that now I get gas and electricity on one bill.

I had to straighten them out after I moved. Every time I paid them they applied it to my old account. One day I got two letters from them. The first said I owed them for a few months at my new address and they were going to shut off power. The other letter said that I had overpaid my old address and it had a large credit.

[noonwitch]

9. For a large, old house in Flint, that's around a one year bill

I know, I've processed paperwork to pay off bills to keep people's power from getting cut off.

The customer had likely made a payment arrangement with CP. When she paid it off and missed by a penny, the computer read it as unpaid in full, by the date it was supposed to be paid off, and she got cut off.

[bluerum]

10. $2000 for electric heat covers three cold months in a NE winter.

[The Straight Story]

15. Good point, she may have had electric heat

I did at one placed i lived, and we had a pretty cold winter and bill was pretty high - the good though it was a small place.

[high density]

16. yeah I didn't think of that

my bad.

[qanda]

12. Man, I wish I had your bill

My gas/electric bill runs about $350 a month on budget billing. Before I got the budget billing plan, I had one bill that was over $700 for one month.

[HeeBGBz]

5. Geez don't they have a take a penny leave a penny dish?

That company sounds pretty fucked up.

[MADem]

7. If I were here, I do everything I could to get off the grid

What bastards.

[Bushy Being Born]

8. Obviously nobody at the power company manually flipped a switch

I'm sure it happened automatically after a computer calculated that the funds had not been met. One penny short doesn't matter much to a computer; it's still short.

[newyawker99]

11. This is disgusting. Turn of someone's electricity

for one penny? :puke:

[Ksec]

13. Now that is unbelievable.

Corporate America has become a greedy fat, drooling Hog. They are behind most things our government is doing that we disagree with. In other words, its all about them and Fk you. This kind of thing makes me believe capitalism has failed . Its too greedy/

[yella_dawg]

14. Reconnect fees are big bucks.

Lots of utilities pad the profit margin with quick/absurd disconnects to get that easy 20-30-50 bucks.