Current Events > Texans of CE, turn off your auto renew on your power bill

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/apexxlexx/status/1362630978976370690

Texas friends- TAKE YOUR ELECTRIC BILLS OFF AUTO-PAY. My billing cycle just started this week and its already 8 TIMES my normal payment with 25 days left to go. I sat in the dark and barely used my heat. We need to demand relief for these bills. This is so criminal and evil.

I've lived in an area that had one primary power supplier and every winter, like clockwork, power bills would skyrocket. Even if you weren't home for most of the month.

"oh you spent weeks away and didn't leave the heat running or have any/many electronics plugged in? Welp, here's a $110 power bill. What's that? You were home all summer and spent all day playing games and watching TV? $40 power bill"

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Nice job fighting regulation texas. Youre free to pay an $8000 heat bill.
What even is the heat bill? Electric? Mines gas, but i live in Canada. I havent turned on my heat all winter because im in a condo that i guess is well insulated - my first winter here.
Kudos to all that freedom you have tho.

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Good luck if your utility company has a policy requiring auto-pay for the first year in lieu of a deposit...

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So do these people think theyre gonna have power next month if they refuse to pay their bill?

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Sweet Jesus.

Those people are getting screwed every which way.

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I hate auto pay things. One time someone charged like $6000 of calls to my brothers phone and the autopay actually flagged it. It wouldnt pay the amount until someone from the company called him and they easily figured out it was someone else.

Either way, this is criminal and that giddy power company ceo needs to spend the rest of his life in the coldest prison weve got.

thronedfire2 posted...

So do these people think theyre gonna have power next month if they refuse to pay their bill?

I think the idea is that they are trying to avoid paying a large bill for utilities they didn't use.

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thronedfire2 posted...

So do these people think theyre gonna have power next month if they refuse to pay their bill?

I think its mostly to avoid a $1500-$4000 charge that they almost assuredly cannot afford and having their credit card default or having an overdraft fee on their debit card.

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Buzz Killjoy posted...

Good luck if your utility company has a policy requiring auto-pay for the first year in lieu of a deposit...

Is that really a thing?

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How is that legal

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Buzz Killjoy posted...

Good luck if your utility company has a policy requiring auto-pay for the first year in lieu of a deposit...

May I ask which state this is?

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You want me to listen to someone with an anime avatar?

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Don't mess with texas

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This is what you get for an independent power system

if they actually try to charge people for that its peak Texas

brestugo posted...

May I ask which state this is?

That's what the City of Austin does.

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I shouldn't have said requiring probably, I think you have a choice. But everybody I know has chosen to skip the deposit.


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This talk of power bills reminded me of a story.
I believe it was after Katrina, after the power lines and buildings got knocked out. They spent time getting things all sorted and reconnected. A few months passed after getting stuff running and they sent some power company workers to this old lady who wouldn't pay her electric bill. She's sitting on the front porch and they tell her they're there to turn off her power. So she tells them "go right ahead".

So they go around to where the power box is, and they learn they never actually reconnected her power, but were still billing her for months of use. They apologized, reconnected it, and dismissed the unpaided bills.

Purple_Cheetah posted...

So they go around to where the power box is, and they learn they never actually reconnected her power, but were still billing her for months of use. They apologized, reconnected it, and dismissed the unpaided bills.

Besides a standard connection fee, how were they determining what to charge her if she wasn't using anything?

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