Beware of Your Power Company's Equal Payment Plans...

I just wanted to let everyone here at DP know that they should be careful when signing up with equal payment plans with their power companies. It doesn't matter if you are using Con Edison or Sierra Pacific. They will defraud you. I have a huge bill this month, and I want to help others avoid falling prey to the same thing I fell for.

Many power companies advertise so called "equal payment" plans. In reality, this term is deceptive. Equal payment plans DO NOT help you save money. If you use more than the equal amount, your power company will still charge you, but they may not make you aware of it. Let me give you an example:

Your power bill is constantly fluctuating each month, and sometimes it is very high. To save money, you try to set up equal payment. In this hypothetical scenario, your bill is "set" at $120 per month. However, you continue to use $150 worth of power each month.

The power company takes the $30 extra dollars, and places it in a ledger account. When your bill is emailed to you, they DON'T show you this amount. Each month, the extra $30 continues to add up. Lets say that you decide to cancel your equal payment plan after 7 months.

Your power company will then tell you that your bill is $210, and they will continue to keep adding it 30*7. This is exactly what happened to me, but the bill is larger.

The power companies rip you off with equal payment plans. If if you are paying a set amount per month, they will accumulate your charges and not show it on your bill when you receive it by email

 

Maybe i am missing something. If you used $150, but only paid for $120, you still owe $30 correct? Now they want to collect?

1. I fail to see why a company would do this?
2. If you used that much electricity and you owe them that much, why not pay it?

Did I miss something here?

 

Because they are scam artists.

This is kind of complicated. I have paid my power bill on time each month, but my power company was not charging me the full amount that I was using. As an example, lets say my bill is set at $120. This is the amount that I think I'm supposed to pay. But If I use more than $120 worth of power, they charge me more money, but instead of showing it on the bill that they send me via email, they let it build up in a separate account.

So I'm thinking that the $120 that I'm paying each month is paying off my balance, but in reality, if I actually used $160 worth of power, instead of adding it onto the $120, they hide it

 

From doing some reading into the "equal payment plans" that is the general idea of how it works though.

https://secure.progress-energy.com/sid/custservice/carres/payment/epp/index.asp

It seems to be a decent concept, as long as you don't change providers in the middle of a year - as any overage is calculated into next year's monthly rate and I'd assume if you started using less power, the rate would go down the following year as well. If you do cancel in the middle of a year, I guess it could be a shocker to see the balance owed (if you had been using more electricity than paying for).

 

my company just ads the credit amount to the account. Many months of the year I will use over $100 in power, buy the bill says $0. I have been using this system for 5 years now and haven't lost anything from it.

Since they do apply the extra credit to your account, I am missing how they stole from you.

 

Sounds like the power companies are starting to learn from the cell phone providers that if you force the issue of customer loyalty you won't win any friends but you will keep a lot of customers you would otherwise lose.

They have a pretty logical argument - you have to pay before you leave. But since they don't tell you what your usage is, you have no idea that you should be trying to save energy. The whole power industry is a scam. So much of what I read in the news is simply not the way things work (referring to brown outs, rolling blackouts, etc.).

It's the same as gas - every once in a while they test the waters to see how much people will pay without rioting. Then they leave the prices stable for a while and start all over again. It's capitalism at it's finest, but it's also just plain mean spirited and unethical.

The deregulation was supposed to inspire competition and alleviate customers from monopolistic practices, but the only visible affect it has had was to reduce customer service overall and reduce job security for power company employees.

 

The real "trick" here is to read the plan very carefully before you sign-up or agree to it.

We use this to equal out our payments throughout the year and it's great for budgeting; the bill isn't 100 in the summer and 400 in the winter as an example.

Different utility companies will have different plans. Some will have a "catch-up" month built into them, generally at the very beginning or very end of the calendar year.

Others, like ours, will merely adjust the "equal" payments over time to bring the payments to a point where there is not a huge credit or debit on the account.

Again - read before you agree.

No offense, but you can't be mad at the utility company for your failure to read what you agreed to ... even if their practices later create a hardship on you.

 

Well, I don't recall being presented with a terms of service. And the bills I received by email never showed the true amount I owed. But you are right. From now on, I'm reading the TOS of anything I sign up for, no matter how long it is. I always read contracts before I sign them.

You know what I think? One of these days, there is going to be another American Revolution. A lot of people are going to die, but I think a large segment of the population is getting sick and tired of corporations and governments. They try to run our lives, and leach off us to a large extent.

The way I see it, the entire human history is composed of people fighting against oppressive governments and institutions, and the same thing continues to happen today. It is not a matter of me not having the money to pay this bill.........I have it. But I feel that the power company was deceptive in they way the handled the whole thing. It is hard to become financially independent when you are constantly being ripped off. I know they are charging me for more power than I'm using.

 

I wouldn't go quite that far. I would venture to say that the american people haven't even come close to getting angry about anything that the government or corporate america does. Sure, there's a lot of complaining going on, but very little action - and nobody with any real reach is pushing for it.

The truth of the matter is that we are all content to just sit tight as long as we can make our house payments. I'm living a life right now 100 times more luxurious than when I was a teenager. I'm not rich or anything, but I have been living the american dream. Most people I know in my age bracket are living better than they used to. Mostly it's due to a crazy housing market, but I'm going way off topic already.

 

I agree, Where else in the world can you sit down on a saturday nite watch people get arrested on TV (cops show -fox tv) (keeping us safe)

Drink an imported ice cold beer of any kind, (relaxing without fear)

While sitting in your ice cold a/c ( while power is always on - execpt bronx for those 7 days)

While also sitting on a $500 recliner ( which I was able to pick the color of fabric)

Using a $1000 dollar latop, and viewing any topic on the world via the internet, that was shipped to my front door

Sure we have taxes and such , BUT hey if thats what we have to pay to live the american dream, I am in!

Sorry this was off topic

 

I thought everyone knew power companies did this? It keeps you tied to them if you can't stump up the cash to pay off any balance outstanding.

 

I never even heard of it until yesterday. If my power company offered it; I wouldn't take it. I don't even think I have the ability to switch to a different one, but I'd much rather pay what I owe instead of hedging my bets each month.