
Obscure Charges That Utility Companies Add to Bills - danso
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-obscure-charges-that-utility-companies-add-to-your-bills
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tialaramex
A "mistake" at the phone company caused them to bill us in the 1990s for the
calls we made to dial-up. The whole purpose of using that company was that
they had zero charges for local calls of any length, and the dial-up service
existed /because/ of that facility, dozens of households were like ours and
just stayed connected over dial-up for days at a time. Essentially it's the
same service you'd now think of as normal (via DSL) except much less bandwidth
and you can't receive phone calls (we all had mobiles). This gave me the
important insight that what most mattered for newer technologies like ADSL is
that they are Always On Internet, not the bandwidth increase, because we had
no extra bandwidth compared to neighbours but we used the Internet very
differently because it was perpetually there. There was some 10base2 running
around the house to a Linux PC with a modem and a NAT mapped all the PCs onto
the dial-up address.

Anyway the person who sorted phone bills out got this bill for some obscene
amount of money and they phoned up to say no, these calls are contractually
supposed to be free, send us a revised bill that removes these charges.

The phone company says "Ah, you need to specifically identify any call you're
disputing and then we can consider altering the charges". Which is now making
_us_ do their job. Nope.

So he just gets the bill and crosses everything out. Absolutely everything on
the bill gets crossed out, test calls, dial-up, everything, and sure enough
the phone company took the hint and just zeroed the bill and stopped messing
us about.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Try that in vast majority of the homes and businesses in the US, and you'll be
stuck without a high speed internet connection. There's only one company
running wires, and if you piss them off, they might decide not to deal with
you.

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NullPrefix
There should be a law against this. If you are an utility, you cannot refuse
customers

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PenguinCoder
Good thing ISPs aren't classified as a utility now, huh.

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BubRoss
Municipal contracts to be the only provider while avoiding being classified as
a utility. Nice combination that was allowed over and over throughout the last
two decades.

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hanniabu
My friend had to call and argue a charge that was added for not paying the
full amount due, except that the only balance left was the amount of the fee.
If the fee was never applied the bill would have been paid in full. Of course
they argued him about this and he wasted 2 hours on the phone. I'm pretty sure
this is on purpose and the bank on the fact that most people would likely
ignore the few dollars fee because it's not worth the hassle arguing with them
and wasting time.

Edit: For anyone wondering, this was PSE&G in NJ

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deogeo
We should be able to bill them for time wasted.

~~~
hanniabu
I'd settle for a fraud lawsuit.

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amitparikh
The real evil here is that the surcharges are "all on top of the price that
regulators have agreed customers should pay for their electricity service."

Utilities support basic human necessities. We need power for light and heat.
When the base cost for these necessities rises (to subsidize infrastructure
projects), the poor are the hardest hit. And the fact that these governments
are essentially "hiding" taxes inside of utility payments is outrageous.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The proper way to help the poor afford utilities is to just give them cash, or
pay for the utilities on their behalf with cash. Obfuscating prices distorts
the market, and that leads to opportunities for corruption and inefficient
allocation of resources.

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maxerickson
Power plants and distribution infrastructure are not built in some abstract
market, they are built in the real world and regulated for good reasons.

If you regulate entry, you probably better at least keep an eye on prices.

If you want to argue that it should be possible to build whatever power plant
wherever, go ahead, but most people don't agree with that.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I agree that the power and distribution infrastructure hold special status as
utilities, subject to whatever regulations as needed since it doesn't make
sense to run wires from 5 different sellers to each home.

What I am saying is the price of a utility (or anything) should not be based
on how much a person earns. If the utility needs to raise prices to cover
their costs, they should raise prices. If the government wants to help poor
people, the government should give cash to poor people, or pay the utility on
their behalf. But the price of whatever is sold should not be masked.

And if the utility needs to raise prices, they should be raising the prices,
not adding fees. I can understand splitting out the cost of delivery vs cost
of generating electricity, but beyond that is just unnecessary confusion for a
buyer.

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cr0sh
Here in Phoenix, APS (and maybe SRP too, but I have never been their customer)
who supplies our power has this extra charge on the bill (I forget what they
call it) that doesn't seem to be tied to anything - and randomly fluctuates
per billing period.

Most all of their other charges you can see or can easily find out how they
are calculated; they either list how on the bill itself, or with enough
digging on their website, you can find the information. And while such charges
may not be entirely "likable" \- you can at least see what they are for, and
can figure out how to mitigate them in some manner.

But this one charge - and I wish I had a copy of my bill in front of me to
know what it's name was - it doesn't seem to be tied to anything - yet the
amount is a significant fraction of the entire bill; sometimes up to a third
of the bill in total!

I was looking at it one day years ago, and I couldn't figure it out. I went on
the website, googled the hell outta it, and nothing could be found on what it
even was, let alone how it was calculated. It's name was very obscure, yet it
took up so much of the bill that I wanted to know what it was and how I could
lower it. I showed my wife, and she was just as confused.

The following day she called up APS and talked to somebody there, and despite
staying on the phone for a few hours, they couldn't tell her anything as to
what it was or how it was calculated. I don't know if that was a ruse on their
part, or what, but to this day we have this extra charge/fee on our bill, and
we have to pay it, but nobody can tell us anything about it, what it is, how
it works, etc.

I would personally love to go "off grid" and tell them to stick it, but here
in Phoenix (and possibly other states and municipalities as well) they've
(utility companies and lobbyists) made it their goal (if it hasn't been
enacted in full yet - I haven't kept up on it) to make it a "law" that says if
you have a home that has pre-existing hookup to the house, you have to pay for
that hookup whether you use it or not.

I'm still trying to figure out how that is considered to be legal or fair, and
why - if it is, and becomes mandated - why the republicans in our legislature,
who accept this, are against the healthcare coverage mandate of the ACA...

~~~
DoctorOetker
is it cosine phi, or reflected energy?

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gniv
This fee inflation seems to be more and more prevalent. Whenever there is
pressure to keep the base price low, fees are invented.

For utilities, it’s regulatory pressure.

For hotels, it’s competition on advertised prices. Airbnb is particularly bad
about this.

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ocfnash
See also Verizon Math [1] for a different failure mode of utility company
surcharge billing!

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU)

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monster_group
I used to use autopay for all my bills but no longer use it mainly because if
there's a calculation mistake or an unwarranted charge on the bill, by the
time I notice (if I notice at all), the money would have been taken out of my
account and it is hard to get already paid money back. Now I review each bill
before paying. Just to be clear I have never had any unwarranted charges on my
bill but I have heard on local news about people getting thousands of dollars
of utility bill due to billing error - so I no longer do autopay.

~~~
inetknght
What's even more infuriating is when a company offers a discount for that.
T-mobile offers a $5 discount (per line? I'm not sure, I don't use it) if you
enable autopay. Of course, good luck disputing any charges you've
automatically paid!

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TeMPOraL
Rules of Acquisition, number #1: Once you have their money, you never give it
back.

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Scoundreller
Bell Canada used to have a “Network Charge” of $5/month on their landlines.

It seemed like a mandatory fee, but instead it was a charge they added on top
of their crappy long distance plans. Some of which you paid a monthly fee to
have for access to “discounted” rates.

Changing to another LD provider gave even cheaper rates for no monthly fees.

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barney54
The one upside for me about obscure charges on my cable TV bill years ago is
that it pissed me off and as a result I canceled cable TV.

I’m much better off without cable and it was obscure charges that motivated me
to cut the cord.

~~~
rubidium
Doesn't work as well with your water or gas bill : )

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indymike
My favorite was a large cable carrier that stats with the letter C that
managed to slide in 13 monthly bills. When confronted with it, I was given the
choice to pay or cancel service...

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Merrill
Back in the '90s a cable company started to also provide phone service in the
LA area. One little problem was that their billing software was unable to
calculate the up to 6 different taxes applicable on an address by address
basis.

