Hick and The Amazing Technology-Savvy Dream Mouse

Hick has the house part of the Double Hovel done, move-in ready, and on the unofficial market. He started doing a little work on the beauty shop building on Wednesday. He plans to sell it pretty much AS IS, but is tearing out the rotted wooden floor. Depends on the cost to do more to it. Hick is weighing our options. We've already had a few lookers, two of which didn't realize the beauty shop building came with the house.

Anyhoo... Hick tried to call the electric company to have the power turned on in the beauty shop, so he can have lights, and use his power tools. He had a difficult time with this task.

"We need to go online and see if we can set up service through our account."

Heh, heh. WE indeed! What Hick really meant was that I should do that task. I wanted to ask what he meant by WE. "Do you have a mouse in your pocket?"

I don't mind attempting this task, but I am most often met with the roadblock of "Your name is not on the account, so you are not authorized to make changes." I don't want to set up a new account in my name, because we already have 4 accounts with the electric company, which somehow have three different versions of our name. I blame Hick for that, but you never know how competent the employees are with doing what Hick requests. Our home account has both our names on it, as does the BARn. Hick's SUS2 (Storage Unit Store 2) had both our names, but with mine spelled wrong. Hick tried to correct the spelling, and they just took my name off. The flip house has only Hick's name. Yet all 4 bills come to our home address.

Anyhoo... Here's Hick's tale of woe.

"I called to have the electric turned on at the beauty shop building. I got a call center in INDIA! They've never done that before. I told the guy I wanted to start service, and he said I had to pay a $500 deposit. I told him I wasn't paying no deposit! I didn't have to do it on any other of the accounts. So let me talk to a supervisor.

The supervisor said I had to pay it because it was a business. I told him it was a vacant building I was tearing out. That it hadn't been a business for over 10 years. Then he said it would just be a $180 deposit. I told him no. That I have four accounts in good standing, nothing owed, no late payments.

The supervisor said he couldn't see that I had any accounts. I told him that's funny, we both get emails at different email accounts of what we've used for the month, and notices when service is out. Then he said he found our accounts, and that he could turn it on for $100, since I was a senior citizen. All he needed was my credit card number.

I told him I wasn't givin' no credit card information over the phone to India, and that he could just put it on my first bill. He said he couldn't do that, he had to have a credit card number. So I hung up. Something didn't seem right, with him reducing the amount of the deposit, and demanding my credit card. So we should go online and see if we can to it that way. 

I'll try one more time to call tomorrow, and see if I get someone that makes more sense."

This is not some rinky-dink local electric company. It's a major company that operates in Missouri and Illinois. I can understand wanting a deposit for a new account, for somebody who's never had service with them. Hick DID have to pay a fee to establish service at his SUS2, because there had never been electricity at that address. But it came on the first bill. Nothing needed up front.

Unless this is a new policy they've started in the past four months, it doesn't align with how we've done business with them in the past. Surely there's a way to do it without using a credit card. Especially since people can pay their electric bill at several designated businesses in town, using cash, check, or money orders.

Kudos to Hick for not giving out his credit card number. This is something that needs more investigation.