I am growing wearing of businesses trying to do me a favor. Let's face it. When was a business ever interested in helping customers, rather than themselves? As I used to tell my students after an obvious question: "Let me answer for you." The answer, in this case, is NEVER! Businesses are not in business to "help" the customers. They are in business to make money for themselves.
A couple days ago, I got an email from my electric company. They've been trying for many months to "persuade" us to switch our billing to some kind of "saver" option. Rate options, where we will be billed differently for daytime and nighttime hours. Supposedly helping ourselves by running the washer/dryer and dishwasher during "off-peak" times.
Well. We have no dishwasher. We already do our laundry in the evenings. And the comparison graph they sent us showed that we would actually SAVE two dollars a month by keeping our billing as is, with the same rate charge over 24 hours. So why in the Not-Heaven would we want to switch? They did this automatically with our other accounts, like the two flip houses. Not a big enough deal to try and change it back, because we don't use that much electricity there, and hopefully won't have those properties much longer.
Here are some quotes from that email:
SAVE BIG without lifting a finger. It's easy and rewarding to ease energy demand! ENROLL TODAY.
When you sign up for Peak Time Savings, your smart thermostat will make temporary adjustments to help ease energy demand. You won't have to lift a finger! And enrolling comes with a lot of bonuses--like a $50 enrollment bonus and an annual $25 appreciation bonus every year you stay enrolled. SIGN UP NOW.
REALLY? You want to PAY people to enroll in this program? What's in it for YOU? Let me give my opinion. This will only profit the electric company. I will have my AC or heat cut during a heavy energy usage time. So I'm "helping" by sweating or freezing as my regular thermostat settings are changed by my "smart" thermostat. Which will save money for the electric company.
Yesterday, I got a different email. It included an itemization of "Your Energy Use By Appliance."
Always On.................................$15
Water Heating.............................$6
Refrigeration...............................$3
Cooking......................................$2
Laundry.......................................$1
Lighting.......................................$1
Here's the thing. This bill was $39.73, and it was for the BARn. The rest of the total is a fee for "summer usage." Yeah. There's also a fee for "winter usage" that will soon replace this one. It goes from one to the other. Apparently there are only two seasons for our electric company!
Let the record show that the BARn has no water heater. No running water at all! There IS a refrigerator. But no source of cooking. No source of laundry. The light is on the front of the BARn. And if Hick is working over there, he turns on the inside lights. So at least three of those six itemizations are a flat-out LIE!
I told Hick, and he said, "Well, they are just using percentages to justify the bill." What in the NOT-HEAVEN is that supposed to mean??? It's misleading! How can we trust anything they send us purporting to explain our actual electricity usage?
It's not like we are extravagant with our energy usage. In the house, whose bill is of course more expensive than that of the BARn, the thermostat is set on 74 degrees for the AC, and 70 degrees for heat. I prefer it to stay that way, and not be fiddled-with by a Smart Meter.
I agree with you, it is not about us customers! My mom's program is you pay the bills, then they calculate your usage and if you overpay, you get a credit on the bill. They have us using power after 7pm evenings and weekends only, just to save money - luckily we can do this, but other folks cannot!
ReplyDeleteThat might be something like the "budget billing" we get offered. They spread out the bill all year, so you pay the same amount each month. Even though some months you may actually owe more, and some you may owe less.
DeleteI think everybody should have the choice of when they want their electricity, and the settings they can use for heating/cooling. As long as the bill gets paid, don't meddle with my temperature and schedule! This smart meter they MADE us have installed (or pay a fee every month for not doing so) is troubling to my sense of freedom!
I hate those "smart" meters and I'm glad we can't have them here because we are not a house, we are 110 flats/units/apartments depending on how flash you want to describe yourself. I always have my AC set too high in the winter, so I expect my bill to be high and I use the clothes dryer more during winter too, though I am trying to cut down on that particular usage. I make advance payments every pension day so the account is always in credit. I don't care if they are earning credit at their banks, I do it for my peace of mind. I like getting bills that say "no payment required".
ReplyDeleteI am glad you can't have a smart meter! It makes me think that the company can use it to override my settings if "they" declare they're having a problem with electricity usage.
DeleteI understand how you like to make advance payments so you know the bill is covered, and you don't owe anything when it arrives.
My daughter works in customer service for a large phone company…..one that starts with an A and has a couple of T’s in it. They recently moved customer service to another country…😦 and re-assigned customer service employees to sales. She hates it and says their high pressure tactics should be criminal. It seems to get older folks and people who don’t understand such things and soon their phone bills increase drastically. My friend and her husband got new Apple iPhones thru this company and had so many services and benefits added that it almost doubled their phone bill. And they didn’t understand it well enough to even address it with the provider. They like the technology but don’t really understand it. So, they just pay every month. My daughter is seeking other employment.
ReplyDeleteSo, it is not just utility companies. My daughter attended classes that taught them how to chitchat with people on a personal level and ease them into services because they trust you and you are friendly.
This comes as no shock to me. Money makes the world go round, and no company is going to do any favors for the customers unless it increases their profits.
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