"For Your Own Safety"

Rappa

2 BAZILLION MOOGLES
Adventurer
Joined
Oct 30, 2004
Messages
6,386
Age
46
Location
Clarksville, TN
Website
www.gamefaqs.com
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DarkKnight-Female
Secondary Job
WhiteMage-Female
Third Job
RedMage-Female
Server
Quetzalcoatl
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FFXIV
Rappa
This is a rant. It's going to be long and possibly uninteresting to read, but I need to vent about it and I don't use any of those newfangled Myspaces or whatever so you're my target audience. If you don't want to read it, then don't.

My power was cut off to my house erroneously today for the second time. To make it easier to appreciate the story I'll briefly explain why it was cut off the first time. I moved from PA to TN in the middle of September. I got a nice house that I live in with my brother. He'd already had his stuff moved in at the start of the month. Being that the same company (Clarksville Department of Electricity) did the electrical for both his old apartment and his new house, he had everything switched over under his name. Pretty simple procedure I would think. On September 1st they were to cut off the power to his old address and begin his account with the new address. It was never cut off here because it transferred directly from the owner to his name on Sept 1st.

So anyway, this seems like nothing important. The bills are set to autopay so we're all done, right? Wish that it were that simple. On December 1st, the power was shut off to our current house, no warning, no knocking on the door, just shut off. I didn't even realize what had happened at first or I would've run out and said something to the guy. Now as some of you might know, I work from home. No power = no internet = no way to do my job. Since it's in my bro's name I called him up at work and asked him to call the company and find out what was up since he had all the info about the account.

So he calls and the person said that instructions had been left to shut off our power on December 1st. Not only this, but they had never shut off the power at his old apartment. So they got the location AND the time wrong. Now just going by common sense, why would you move and then ask for your power at your new place to be shut off a few months later? I dunno. The kicker is that they wanted him to pay both to turn it back on here and for the months at the old place that he wasn't living there. Of course talking to a few higher ups in the company got that idea removed and it was turned back on for free. I missed the entire day of work and had to take a vacation day to make up for it, which I wasn't happy about. So anyway, he clarifies that he no longer lives at the old place, they say okay, we have power, and live is good again, right?

Fast forward to today, May 31st. We've been living here most of a year now. It's a quiet workday and friends want me to merit with them so I say okay sure. I build a great pt, zipping through work on my laptop while pulling a nice chain on my pc and suddenly my power goes out. I don't think too much of it, sometimes the power flickers just long enough to turn off all my shit and then it'll come back on. Well, it didn't and then I heard a vehicle start up pretty close to the house. I look out the window and sure enough, it's a CDE truck speeding off. I'm furious, being that it's the second time this has happened. So I call my bro again and he's also pissed so he says to give him a minute and he'll find out what's up.

So I'm sitting there. My pt's without their puller, I can't work, and it's slowly getting really hot in the house because my ac's gone now. After a little while of waiting I have to leave the house because it's too hot so I go to get my car's oil changed and some other shit I've been meaning to do. Brother calls me back and let's me know what happened...

So apparently even after the first debacle, they've been sending mail to his old address. Just those "Thank you for your payment" type things you get from some auto-pay companies. Well, those were being returned to sender, so after having so many returned to them they decided "for your own safety" that they would turn off the power at our new place. Now, I'm not really sure what kind of detective work went into this, but apparently no one in the entire fucking company has a lick of common sense.

First of all, I always park my car in the driveway. If they were concerned (and I still don't understand this part myself), and they KNEW someone was in the house, why the hell didn't they knock to try to figure out what was going on? Not to mention their number on record is my brother's cellphone number which has never changed so they easily could've called as well. Even more annoying is the fact that we'd already been through this before so obviously after fixing this the first time they made zero notes in their record that he no longer lived at the first address (which was no longer getting power from them anyway...). So basically I'm out another half day of work because they didn't bother to checkup on something that could've easily been solved by a phonecall or even just having their rep knock on the door before shutting off the power.

I particularly find this interesting in light of the other topic on this board about power right now. "For our own safety" they had my power out for 4 hours. What if my power somehow was used to keep me alive? Not to mention the fact that by the time I left the house it was over 85 degrees and still climbing inside. My boss let the half day of work slide this time without saying anything, but people work from home too. Not everyone is forgiving as my boss is. This whole thing is insane and wasn't handled properly at all. Like I said at the start this is mostly a rant, but I just can't see how businesses can handle things in such a crazy fashion. They never called, they never sent anything to the CURRENT ADDRESS asking why they were getting mail returned from the OLD ADDRESS. They didn't come to the door before shutting off the power. They just did it without a concern in the world. If we hadn't called, it'd still be off now and we'd have no idea why. And they never missed a payment either. I just don't understand.
 
So today, in my pt, this bitch dc'd and then I find out that he dc'd due to his "power going out"... owai-
 
Power went out, what a lame excuse. Stupid bitch. :/
 
If your brother updated all his information, then the electric company is in the wrong for not having contacted you guys successfully to get things resolved.

I'd ask for compensation <_<
 
If your brother updated all his information, then the electric company is in the wrong for not having contacted you guys successfully to get things resolved.

I'd ask for compensation <_<


go big and file a lawsuit then have them settle you for more i say
 
That is really bullshit. Did you talk to the company about why they were so unproffesional? I would demand like a month of free electric saying you got written up with your job and they have jeapordized you emensely :D Teach em to keep better track of shit!
 
That is really bullshit. Did you talk to the company about why they were so unproffesional? I would demand like a month of free electric saying you got written up with your job and they have jeapordized you emensely :D Teach em to keep better track of shit!

I agree with Kari. Take these suckers to court.
 
That sucks ass ><

I totally agree with Kari. Even if they're not willing to compensate you for what is almost undeniably their incompetence, it'd still be fun to call and make someone in middle management sweat :P
 
No, do even better. Randomly take their power away!

lol

And really, it's not that I want compensation. If this shit never happens again, that's good enough for me. It's more troublesome that this is the kinda logic being used by a company that's powering probably 90%+ of my entire city. It baffles me how they came up with the idea that shutting off the power w/o doing any investigating was the smartest thing to do in this situation.
 
What's to say they won't screw up again if you don't put the heat on them?

Sounds like some morons in the accounts dept that jotted your details down on a sticky note instead of in their database.

If you start a ruckus with mgmt demanding a free month or two of service, damn rights they (the managers) will make sure the accounts are up to date. If you don't, you details might still be on a sticky note stuck to the front of someone's holiday plans.

"Do this before I go:"

It's easy to be an asshole over the phone and it usually doesn't take much assholeishness to get compensation. In this case the assholeishness is even justified.

Going to court and all is a bit of an exaggerated money-grab, doesn't seem like something you'd do. But squeezing a couple drops of blood from them can be done and over in as little as 20 minutes if you're lucky.
 
If you act like an asshole over the phone you get a note put on your record with them, and get transfered directly to someone with some sense instead of speaking with the retards first.

I learned this after the umpteenth time I called up Sallie Mae about them applying my monthly student loan payment to only one of my loans, insead of all of them (I sent slips for all of them). I got a "1 moment, let me connect you to my manager" after all I had given them was my account number.
 
The good thing about being a ass in RL is that no one call you a newb. Don't be afraid to start shit.
 
That is really bullshit. Did you talk to the company about why they were so unproffesional? I would demand like a month of free electric saying you got written up with your job and they have jeapordized you emensely :D Teach em to keep better track of shit!

This would probably work with other companies. But power companies totally enjoy their monopoly and couldn't care less about customer service. I've found the cable company is in the same boat. Sucks this happened to you though Rappa.
 
The good thing about being a ass in RL is that no one call you a newb. Don't be afraid to start shit.


For the number of times I've bitched about uninformed retarded asshole customers, I will quote Halifirien.

Hehe. That's a statement to be taken with a grain of salt if there ever was one.

It does not help to call someone and immediately act like and indignant bitch/asshole. Personally, I would be more apt to accidently hit the wrong button on your ass. There is a difference in being an asshole and being extremely stern.

"Why did you fucking cut off my power idiots?" = asshole.

"I need to understand why my account is continuously having service issues. I thought I made it very clear last time we are no longer living in residence X. We are now residing at residence Y and this is the second inconvenience to me and my job. Are you able to fix this problem or direct me another employee, possibly a manager, who would be able to ensure this does not happen again?" = stern.

Number 2 might still make me mad as a phone operator, but I would still realize you weren't angry/cursing at me personally.
 
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It does not help to call someone and immediately act like and indignant bitch/asshole. Personally, I would be more apt to accidently hit the wrong button on your ass. There is a difference in being an asshole and being extremely stern.
By those examples I previously meant to be stern and not an asshole. Blame the company, not the person on the other end of the phone.
 
I just makin sure. It seems like everyone here wants Rappa to be the asshole we all bitch about as we retell our work horror stories.

"So this fucking idiot customer comes in... blah blah blah"
 
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