Gas company suddenly bills you for 6 months worth of charges. What would you do?
 

Today I received 4 invoices from the gas company covering a 6 month period. I did some further checking and it looks like there's still a couple more that may arrive, which covers a further 4 months. The last invoice would have been issued in late 2007.

They want payment by 2nd Feb.

I'm curious. What would you do in this situation?

(Payment isn't going to cause a great deal of hardship in my case, but I'm pretty pissed that after more than a year they're playing fast catchup... pay now or else...)

In other news, I was double charged by my host a couple of days ago.

Must be the season for billing errors.

Um did you not realize you were still using gas and not paying a bill?

I figure they should work with you of course and I am pretty sure a manager would help make a payment plan. Yet it does sound like both of you were asleep at the wheel or something. Only difference is you did use the service.

when you werent getting bills did you call to see whats up?

damn pay yo damn bills!! :1orglaugh is this past or future billing and hows yo kid should be big now:)

I really only keep track of invoices that I've received... I'm too absent minded to "expect" them at a specific date. :) We're billed by the same company (but separately) for gas and electricity which is probably why I didn't realise that I hadn't seen one of those blue and white bills for a while.

I should add this is not the first time there's been the delay issue, this is the second time I've experienced it personally. I also found an article which said that 200,000 customers in another state experienced a similar problem. So it's not really about whether I should pay or not, it's about a fucked up public utility system that needs to be fixed. Officially. :helpme :error

Same thing I did when the electricity provider decided that my meter was broken and I was liable - check for alternative sources, find none, then bite down on the pillow. :mad:

Take the money to pay the bill and use it as down payment for solar panels and a
generator. :)

If there's a fried food restuarant in your area then get the generator modified to run
on cooking oil. They will gladly give you the used oil because otherwise they have to
despose of it legally(they can't pour it down the sink).

How do I convert solar energy and oil into natural gas? :upsidedow

Alternative energy is something I'm very interested in, but with a small array of servers consuming around 1kW 24/7/365 (plus the associated air conditioning power) it would require a shitload of capital investment to cover. :(

The idea is not perfect, but wow, wouldn't you love it if you got it all to work and
told the power company to fuck off?

Fuck, I had that problem for 11 months due to PG&E billing issues, I told them to fuck off I will pay you an extra $50 a month. Two months later they shut me off.

At that time I didn't have the $1300 turn it on so I busted in to my 401k and paid the penalties.

Fuck the power company one day I will be all solar.

http://revelationpodcast.com/Podcast...n_oilfield.jpg

:2 cents:

ADG

contact them and set up a payment plan, no interest no penalties. that is, if it was their fault not to send the bills.

I would contact them and tell them you simply don't have the money but want to work out a payment plan. If they say no, I would go up the chain and also contact someone from your city Council or a local state representative of some sort (not sure what you have in Australia). If they did it to you, the odds are there are others.

"What would you do?"
 

Go postal.

There's an energy industry ombudsman which I have already contacted with a preliminary enquiry. The fact that it's happened more than once, and the latest incident covers a ridiculous period of time (no invoice for more than a year?) means I'm willing to take it further rather than just quietly paying and forgetting about it like I did last time. :2 cents:

:2 cents:

That's kind of the nice thing about Winnipeg, it's so cold in winter that it's against the law for the gas company to shut you down during the cold months. They HAVE to work out a payment plan with you, because shutting off service to someone's house can often mean people freezing to death.


But seriously I doubt there's a utility company out there that isn't willing to work out a payment plan, so I'm inclined to go with what like Sly said.

I doubt we can fix this for you.

Sux but ultimately you are the one that should be on the ball according to their TOS which spans 32 pages....

My house here was a model home, and was one of the first houses built in the area. It was built before any of the streets existed, so it had no street address. Being as it was a model house, it was fully powered up for a few years while people walked through it.

When I went to change the power into my name it was a huge hassle. Every time I called they told me that my address didn't exist and passed me up to a manager. Every time the issue was "unresolved". They even had me read the serial number off of the meter outside, but told me this number didn't exist.

After a year and a visit to their main office in Sacramento, they finally sent someone out. I'm not sure of the details, but it was some kind of special arrangement with the power company and the home builder. I didn't pay for power or gas for six months and never got billed for it.

Fuck 'em.

Best quote of the thread so far.