Ameren “dicking people around”
I got a phone call from my daughter yesterday that our power was out and I needed to come home. As I drove down the street I noticed everyone’s lights were on… except ours. Having paid the bills just a week earlier and being enrolled in their auto-debit pay system, I figured a squirrel or something was behind this, so I called to report an outage only to be told that my bill was unpaid. Furthermore, I was told disconnect statements were sent out as was a phone call which was listed as being picked up by an answering machine.
I couldn’t find any bills or statements (I throw them out after looking them over and/or paying) and there were no messages on my answering machine from them. Checking later, there were no emails sent either.
This wasn’t the time to argue and I didn’t want to spend the evening playing scrabble by candlelight, so I payed the bill in full over the phone. In short order someone showed up to restore power, but I was a little taken aback by what he had to say, and he prefaced it by “you didn’t hear it from me.”
Supposedly Ameren is cracking down on residential customers, and he had to disconnect someone for an unpaid $25 bill. He also said, they got rid of many positions, oversight of web and autopayments being one of them. Infact, the Ameren guy was recently given a notice to disconnect his own house, even though he works for them and was signed up for auto-debit!
“They’re dicking people around.”
He now only pays his bills through the mail or in person at Schnucks and suggested I do the same.
If you autopay, you might want to keep a close eye on it.
October 18th, 2012 at 7:16 pm
They did the same thing to us! Alleged phone calls were “answered” (my cell phone is on me 24/7 so I know they didn’t call). They then said it would be turned on the next day. After 15 phone calls and letting my child scream into the phone, they got sick of me and sent a truck out. They pretty much have you stuck though since they have the monopoly.
October 20th, 2012 at 6:16 am
Same here, and when I asked about why I never received a disconnect notice in my email, they said they only email bills, not other notices….
October 20th, 2012 at 6:39 am
…and people want to get rid of the Postal Service? Email me to notify me of disconnect? Maybe your ISP lost your email?
October 20th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
I asked them about the email and they said the don’t email out late notices or disconnect notices.
If nothing else, they could at least knock on the door at disconnect time and let you or give you chance to call and make the payment, instead of sneaking up, disconnecting it and then driving off
October 21st, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Notice to the public…
If they shut you off (all sneaky) on a Friday:
1. You can not speak with someone locally.
2. Be prepared to call customer service more than once.
3. You will be told that they can not confirm when someone will be out, but they will tell you if they are not out by 7 PM, you may not have power all weekend.
4. You may want to invest in a generator.
5. The only time they will not shut it off is if you have a doctor’s written script that for medical reasons, they can not shut it off.
True story.
October 29th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
[...] Go read the whole thing HERE. [...]
October 29th, 2012 at 4:26 pm
The people need more local control over basically unregulated utilities.
November 2nd, 2012 at 8:32 pm
This happened to me and I was SO MAD! I was over due on my bill by two weeks. I’ve never consciously paid a bill late before, but I am sure there have been many times when I mailed one in late and it didnt get there by the due date. I awoke, sicker than a dog, to my electricty being shut down and had to run outside in my pajamas to BEG for the worker to turn my electricity on.
I cried. I cussed. I used the name of the lord in vain. He finally let me pay by phone.
I was so mad because I have NEVER NEVER NEVER had anything like this happen. I pay my bills. How dare they turn my electricity off with no notice!
THEN after paying it by phone, I got call after call threatening to turn it off for the next two weeks when I had ALREADY paid.
Absolutely despicable treatment from a company who has been happily taking my money for nearly 30 years.
Of course, i called and complained two times and got nowhere.
a few seconds ago · Like
November 2nd, 2012 at 8:36 pm
I have also been told that electric companies try to turn off electricity in these cases BEFORE the temps get close to freezing, because they can not do so once the temps are low. So in September and October, if the temps are still high enough, they can ditch you as a customer and not be forced to provide electricity. I hope that makes sense. i don’t know if it is true, but it makes sense.
I do wish, however, whoever is doing this at Ameren, has enough sense to LOOK at someone’s payment history before making such a drastic decision. One of the things I asked when I called to complain was if they would cut off the electricity if someone was hospitalized and unable to pay a bill on time. Where do they draw the line? And why was the policy so seemingly different these past few months compared to before?
November 3rd, 2012 at 5:50 am
Maybe it is due to the fact that nearly 200,000 people in the Peoria area have elected to go co-op on their electricity with Good Energy. 4 cents a KW is a decent price and cheaper than Ameren. Ameren still has to provide the wires to transmit it. If you got the letter back a few months ago, and you didn’t opt out, you are getting the Good Energy rate. Maybe that is why Ameren is so gun ho on disconnection when failing to pay.
November 7th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
CJ- This exact thing happened to my wife & I at the end of September. We were also forced to wait 2 days for them to restore power. That’s the legal allowed time. Our dog was suffering in a 92 degree house. I lost my cool and talked to supervisors, etc. But we lost 2 days of power, $250 in food in the fridge. This same thing happened. ICC complaint is where we’re headed. This is shameful. Thanks for making people aware of this!
November 7th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Sorry, I didn’t mean to type CJ. I mean PI. Sorry!