NotTheRock Musings

It's hot in Texas. Like 105+ hot lately. And when your A/C in the house is set at 75 degrees, it seems reasonable enough. Until you realize that it means that it's thirty degrees warmer outside and thus the A/C has to pretty much constantly work to keep the temp from approaching furnace levels. This leads to rather, let's say, high electricity consumption.

Normally, I'd just set the programmable thermostat to allow the temp to go up during the workday, but then it only allows a M-F setting and a Sat-Sun setting. Why it can't be programmed to coincide with my day planner, I do not know. But when Lovely Wife is going to be home on Mondays and Fridays, I can't exactly have the M-F setting allowing it to be 85 while she's there. Though it does sound amusing.

So the point is we consume electricity at an alarming rate. And our house isn't even that big for our area. But in the summer, our electric bills can be $400+. Yeah, I know.

We got our last bill, which was the usage through somewhere in mid-June I think and it was about $300. Yeah, and it's getting bad now and we're not even into July. My money-saving wife went and found out that if we lock into a deal with our current energy provider, we would not only get bonus Continental miles for every dollar we spend, but we'd also reduce our rate by almost.... get this... 50%. Five-oh percent. Jiminy Christmas, why didn't we do this sooner? Because we're idiots.

So I called on Wednesday and told them I wanted their 12 month lock-in guarantee extravaganza whatever plan. They agreed, set it up and let me know that there's a $150 cancellation fee if I jump ship before 12 months are up. Okay, fine. She tells me it'll be effective with "the bill that includes my July usage." Why not just tell me the date? Because they're sneaky f-cks, that's why.

The Wife performs her usual inquisition when I tell her it's done and I admittedly don't have all the facts. It sounds like it'll be effective in July, I tell her. Which wasn't very convincing. And nor should it be. And being married a couple of years now, I've learned it's fine to just admit it when it got too confusing for my brain. I asked the girl when it would be effective, she sort of answered and I asked again and she said more jumbled answers... and well, I gave up. Which is what she wanted me to do.

So the wife calls Thursday and learns that, no, it actually won't go to the new, better rate until July 24. She flips out. They say sorry, that's the deal. She suggest we cancel. They tell her that'll be $150, because I locked into a deal the day before. A deal that we don't get for a month. Yeah, that sounds fair. They also tell her it's because of billing cycles that it doesn't become effective immediately. When does the next billing cycle begin? Why, on July 12. So why can't it be effective that day? It just can't. Solid.

So they, as you can imagine, the hammer has to be brought in. I'm the hammer.

I call and explain to Yolanda that I was misled and that I obviously wouldn't have locked myself into a plan that doesn't start until almost the end of the 1st or 2nd hottest month of the year. She advises me that they did explain this ("Not clearly," I point out) and that this has to do with billing cycles.

I ask: "If I was a new customer and signed up for this plan today, wouldn't it be effective immediately?"

Yolanda: "Well, if you were a new customer today, we couldn't turn on your electricity today. It'd be more like next week."

Me: *head hits counter*

She does acknowledge that a new customer would get the good rate as soon as things began.

Me: "So we're being punished because we're loyal customers who want to stay with you?"

I'm loading the chamber with these two points when she puts me on hold:

(1) If the rate doesn't begin until July 24, how can the cancellation fee be in place before then?

(2) If we'd normally pay $400+ and a 50% reduction (which we could get from a competitor plan, too) would lead us to roughly a $200 bill, the $150 would still allow us to save $50 in one month alone.

I actually speak these points while I'm on "hold." I say it that way because there was no hold music, no hold commercials, no "we'll be right with you," no nothing. I think I was just on mute. I used to work in a call center and sometimes we'd mute calls instead of put them on hold, for a variety of reasons. One of the sneakier reasons was that you could listen to what they were saying to others in the room. I know.

After about a ten minute hold, during which time I also said, "For this kind of wait, there better be good news on the other side," she came back and -- presto -- our new rate was effective immediately. She made sure I knew that it wasn't even her supervisor who did it -- their manager had to sign off on it. Sign off on giving me the rate you were advertising? Okay. I bet you could make one of your newfangled computers do that for anyone who signs up for that deal. But hey, I'm no expert.

So in the end, because we were the squeaky wheel, we probably saved over $200 next month alone. It feels good, but whenever I have one of these victories, I still feel irritated for the non-complaining, diligently-bill-paying customer (who I usually am): they're getting the screw job while I get the sweet deal. Not cool.

Labels: A/C, customer service is dead, hot