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First Choice Power Complaint - The Reason People Hate Power Companies! - Electric Company
Electric Company - Complaint
IRVING, TEXAS -- This company has been nothing but trouble for us and the have yet to even pretend to care. At two diferent occasions First Choice disconnected the power to our home due to THEIR error. The first time they "accidently" sent out a disconnect notice even though the bill had been paid. The second time the power was disconnected because their website did not properly process the payment. My boyfriend and I split bills so I paid the first half and he paid the second half. All within 5 minutes of each other. My payment went through my bank account almost imediately. Then, mysteriously two days later the money was back in my bank account for a day and then taken out again. When the power was disconnected we called a First Choice customer "care" representative. Who flat out said that we were lying and the second payment had not been made. Both my boyfriend and I work from home and needed the power restored imediately so we said we would pay the 200 and sort it out later. At this point the phone representative tells us it will be at least 24-48 hours before they would turn it back on. We talked to the Texas New Mexico Power technician before he left after disconnecting and he very nicely told us he could be back within 10 minutes, all First Choice would have to do is send the reconnect notice and he's come right back. Once again the phone representative called us liars, told us we would have to wait because it was our fault that their website didn't accept our second payment and there was absolutely no emergancy request or escalated request procedure to have the power turned back on in a more timely fashion. Turns out as this phone agent was calling us liars, he was actually the one lying! I called Texas New Mexico Power, the provider that First Choice goes through and they assured me that all First Choice would have to do is send them a request and they could have us back up and running within the hour. The First Choice agent refused any assistance and basically told us to deal with it. We work from home because we live 40 miles from our office. Due to their error we both lost 3 hours of work each, had to pay for the gas to go in to the office and had to pay for emergency daycare for our 5 yr old niece that had been staying with us. I attempted to contact First Choice as well as the domestic call center that they outsource to and have yet to hear back from anyone!
Today we called to get a one week extension on our bill due to medical expenses that have caused us to be under until our next paychecks. We were informed that because we did not pay the exact amount when we requested an extension about 6 months ago they refuse to help us this time. Diference that they are sighting was yet again a website error!! On a $620 bill we evidently were off by $3.87. If we were paying over $600 why would we short $3.87? If they are going to completely screw us over that maybe we need to get a lawyer to have them pay us for the hours of work missed, gas money, and daycare money that their incompetence has cost us.
I would never recommend this deplorable company to anyone looking for an electric provider.
Unfortunately they have made it perfectly clear that they don't care about our business or any future business from word of mouth.
Today we called to get a one week extension on our bill due to medical expenses that have caused us to be under until our next paychecks. We were informed that because we did not pay the exact amount when we requested an extension about 6 months ago they refuse to help us this time. Diference that they are sighting was yet again a website error!! On a $620 bill we evidently were off by $3.87. If we were paying over $600 why would we short $3.87? If they are going to completely screw us over that maybe we need to get a lawyer to have them pay us for the hours of work missed, gas money, and daycare money that their incompetence has cost us.
I would never recommend this deplorable company to anyone looking for an electric provider.
Unfortunately they have made it perfectly clear that they don't care about our business or any future business from word of mouth.
Comments:
Posted by clutzycook on 2009-12-09:
I would recommend that you and your boyfriend set up a joint account where you both throw your respective bill halves and use that to pay the bills.
Posted by msnanny on 2009-12-09:
I doubt a lawyer is going to help you much with this. It seems to me if you would pay your bill complete and on time each and every month these problems would all go away.
Posted by RachaelD on 2009-12-10:
I wrote that when I was still pretty angry so I must not have been clear enough... The bills were paid complete and on time according to their website! We shouldn't have to pay an extra 20 bux each month "just in case" our account information is incorrect on their website. These have all been their mistakes, not ours!
Posted by goduke on 2009-12-10:
And that's what Texas gets for deregulating electric companies.
Posted by Anonymous on 2009-12-10:
Were you really only that one half payment behind? It seems pretty extreme to shut off the power for a half payment, with no prior notice.
Posted by RachaelD on 2009-12-11:
Yes it was just the 200 payment that their website failed to process that was behind. We received no notice through either mail, email, or phone. They had the payment, we were recently told by a representative that when we called and they were telling us that they never received payment, the rep that was telling us this put in his case notes that he saw the error in our account and that the payment had been made, he just had to press submit on his end.
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