And I bet you’ll never guess how late I am.

Three days.  Yep.  The bill was due on the 19th.  It’s the 22nd.  And I only wanted them to wait until the 1st, which is five business days.  Hell, I’ve told everyone I’ve spoken with that I’ll cash Melen’s check and pay the bill at the same exact time! You can’t get much better than that short of someone standing over my shoulder every day until then to make sure I do just that.

And at this point, to be honest, I’d do it to keep my power on.  He needs electricity for his occupation.  I need electricity for mine.

I don’t dispute the fact that I owe them a lot of friggin money.  I don’t dispute the fact that I’m usually late.  This is mostly due, in part, to my billing cycle not matching Melen’s payment cycle.  And this time it would have, but something else came up that had to be handled.

Isn’t that always the way?

But I figured I’d better check in with y’all and make sure you’re reading your agreements carefully.  I read mine, today, to find out the NYS government has basically bent me over and held me down while National Grid anally raped me.

I especially like this little gem of a clause proclaiming their right to impale my asshole whether I like it or not:

By law, if we make a field visit to shut off service, this down payment may be up to 50 percent of your outstanding balance or four times your average monthly usage, whichever is greater.  If you contact us prior to a scheduled field visit, the down payment need not exceed 30 percent of the outstanding balance or twice your average monthly usage, whichever is greater.

Whichever is greater? What the fuck, NY? Nothing like shafting the people who pay your bills.  And you all fucking wonder why the vast majority of the state is in poverty.

I say “used to” because, folks, it seems like times, they be a changin’.  I just got off the phone after having the most pleasant conversation I’ve ever had with a National Grid employee.

Here’s the deal.  Their billing schedule is the exact opposite of M’s payroll schedule.  So we’re always a couple weeks behind.  Which means there’s always a disconnect in my mailbox.

Once upon a time, this was a ginormous cause of worry for me.  NiMo (short for Niagara Mohawk, which was the monster before it became National Grid) hired Satan’s children to work in their customer service offices.  Then they locked them in a room and subjected them to hours of stuffed animals and puppies and kitties.  Then they released them on the general public without a thought or a care as to who might be slain in the process.

Christ himself was afraid.  He told me in a dream.

Okay, I made that up.

Last month, I called National Grid’s customer service line, which, by the way, has improved slightly, in spite of the annoying voice-activated menu.  You can now be transferred via the automated menu to collections, and don’t have to deal with the snotty, “Uh… You have to calllll thhhis numbuh.  I can’t help you heunh.  Okaaaay? Buh-bai.”  You can just hear the bitch’s eye-roll.  And did she actually just suck her teeth at you? Did she miss the “service” part of “customer service” or is she confused as to who the customer is?

The phone was answered by a pleasant sounding man, when I finally got through the annoying menu, which didn’t once stutter on what I told it I wanted.  So either I spoke more clearly than I usually do, or they’ve tweaked it some.  And he proceeded to joyfully extend my disconnection date three days, and then reinstate my payment arrangement pending payment.  Because they don’t actually do business on weekends or holidays (It’s true.  Though their payment arrangements center is open from 8am-1pm on Saturday, they don’t actually disconnect on weekends or holidays.  So if your disconnect or payment arrangement passes on one of these days, you’re safe until the next business day.  For now.  Who knows if they’ll change that in the future.), I had a couple extra days tacked on and ended up with five extra days to pay the bill.  I didn’t actually need five days and paid when I had the money.  But having it was nice. 

As usual, there was a disconnect in my mailbox this month, too.  You’d think they’d notice M’s payment schedule and change the billing cycle, but whatever.  This way probably gets them more money with late fees or interest or something.  (Hint, hint, M.)  M doesn’t get paid till Tuesday and money’s tight.  So I called to see if maybe they’d push it back again.

Another excruciatingly pleasant gentleman answered the phone, calling me “ma’am” and saying “No problem!” a lot.

Quick sidetrack: My bird is absolutely nuts.  Keeps flying laps around the ceiling, screeching as if someone’s trying to kill him, for no apparent reason at all.  Annoying fucker.

Oh… Ghetto squirrel is trying to get in the window again.  Wth?

And he, once again, pushed my disconnect date back.  And once again, I ended up with a day more than I needed because of the weekend.

So far, they haven’t tried to make me pay more than the most recent past due bill to keep my service on.  I’ve not spoken with a single snide, snippy or sarcastic CSR.  And where as I used to be crying two minutes into the phone call, I don’t even consider shedding a tear on the phone with National Grid these days.

I wonder what happened.

Or maybe I’ve just been lucky.

I dunno.  Anyone else have a pleasant experience with them, lately?

The government and National Grid will tell you that’s not true.  They will tell you that there are a number of other energy suppliers in upstate New York.  That you’re more than welcome to take your business elsewhere.  That you can now deal with any number of suppliers and don’t have to deal with National Grid anymore.  They’ve even got a handy-dandy list for both gas and electric customers that you can refer to to find an energy supplier you’d rather deal with.

When citizens got fed up with the constant rise in price and utter disregard for an already impoverished people, New York started a program called “Your Energy… Your Choice” which, they said, would allow other energy suppliers access to the power lines in upstate New York and give citizens the option to stop using (and, by default, supporting) National Grid.  I looked into switching recently but found out that National Grid still owns the power lines.  And instead of the other energy suppliers renting the lines from National Grid, customers have to pay a monthly fee to National Grid to use the lines.

You don’t even get a bill from the actual energy provider you decide to go with.  All of the billing is done through National Grid.  So even if you’re getting your energy from someone else, you have to pay National Grid for service.  The only way to avoid dealing with National Grid in upstate New York is to live in an area covered by NYSEG, which, from what I understand, isn’t much better than National Grid.

As if all that isn’t enough, let me tell you about the bull shit we’re dealing with right now.

I’m currently on a payment agreement with National Grid.  I owe a lot of friggin money.  At least half of which is my ex’s fault, but that’s neither here nor there.  I owe them money and I’m trying to pay it off as best I can.

But the economy sucks.  Prices on food, electricity, natural gas, gasoline, housing are all going up and pay rates are staying the same.  We’ve managed to cut a lot of unnecessary stuff out of our budget but shit happens.  Emergencies come up.  And sometimes the budget’s still pretty tight.  Like now.

I had to sign a paper and send it back to confirm that we were agreeing to the arrangement.  Because our finances are what they are and we don’t have access to a fax machine, I had to wait till the day before the paper was supposed to be in to mail it out so I got it in just under the wire.  Which means their system had already sent us a disconnection notice that I received on or around June 7th.

On June 8th, I spoke to someone at National Grid about our payment arrangement.  I asked if they received the payment arrangement paper and if I still had a disconnection on my account.  The person I spoke to quoted me a bill due on June 19th (today) for the amount of $134.01.  With our payment arrangement, that meant we owed $144.01 due today.

Over the past few days, we’ve received three envelopes from National Grid, all with different amounts paid and due.  We were utterly confused.  One invoice said $1700 had been added to my account and I owed $0.  Another said that I owe $395.37 by July 5th.

The final notice we received said this:

We recently confirmed that you have been billed for usage on the wrong gas and electric meters from 10/24/08 to 05/20/09.  This situation has been corrected.  Your account was not debited for the usage you were under-billed for your electric service prior to 05/20/09.  We have re-billed the gas portion of your account for your actual usage resulting in a credit in the amount of $633.76.  The adjustments made are based upon actual readings off your correct meter and are in accordance with Public Service Commission Regulations.

They sum it up by apologizing for any inconvenience this might have caused me.  Which, yeah.  It’s a little inconvenient.  I now owe more than I used to.  But no biggie, right?  Tack it onto the end and I’ll pay it off gradually with the rest, right?

Wrong.

They want $400 of it right effing now.  They cancelled my bill of $134.01 and reissued a bill of $395.37 due by July 5th.

I’m not really understanding their logic, here.  I’m already on a payment arrangement.  The lowest payment arrangement possible according to the rules their collections agents have to follow.  The one they reserve for people in poverty.

So how does it make sense to bill me for 119 days of service – that I would have already paid for if they hadn’t screwed up – all at once?  And how is it even remotely fair?  And how the fuck am I supposed to come up with that kind of money on the 5th when rent is due on the 1st?

So I called.  And the first agent was convinced there was nothing she could do.  So she transferred me to someone else.  Who understood completely and transferred me to her supervisor.

It’s still not fixed.  I’m going to have to call back again.  Instead of lowering the amount they want to charge me right freaking now, they pushed it back a pay cycle.  Which is fine for now.  But then we’ll be at an even larger impass.  How am I going to pay $395.37 + whatever my current bill is?

Doesn’t it make more sense to… tack it on the back and let me pay it off with the rest?  Since it was, in fact, their mistake?  They’re treating it like a past due balance… a bill I just didn’t pay.  But it’s a balance they only just discovered.  So why am I being penalized?