Your Gas Company at Work

A couple of days ago, I got a letter from Laclede Gas that told me that my “next bill for gas service will include a charge for usage while your meter was not registering.” The letter goes on to say they will send me an estimated bill based on the weather, my usual usage, my horoscope, and solar flair activity. And they end the letter with “Please be advised that you do not have to pay this bill in full at this time,” but give no details about what that means.

The next day, right on schedule, I got my gas bill. There was a “Charge for Unmetered Gas from 1-19-11 to 5-11-11” less what I had paid them already in that same time period plus actual charges since then. Four months with “unmetered gas.” Hmmmm. My meter, by the way, has a transmitter on it so there is no need to send a person around to read it.

This morning, I called customer service with two, well three, questions:

(1) Why did it take Laclede four months to figure out my meter wasn’t working and send someone out to fix it?
(2) What was the deal on “you do not have to pay this bill in full at this time?”

The answer to (1) was that they had no clue but the meter had been fixed in May. The answer to (2) was that I could spread my payments out over several months, but it was unclear if there would be a finance charge if I did that.

And I did ask whether my next bill would be “actual” with any adjustment of what I owed them or they owed me on it. Yes.