SCORE ONE FOR JCP&L

Hey, now, I’m not a totally unreasonable person. As my faithful readers (reader?) already know, I’ve had an ongoing issue with JCP&L and their billing practices. But it is not my intent just to throw shit their way for the sake of it. I’m just being diligent. Hey, I’ve been frugal since before it was cool and I strongly believe that people need to be on top of these things, not just JCP&L but ALL your bills…I’ve discovered discrepancies in my T-Mobile bills, hospital bills, bank statements etc. I think it is just sound financial policy to analyze any bill before paying because it’s a hell of a lot easier to verify the correct amount than to try to get a refund on an overpayment. That being said, I am not a blowhard for the mere joy of blowhardiness and so I present the conclusion of this particular episode:

I was contacted by Lisa, who as it turns out, has the position of “Consumer Advocate” for JCP&L. I wasn’t aware the position existed, and although it may be a mandated position and she obviously has a vested interest, I am nonetheless cautiously impressed. So, Lisa offered to come out and read the meter and then discuss it with me. In the meantime, my son Remy and I did a bit of brainstorming regarding the possibility that our electricity consumption had risen by 77% … the main possible culprit being the humongous computer he brought back from MIT for the summer and the mitigating factors of my being off work (thus consuming electricity during a period of time I would usually be at work) and the round the clock consumption of the crazy waking/sleep cycle of your typical teenager in the summertime (ie. Up all night). He did a few calculations as he often does and concluded it was unlikely, yet possible. Turns out it’s not as unlikely as we thought.

Unfortunately, I was tied up in jury duty at the time of our appointment and wasn’t able to meet with Lisa. However, after several attempts we finally connected on the phone and Lisa explained to me that she personally read the meter and it as it turned out, it was correct. She also identified an issue with the utility’s access to the meters which is apparently the source of why there are so many estimates, and she stated that she would work with the Housing Authority to obtain the access…the lack of which is most likely an oversight as they generally do have access to various Housing Authority property utility rooms.

So, the conclusion is, as follows: The original estimate WAS off but not as crazily as I originally concluded. The second estimate was an actual reading although that was not presented clearly in the re-billing. The reason the estimate was made was not due to bad staffing policy but miscommunication between the Housing Authority and JCP&L regarding access to the meters. Mystery solved, nefariousness disproven….THIS time.

That’s a relief because I don’t ‘fight the man’ for the pure joy of fighting…although the joy does sometimes exist. It’s refreshing to NOT have one’s sense of paranoia reinforced at every turn, especially after the zeitgeist of the W years, and to add a little bit more trust to these public relationships. And I come away from this particular exchange with JCP&L impressed with their handling, or more precisely, Lisa’s handling of the situation. She really did go out of her way to get to the bottom of it AND she persisted in contacting me until she was successful and I find that rare. So…score one for the Man in their employment of Lisa, who apparently takes the term ‘advocate’ in her job title to heart. Until next time!

JCP&L...AT IT AGAIN

ORIGINAL BILLING

REBILL

UPDATE:

received a call yesterday from JCP&L rep who seemed to think the latest billing was an actual read. However...the bill reads "estimate...re-bill". Looking through all the bills from the past year (except the last re-billing in April which is no longer available ??) the ones that were estimates say estimate and the ones that were actual readings say reading. So....I was confused. Out of what I assume to be frustration, the rep offered to come out personally and read my meter. I asked if she could then stop in and discuss it with me. So....we are on for Wed. Stay tuned!!!....Some of you may recall a few months back when Jersey Central Power and Light overestimated my bill by 82%. Well...here they go again. I received a bill about two weeks ago for $146.53. The average fees for my last three months of usage amount to $62.94. That's a whopping 132% above my average actual use of electricity. Now, believe it or not I do not enjoy continually making complaints to the governing boards of various public service providers. I find it boring and dull and I HATE numbers. Figuring out percentages and fractions is what I get PAID to do-not what I do for fun. So...I first called the utility hoping this could solve the problem. I requested that an actual person be sent and actually (actually in this sense being the direct opposite of virtually) read my meter. The customer service representative assured me it would be done, and, when as an aside I asked WHY, this time, an estimate was made to begin with, she told me that it was probably because so many meter readers are on vacation. Apparently JCP&L has never heard of staffing software...any of you poor slobs out there that have ever asked for a day off and been told 'there is no time available', well, you know what I'm talking about.

So, I'm thinking, "Great. Case closed." No need to bother the Board of Public Utilities this time.
Hmmph. Not so fast, Ria. I get an email this morning with a 'new' bill, a re-bill to be precise which, like the first bill is AN ESTIMATE!! In the amount of $111.35. Ok, so they are going in the right direction but that is STILL 77% MORE than the average of my last three months of usage combined. Nice try. So...even though I COULD have been reading my Sunday Times, I filed yet another complaint with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities...(see below-short and sweet).

REMEMBER FOLKS! READ YOUR BILLS CAREFULLY! You may be getting overbilled. And if so and you live in NJ, here is a handy link to the on-line complaint form at NJ BPU.

And here is a sample (mine), complaint letter:

I continue to have a problem with JCP&L overbilling me based on their estimates of my service usage, Most recently I was billed fee of $146.35 for the billing period of June 4th through July 6th based on their estimate. In the previous month to this billing, my usage amounted to a total fee of $69.27. The month previous to that, $65.52. Those bills were based on actual usage. I called the utility and requested that they do an actual reading. Today I received an email billing me $111.35 which was AGAIN, based on an estimate of usage. This is listed as a 'rebill', indicating that in response to my request for an actual reading, they simply re-estimated my usage. I don't understand this and I don't find it acceptable. It creates suspicions about the ethics of their billing practice and makes me question why it is so often that the company relies on estimates for billing. I live in public housing and the meter reader always has clear access to the meters. Thank you for your assistance.

RACISM REDUX: ANGLO (steve) KING, NO WHITES ALLOWED and TEXAS CURRICULUM

Aaaah.....yes.
I have been described as an angry person once or twice, this is true. But I make a concerted and conscious effort daily to redirect my anger, and generally I do this by calling to mind the Monty Python lyrics; "Always look on the bright side of life." Indeed, it is a personal rule of mine that for every negative thought or sentence I must, MUST find some positive spin. This is really nothing more than a survival technique. Anger builds upon anger and negativity indeed feeds upon itself like the out-of-control snowball barreling down the mountainside gathering momentum and mass along the way. This shit cannot be good for a person. So I choose instead a Sisyphean course of action, eternally attempting to shove the boulder of positive thoughts to the top of the mountain despite the fact the anger and negativity will always push it back down to the valley. Luckily, life is so vast and intricately complicated that it does indeed provide plenty of positive fodder: my kids, my relative health, my family, a comfortable couch, etc. etc. Okay, that being said, if a person has even a scrap of sensibility for their fellow man and pays even a modicum of attention to what is happening in the world around them, how the hell can they avoid being Pissed the eff off??? In the last week or so, we have been handed several incidents that could set our blood to boil. Therefore, I present to you after a blissful hiatus of smiley faced unicorns and rainbows, the revival of Damn the Man. Dammit!

Right-o, then: Exhibit A:

Steve King, Congressman from Iowa.

Okay, I already knew this guy was an asshole. My mother lives in Northeastern Iowa and last spring, after Iowa's Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal, she was plagued with robo-calls from his office begging for assistance in overturning the decision. It mattered little that his district is clear across the state from her, she is not his constituent and she called his office several times to tell them to stop. They kept a-coming, and not just to her, several of my friends in Iowa suffered similar harassment. My mother finally got the calls to stop by calling his office in DC and, because she somehow got a hold of one of his aides cell phone numbers, calling said aide after each robo-call.

And now, he rears his crazy face again in his Quixotic fight to retain the status of the white European christian man,this time by voting against a symbolic measure to honor the slaves that, well, ... slaved... to construct the Capitol. His rationalization? "And of the 645,000 Africans that were brought here to be forcibly put into slavery in the United States, there were over 600,000 people that gave their lives in the Civil War to put an end to slavery. And I don't see the monument to that in the Congressional Visitor Center, and I think it's important that we have a balanced depiction of history." Ok first of all, that sentence doesn't make sense. Is he saying 600,000 of the 645,000 slaves kidnapped from Africa gave their lives in the Civil War? Well, yeah, he is saying that, literally, but what he means, we can safely assume, is that 600,000 (presumably) white Union soldiers 'gave' their lives, yadda yadda. Dude, learn to speak your native language. And, of course, had he done a quick Google search on Civil War soldier memorials in the DC area, it would have taken .024 seconds of his precious time to find 226,000 results of sites with information about such memorials.

He originally claimed his opposition was simply a result of his policy to vote against purely symbolic gestures. Until he was reminded of his resolution from December of 2007, "Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian Faith." Oh. Oooops. Then He backtracks and explains that his no vote was actually; "...a bargaining chip to allow for the actualy(sic) depiction of "In God We Trust" in the CVC". Yeah, whatever. It's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide the fact that he is, simply put, a racist ass and he is up against the wall with the fact that his kind is going down, GOING DOWN. About time. No mas, asshole.

Moving right along, then...Exhibit B: The Valley Swim Club

A private pool in Philadelphia kicks to the curb a group of Black kids. Because the kids are black and the pool's management are racist. This is pretty much unambiguious and indefensible. Really, I just include this to illustrate the fact that the recent popular mantra of 'Racism is Dead' is, unfortunately, laughably premature. What really kills me about this story are the kids and the fucking boulder created in their stomachs when they fully realized what was actually going on. Goddammit.

Our final exhibit, Exhibit C:
Texas' Desire to Bleach its State Curriculum Standards

Sigh. A committee to provide curriculum recommendations to the Texas State Board of Education wants to blacklist historical figures such as of Thurgood Marshall and Cesar Chavez with the rationalization that they can't hold a candle to Ben Franklin. Nice try, assholes. You know, I'm not even going to detail their rationalizations, suffice to say they stand behind Congressman King with their backs to the wall of their declining status. Aaaah, but here's the positive spin: Steve King, Texas committee assholes? Their backs ARE against the wall. Business as usual for Whitey is slowly yet undeniably fading. What we're witnessing is kind of a cultural 'Fight or Flight' reflex-the primordial response to the threat of extinction; all emotion and devoid of reason. Makes me wonder, in the words of Bob Dylan; "How does it feel? To be on your own? With no direction home? A complete known..."

Aaah, Karma. It's a beautiful thing.