Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Billing and Answer Supervision Message-ID: <5194@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 15 Mar 90 17:48:27 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 37 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 175, Message 2 of 9 roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > And how is that any different from the typical electric, > water, or natural gas bill? In a typical house, each of these items > is metered and once a month you get a bill saying "according to our > meter, you used XXX kWH of electricity, and you own us $YYY". What > would the electric company say if I called them up and said "But > sir/ma'am, I didn't even run my air conditioner this month, how could > I possibly have used that much?" Perhaps you are making a good argument for the itemiztion of electric and water bills. Maybe it could be done by usage on each day. Last year, a client received a bill from PG&E (Pacific Graft & Extortion), the local power company for approximately three times the normal amount. This was for electrical consumption at their mountain top transmitter site. The site demand is 20KW day after day, year after year. I explained this to PG&E who insisted that their meter could not possibly be in error. Had we perhaps left something on inadvertently? Had someone connected up an extension cord on the hill to steal power? I asked the person if he was serious; the electrical service couldn't withstand three time the normal draw! Not only that, but their own meter showed the month's peak demand at 20KW. The figures didn't work out. I had to meet them at the site, where they swapped meters and all the while told me that this was stupid since their meters were never wrong. The long and the short of it is that the bills went back to normal. Think how much easier this could have been if there had been some detail to dispute. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !