re: Entergy is the worst utility in the country

Kind of a tangent here, but after Katrina my street didn't have power for the longest time, even though every other street in my neighborhood did. I lived on a cul-de-sac that was kind of tucked away, so I wasn't surprised that Entergy missed it.

Me and my neighbors kept calling them, and the normal reply was "Sir, we are getting to as many streets as possible in an orderly manner. If you don't have power yet, we will get to you as soon as we can."

We would tell them than every other street had power, and that their trucks just happened to miss ours.

Anyway, I had a crazy neighbor I called Drill Sergeant because he wore one of those Marine drill instructor hats all the time. I'm not sure if he was ever in the military.

Well, old Sarg had had enough. He saw an Entergy truck a few streets away, grabbed 5 cases of beer, and jumped in his truck. He showed the linemen the beer and said "You guys thirsty? Well follow me," and lead them back to our street.

The power was on within the hour.

I'd be happy they're being proactive and fixing something quickly that could take much longer if it failed due to the damage, but that's just me.

Notice would be nice.

Still doesn't make Sunday a better time.

I haven't left my office during the day in weeks. I leave today for 2 hours, get a notification from my alarm system that the power is off.
I get back to see a little Entergy van in my parking lot who zooms off as soon as I pull up. Power is back on though. No idea why he left so quickly.
3rd world problem: I had to reboot my computer and an access point.

in the right situation, cold beer is more valuable than gold

At least they will be finished before the 2009 championship game is replayed tonight

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Is that a private company or government?

That's turrible.

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It's a utility.

Long, angry version.

We get back from vacation on a Sunday and our water is cut off and the meter is locked (smart on their part because I would have absolutely just turned it back on.) I'm irrate because I'm pretty sure all accounts are up-to-date. Check my online banking account and sure enough, I'm not crazy, the water bill has been paid three weeks before. I call BR Water's weekend emergency number and tell them to get someone out here and turn the water back on. The guy on phone tells me the account is 6 months delinquent. I tell him he's crazy; I'm looking at a payment made three weeks ago. I check a month back - yep another payment made. Two months back - same thing. He insists that I must be lying because his computer says six months delinquent.

Now, here is where it gets muddled. I had two accounts at that house. One for the home and one for the irrigation system. No one at BR Water could explain why that was when we had moved in. So I check the second account - yep, paid up on time. So both accounts (which is ridiculous in and of itself) are paid in full. Guy on phone continues to argue - "sir, the computer says its six months delinquent." I finally blow up and yell at the guy to send someone to turn the water back on. He calls me an "arse" and then hangs up the phone. I call back and no one answers.

The next morning (Monday), I call the second the office opens and ask to speak to a supervisor. She is at least a little more open to the idea that maybe it was their screwup and not mine. I go through all the payments - "yes, sir, I see that one", "I see that one", "this is really weird because all your accounts are up-to-date except for this one".

Now, I'm aggravated. "Which one?" I ask "Give me the exact account number"

She reads the account number. It's completely different than the other two. "So you mean to tell me BR Water has three separate accounts on a single address?"

"Well, wait, the delinquent one has a different address but your name" She says.

"Well, what address is it?" She says my neighbor's address.

"How much is the account overdue?" I ask.

"$90 with late fees but the original amount was $12"

Then it dawns on me - it's my neighbor's sprinkler system account. Somehow my name was on the account at his address. I tell her to stay on the line and go next door to get my neighbor.

Sure enough he had turned on his sprinkler a few times but just assumed it was all one bill like a completely rational person.

I asked the BR Water lady why they would turn off this water at this address when the delinquent account has a different address. She has no answer.

We finally get everything straight and then turn the water back on, wipe away his overdue amount, and apologized to me profusely.

I asked my neighbor if he had ever seen a bill for just his sprinkler system before. He never had.



I can laugh now because its been like six years but I was on the verge of murder.

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Today, they are replacing the poles and for obvious safety reasons, they need to turn the power off. But clearly they knew they had to do this work, and had a crew assigned to do it, so I don't understand why they couldn't have given us a small heads up. 30 minutes I think is plenty fair. Not asking for days.

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They do what they want to do.
The pole crew probably finished a job snd was ready to move yo the next one. They don’t notify because they don’t have to and because they really don’t know when they are going to start each job.

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Antonio Moss

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Holy hell. That sounds like something NOLA Sewerage and Water Board would do, which is a utility but government owned.

Here is how mistakes are supposed to be handled.

We bought a house in Katy, TX, after Katrina. The house had gas and electric service. Centerpoint does the gas service. We establish an account with them, gets turned on, we get monthly bills and pay them, life goes on. The amounts are a little high in the winter, it seems, but I never owned a house in Texas before, so I don't really know what to expect. Whatever.

About 3 years after we bought the house, I get a certified mail letter from Centerpoint. Open it up, and it's a letter stating that upon some sort of audit, they realized they had set up my account as a commercial account, rather than a residential account, and over the last 3 years, have charged me the "higher" commercial rates. Note, there is nothing on the bills (I went back and checked) or on my online account that indicates commercial vs residential, so I had no idea. The letter gave me a name and number to call to discuss. So next day, I did.

The person was extremely apologetic, told me the problem was fixed, and offered me two options. 1) They would cut a check that day for the total overage over last 3 years and mail it to me, or 2) They would apply a bill credit in the amount of 125% of the total overage to my account. I chose the latter and went almost a year without having to pay a gas bill.

To this day, I would have had no idea a mistake was made, if they would not have told me about it.

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They’re also the most expensive. Ridiculous

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Are you special needs?