Friday, March 17, 2006

The Gas Bill

For the last three months I have been extremely peeved at the ENBRIDGE gas company. Since January our gas bill has been through the roof -- it was so high that I have told P we might have to put the house up for sale and move to a less luxurious french neighbourhood.

What gets my blood pressure up is the fact that everytime I think I have the problem resolved -- they manage to screw up again - and everytime I receive the bill in the mail, its after 6pm when I can't call to yell at them because their customer service hours suck.

Since January, between P & I, we have contacted Enbridge four times to resolve our little billing problem. At the end of the last phone call I was under the impression that I would receive an updated statement in the mail detailing all of the corrections to our account.

Last night, I received the updated bill in the mail and was expecting to read that I had a HUGE credit on file. On the bill, they managed to state that I do have a large credit, but it also stated that they would still be taking millions of dollars out my account at the end of this month -- WHY?? I have no freakin' clue...I wanted to scream.

Enbridge starts taking calls at 8:00 a.m.....so this morning I politely call their billing enquiries number at 8:01. The agent on the phone was very pleasant, but proceeded to tell me that even though the bill stated they would withdraw millions of dollars at the end of the month from my bank account, they actually weren't going to do so.

Why would the bill say this, if in fact they weren't withdrawing any money??

I asked her to confirm this and so she put me on hold for 5 minutes and comes back on the line with this reply:

'Well...I am glad I decided to double check your account as you are scheduled to have a payment come out at the end of the month'

Geez....thanks for checking... and the award for best phone agent goes to.... I was not impressed at this point, but by the end of our pleasant conversation she did manage to defer any automatic withdrawals until I am in a debit situation - so she said.

In the end I was satisfied....but I cannot believe that these companies survive by having shitty customer service. Switching to a different company is more work than to phone them and have them correct your bill, but if this happens again (and believe me you will hear about it if it does) I will have P removing the gas fireplace, gas dryer and gas stove (starting at 5:30 a.m. on the next nice Saturday we have here in Embrun!).

The weekend is almost here AND I survived another week of my French training so I guess I should be celebrating instead of dwelling my little gas issue!

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY