Point Blank: I Ain't Payin'

So I've been having some issues with my gas company. When I first moved into my apartment in June all was good with the world. For the first four months our relationship was great. My bills stayed under $20 and I was a happy camper. Little did I know one fateful December evening that our cordial relationship would be compromised.

That night after a long day of work, I open my mail and see what I can only assume is a fictitious bill from the gas company. In the thirty days of November, according to them, my gas usage spiked from six therms to 74, hiking my bill to more than $120. For a one bedroom apartment? And I didn't even turn on the heat? (It hadn't gotten bitterly cold yet, so I was squeaking by on space heaters.) You can't be serious. I called immejiately.

Mr. Customer Service Representative barely spoke English (that's a rant for another blog), but tried to convince me that it was reasonable to see a $100 difference in the span of one month. I did not agree and hung up to find a more reasonable representative. The next person to answer the phone Ms. Customer Service Representative, still didn't tell me what I wanted to hear, but offered me the option to dispute the charges and have a technician come out and check the meter. I went on vacation and didn't follow up until last Friday, when I got yet another bill this one insisting that I used 124 therms and now owe them $191.00 for December. Hell to the naw.

Again I get on the phone. I explain my situation to Ms. Customer Service Representative #2 and first she tells me there's no note that my meter issues had come to any resolution. She puts me on hold. She comes back and changed her story. Indeed a technician had come out to my property and certified that the meter was in perfect working order. I called bullshit. She puts me on hold again, comes back and tries to tell me that I was not charged between June and October and that these higher bills reflect a "catchup bill." No effin way. My bills say actual reading. So no I don't accept your weak ass argument. She puts me on hold again, and comes back and now says that the readings reflect actual usage. I tell her there's no way in hell a one bedroom apartment (where I don't pay for cooking gas or water heating) can consume 124 therms of gas in any 30-something day period. I asked to speak to the manager.

This is where things get ridiculous. I go through the conversation I had with her underling and Ms. Customer Service Manager tells me that there's nothing else I can do to dispute this and that I need to accept the terms of a 6-month payment plan that she's offering me. I continue to tell her that I'm going to do no such thing because that would be acknowledging that I consumed those therms when I know I didn't. She said some ish about how she was trying to be lenient with me and would have stretched out the payments for a year, but I can't even certify that my appliances are in working order. I'm all about paying what you owe, but I didn't benefit from those therms so I ain't payin.

We go back and forth about it and I tell her that she needs to tell me what the next step is. This heffa says to me, "The next step is to pay your bill." *RECORD SCRATCH* No this bitch didn't. See this is where a less civilized version of myself would have had a Nigga moment, and cursed the bitch out and called her anything but a child of God. Lawd, how I wished I could reach through the phone and strangle her bitch ass. But no, I keep my cool and tell her that is not good customer service and I know that they trained you better.

Congress has a million customer bill of rights floating around, where's the one that mandates that representatives can't talk out the side of their necks at their customers. Oh wait that's supposed to be common fucking sense. Still, I need my local Congressman to get on that.

I insisted that I needed to speak with someone else above her. But its damn near 9 o'clock we've been on the phone for more than an hour and I just can't fight anymore. I resolve to calling back in the morning.

I didn't call back, but instead went to my rental office to see what if anything they could do about this. My maintenance guy shut off the gas flow in my apartment and said he would monitor the meter. He called back the next day to say that despite the gas flow being shut off the meter was still registering "usage." He said he shut the meter off too.

Moral of the story: I ain't use it so I ain't paying--bitches.